The Desert Lord's Baby (Throne of Judar 1)

Elation at yet another endearment, my sweet, bubbled over. She smiled with all her body, surged forward with him to wave to the attendees, who’d all stood up and started clapping.

Smiling wide, he winked. “Now let’s play our trump card.”

He turned and Ameenah came forward with Mennah, who launched herself into his arms. He held her up, showing her off, pride and love radiating from him. The crowd succumbed in collective to Mennah’s cuteness and excitement, awing at the sight of her, chuckling at Farooq’s intentional Lion King reference. Their clapping rose when he handed Mennah back to Carmen and bowed before her, branding her hand on both sides in kisses.

As he withdrew his lips, straightened, her heart stuttered, felt it would stop again, for real, if she lost contact with him.

She surged to maintain it, threw herself at him, Mennah and all. He went rigid. Silence descended.

She closed her eyes. Oh God. Way to be a professional limpet. Had she deepened his anger at her? Did all those people who mattered to him and to Judar on so many levels think the crown prince had settled on an impulsive moron for a wife, casting doubts on his judgment, damaging his image…?

Agitation came to an abrupt end as Farooq swept her, Mennah and all, high in his arms. The crowd roared with approval.

Sagging in his hold in relief, she opened her eyes, sought his, found them roiling with hunger and delight.

“If you’re trying to make your bill too huge to pay, you’ve only succeeded in enlarging the installments I’ll exact from you. But now you have to cater to all those poor power brokers whose jaded senses you’ve jogged. They’re clamoring for more.”

He let her feet touch ground, gave her a slight push. He wanted her to go salute their guests alone, the so-called estranged princess laying claim to her rightful status.

Holding the waving Mennah tighter in her arms, she let her fingers and gaze trail off his, started across the stage, an out-of-body feeling coming over her. It was as if she was in the crowd watching that confident woman in the thousands of dollars outfit and priceless jewelry waving and smiling to the people who shaped and ruled earth as if she was one of them.

In the first row she recognized oil, shipping, and technology magnates. The German chancellor. The French president. The king and queen of Bidalya. And…was that the king of Judar…?

Sick electricity arced from her armpits, flooding her body. He looked so unwell, she almost hadn’t recognized him. And he didn’t look happy. Displeasure came off him in waves. There was no question in her mind. He didn’t want Farooq to marry her.

Was Farooq going against his king’s wishes? Or had the king given his consent on terms of it being a finite union? How finite?

And why was she wondering? She’d already known her days with Farooq were numbered. Again. Had she been fooling herself into thinking they might not be? Where had she learned that mutilating practice? When had she learned to hope?

A blacker wave of unease crashed into her. She traced its source to a man she’d seen only once. Tareq.

He’d seemed to suck up positive energy then, too, but she’d thought her condition when she’d stumbled into him during her life’s darkest hour had imparted its oppression and grimness on him. It had seemed the only logical explanation when the man had gone out of his way to be accommodating when he’d found her staggering out of Farooq’s skyscraper that night, weeping and lost. He hadn’t probed when she’d said she needed to get away, had done all he could to help her. She’d never thought about why he had.

Now she felt his maliciousness focus on her, on Farooq, and she knew. He’d hoped it would hurt Farooq, or at least anger him greatly.

Insight became conviction. He’d introduced himself as Farooq’s older cousin. That was why she’d accepted his offer of a ride. But that meant he must have been the first in line to the throne. And he’d been bypassed for Farooq. He Farooq’s his enemy. He hated him, would do anything to hurt him. Would he go as far as physical harm…?

Suddenly she was suffocating with dread and hatred.

Farooq took Mennah from her, handed her back to Ameenah, and reached for her frozen-in-sweat hand, stilled its shaking. She found his gaze fixed on Tareq, his face turned to stone as he met his cousin’s menace.

“Farooq…” She wanted to beg for reassurance, that he was safe, that Mennah was as he turned her to the kooshah, where Shehab and Kamal flanked the couch, in full traditional regalia. She caught their eyes, hers begging, for some reason believing they’d understand her fears, defuse them. They cast their gazes behind her, she just knew at Tareq. Then Shehab gave her a reinforcing glance, Kamal a ferocious one, as if each was telling her in his way not to worry.

Farooq’s gaze was once more inscrutable as he seated her on one side of the ma’zoon before sitting on the other.

“Carmen, give me your hand,” Farooq said, starting the ritual of katb ek-ketaab, literally writing the book, of matrimony. They’d hold hands, oppose thumbs, and the ma’zoon would place a pristine piece of cloth over their hands, place his on top and recite the marriage vows for each to repeat after him.

Overcome, by emotion, by everything, she gave him her hand.

Farooq stared at Carmen’s hand. Was that…?

It was. His name. She’d written his name on her hand. And wait…that was his name, too. There. And there. It was everywhere. All over her hands. In Arabic and the other languages she spoke. He’d bet that Chinese script was it, too. Written in a way as to be the building blocks of the exquisite patterns, and to be almost indecipherable. He saw it right away.

It wasn’t a custom here to kiss the bride. He’d make it one. He’d make kissing the bride within an inch of her life the new rage. He’d end up hauling her over his shoulder and giving the international assembly a reason to think Judar would one day have a king who would revert it to the days of desert raiders.

Everyone should be grateful he was suffering through the motions at all. The moment he’d seen her descending those stairs, with that distressing outfit hugging her lushness, constricting her waist, echoing her magnificent colors, intensifying them, he’d wanted to charge her, lug her back to their quarters, end the waiting and to hell with everything.

He would have done it and thought of his king and other guests only after he’d taken the edge off the hunger enough to regain coherence. Then she’d tampered with his desire further, as always doing the last thing he’d expected. She’d run to him.