He nodded, holding his hands up. “Good news is, there’s no sign of infection. See?” He moved his left arm up with minimal effort and no apparent discomfort. “What’s more, the oasis people retrieved our medical kit, so you can sew me up again.”
“You bet I will!” She subsided in relief at the proof that he was okay. Her eyes darted away from him for the first time and took in the whole room. She could see the rest of the place through the open door behind him. “This place is incredible.”
“It is a very special place,” he agreed. “It was the previous oasis-elder’s dwelling. He died two years ago. Elders’ houses remain uninhabited, as a tribute to their lives and leadership. It is an honor to be given this place during our stay.”
Her smile trembled again. “Only the best for Zohayd’s Guardian Prince.”
He shook his head, his eyes bathing her in warmth. “It’s not that. Any refugees they claimed back from the desert would have been given the same treatment. I also have a relationship with the people here that has nothing to do with me being their prince. I’m not sure they consider the Aal Shalaans their ruling family, or if they do, that they give the fact much significance.”
“Why not?”
“The oasis and its people are considered off-limits to the outside world they live independent of. They are…revered by the rest of Zohayd and all the region, almost feared as a mystic nation who will always exist outside others’ time and dominion.”
She digested this, the feeling of being in another world and time intensifying, validated. “A nation? How many are they?”
“Around thirty thousand. Yet their refusal to join the modern world in any way makes them unique. Uniqueness is power beyond any secured by numbers.”
“Not if they lack the modern methods of defending themselves against intruders, it isn’t.”
His face closed. “There will never be intruders. Not on the Aal Shalaans’ watch. Not on mine.”
She believed him. Harres the knight whose honor dictated he protect the helpless against the bullies of the world.
Suddenly, she felt she’d suffocate if she didn’t feel him against her.
She held out trembling arms. “So, do I get a welcome back to the land of the awake?”
His face clenched with what looked like pain. For a heart-bursting moment, she feared he’d been placating her about his wound. Then his eyes filled with such turmoil, she thought she’d imposed on him.
Just before mortification caused her arms to slump to her sides, he groaned and sank into them.
The enormity of the reprieve, after thinking she’d lost her chance of having him like that, of everything, had her hands quaking as they slid over the breadth of his back, the leashed power of his arms. Her fingers caressed his vitality, his reality, committed every detail of him to tactile memory, felt him being integrated into her perceptions and senses.
Then she reached his face and translated into awareness what she’d been looking at and not fully registering.
“You shaved.”
He smiled into her nuzzling, letting her singe her lips with the pleasure of coasting them over his perfect smoothness. “It was the first thing I did the moment a blade and disposable water were available.”
She rubbed her lips over the underside of his jaw. “You know…I’ve never seen you clean shaven. When I first saw your face in that bathroom, you were already sporting a mighty ten-o’clock shadow.”
He rubbed his chin over her cheek, giving her further demonstration of his silkiness. “So you approve?”
“I far, far more than approve.”
Her lips traveled up until they glided hesitantly over his, her tongue tentatively laving them in tiny licks, still disbelieving the reality of experiencing this, of their texture and taste.
A rumble poured into her mouth, lancing into her heart just as it spiked her arousal to pain with its unadulterated passion.
Then he broke away from her quaking arms.
She had no power to drag him back into them. And no right, if this wasn’t where he wanted to be.
He sat up, severing their connection. Then he rose off the bed altogether.
He stood above her, his heavy-lidded eyes obscuring his expression for the first time since…ever.
Then he drew both hands through his hair and exhaled. “You might be awake, but you’re not really all there yet. And you are—fragile, in every way.” His shoulders rose and fell on another exhalation. “So now we get you back to fighting form.”
Was that why he’d pulled back? He wanted her back to full health, physically and mentally, before he’d consider changing their status quo?
It made sense. And made her even more grateful to him, if that was possible.
She was a cauldron of seething emotions and needs right now, had no control over any of them. And she needed to know if what she felt melting all resistance was the ordeal talking, the days of inseparable proximity and total dependence, or if the feelings originated from her.
Now that stress and danger were over, would the physical and emotional pull remain this overwhelming? Would he remain the same man who’d done everything to keep their spirits up? It had niggled that he might have exaggerated his attraction to her for many worthwhile ends. Survival, smoothing over a bumpy beginning. And maybe not so worth while ones. Gaining his objective—the secret to secure his family and their throne.
So many things hung like a sun-obliterating cloud over the whole situation. Todd’s ordeal, the Aal Shalaans’ role in it and their current danger, the info she’d stumbled on, Harres’s duty as guardian of his family and people.
So he’d done the right thing by drawing away. She’d follow his lead, recover her health and clarity. Until she figured out what was real. Inside her, around her, about him, between them. Or until this mess, this assortment of messes, was sorted out.
If they possibly could be.
Nine
A string of eruptions reverberated in Talia’s bones.
She would have taken instinctive cover if Harres’s arm hadn’t been around her shoulder.
He gave her a reassuring squeeze, chuckled in her ear. “No, that’s not a firing squad.”
Gulping down her heart, she let him resume leading her through the hurrying crowd, still not sure where their destination was, where the feast was being held. “A gun salute for the Guardian Prince of Zohayd, then?”
His grin widened. “That’s just how they announce the beginning of their entertainment.”