Читать книгу Modern Romance Collection: December 2017 Books 1 - 4 - Эбби Грин, Линн Грэхем - Страница 12

CHAPTER THREE

MOLLY RAN UP the dune through the deep pitted tracks left by the cars, desperate not to be spotted by guards at the fortress before she could get out of sight. She reached the peak and, because it was much colder than she had expected, she drew in a deep breath and kept on running, grateful that she was fit. Running was, after all, what she did for exercise at home, but running in a dress was another story altogether, she discovered, with the stretch of her legs restricted and her strides shortened. She thought about simply pulling the dress up to her waist but, although she could see no sign of life in the moonlit landscape, she didn’t want to expose herself in her underwear in a country where that was probably unacceptable.

She stayed on the tracks but they mysteriously petered out around the time the sun started rising and the glare of that alone made studying her surroundings a challenge. She was looking for a landmark of some kind to take as a direction to ensure that she didn’t get lost, but all she could see was marching lines of sand dunes. What did you expect? she asked herself irritably. A signpost to the airport?

Well, no, but she had hoped to find a recognisable road at least, only there wasn’t a road or tracks anywhere that she could see. Yet the cars must have travelled from somewhere, she thought in frustration, veering off to the left when she espied flatter land there because climbing a dune without tracks was too difficult and too tiring to get her anywhere fast. A stony plain stretched before her then, occasional small bits of vegetation appearing, which persuaded her that she was heading in the right direction and likely to draw closer to what she dimly thought of as civilisation. Buildings, roads, cars...people. It infuriated her that probably all those things were close by, but she couldn’t spot them because of the blasted dunes blocking her view. She stilled a few times and simply listened, hoping to catch sounds that would lead her in a certain direction, but there was nothing, only the soft noise of the light breeze in her eardrums and the fast beat of her own heart. While she was sipping her water, mindful that she needed to conserve it, however, Azrael was shouting for the first time in all the years Butrus had known him.

‘How could any woman be that stupid?’ he was demanding wrathfully soon after Gamila had discovered her unoccupied bed and a search had established that Azrael’s guest was no longer anywhere on the premises. ‘There is nothing out there but miles and miles of desert.’

‘But Miss Carlisle doesn’t know that...unless someone mentioned it,’ Butrus remarked, looking at no one in particular. ‘She will soon get tired and too hot and come back. Perhaps she simply went for a walk—’

‘A...a walk?’ Azrael erupted afresh in disbelief. ‘She has run away! She is a very stubborn, determined woman. I tell you...she has run away because I told her that she couldn’t leave!’

‘It is a source of greater concern to me that anyone was able to leave without a single guard challenging them,’ admitted Halim, the commanding officer of Azrael’s household guard, with a frown. ‘There will be an investigation into that worrying event after the woman is found. If someone can get out so easily, someone could have got in and reached His Majesty—’

‘His Majesty is very well able to defend himself!’ Azrael bit out rawly. ‘I am going out to look for her—’

‘I would not advise that,’ Butrus interposed, forgetting his usually punctilious manners in his dismay.

‘Nobody knows this part of the desert better than me...nobody is a better tracker!’ Azrael fired back at him with unarguable assurance.

‘But a severe sandstorm is due to move in before nightfall,’ Halim reminded his royal employer nervously. ‘You must not put yourself at risk when there is no need. The whole guard are already out there searching for her.’

But Azrael had always been stubborn as a rock and highly resistant to advice. He felt personally responsible for Molly’s disappearance and if anything happened to her he knew he would carry the shame of it to the end of his days. Furthermore, having spent his childhood at the fortress and many months in almost the same locality as an adolescent following his father’s execution, he did know the terrain better than anyone else available. When he had changed into more suitable desert apparel, the dark blue robes of his nomadic heritage, he politely refused Halim’s companionship, knowing that Halim’s disability would make hours on horseback a day of physical suffering for him. Halim had stumbled on a landmine during the struggle to topple Hashem from power.

‘You are not to take such risks.’ Butrus was still protesting Azrael’s involvement right to the door of the stables. ‘If anything happens to you, what happens to Djalia? You agreed with the council...no more personal risks.’

‘Don’t be silly, Butrus. This is an emergency,’ Azrael responded squarely. ‘I will scarcely come to harm in a storm. I was a member of our special forces. There is nothing the desert can throw at me that I cannot handle.’

‘The woman is not worth the danger to your life,’ Butrus breathed, his voice quavering with emotion.

Azrael was taken aback to see the level of concern in his adviser’s eyes and he gave his shoulder a rather awkward pat before vaulting up onto the back of his horse. ‘No one life is worth more than another. You taught me that,’ he reminded him with quiet authority.

‘I spoke in error.’ Butrus was still arguing vigorously as Azrael rode out of the courtyard.

Around the same time, Molly was beginning to realise that she might have made a very bad decision when she left the fortress. Once she crossed the flat plain to reach the one and only landmark she had even seen since venturing out, she knew she was weakening. The heat was unbelievable. She had never felt heat of that magnitude in her life. The sun above was relentless and the sand was scorching, burning her feet even through the soles of her canvas shoes. Afraid of getting sunburned, she had pulled her hands up into her sleeves and kept the towel over her head to cover her face.

She had rationed her water, belatedly realising that she had brought nowhere near enough water to meet her needs in such a challenging environment. Simultaneously she had asked herself what she had planned to do if she had miraculously found the airport. She had not thought through what she was trying to do. How could she have boarded a plane to go anywhere? She had no money, no identification, no phone, no passport, none of the necessities required for travel...

Now as she headed for the little triangle of shade she could see below the giant rocky outcrop, she was getting scared because she was down to her last inch of water in the bottle and, although she wasn’t yet admitting it to herself, she knew she was lost because when she had, at one nervous point, attempted to retrace her steps she had discovered that the steadily building breeze had already covered them up, leaving her with no idea of which direction she had come from. Now her head was aching and she was getting cramps in her legs and resting until the heat at least eased off seemed the best option available.

She hated deserts because everything looked the same, she told herself fearfully as she slumped into the shade, and something with more legs than she cared to count scampered out of the gloom and sped off, as alarmed by her approach and startled cry as she was by its flight. She didn’t like insects or snakes or lizards and she had already seen far too many such creatures to relax, having discovered that although the landscape looked reassuringly empty, that was a misconception. A whole host of nasty things lurked in unexpected places. She rocked back and forth, dimly appreciating that she was no longer quite firing on all mental cylinders and that she was unwell.

She had done the Djalians’ work for them, she reflected dizzily. She had wandered off, got hopelessly lost and now she was going to die in the desert. She had another tiny sip of water, moistening her dry mouth while noticing that her arm had developed a sort of tremor that was unnerving.

Like Azrael—unnerving like Azrael. He had disturbed her, set off her temper and enraged her. It was his fault this had happened to her, his fault she had made such a dumb decision, she brooded, steeped in physical misery. She was hot, thirsty, dirty, sore and the tip of her nose hurt where the sun had got at it. The King, who had tried to buy her off.

Although the money would have come in useful, she acknowledged sleepily, her thoughts beginning to slow down, making her feel a little like a clock that badly needed winding up. Maurice would miss her visits, she thought, even if he couldn’t tell her apart from the mother she barely even remembered. And she didn’t mind that reality, no, of course she didn’t, when her grandfather had been the only person who ever seemed to love her. Did that mean that she was just unlovable? She had often wondered that. Her father hadn’t cared enough about her to protect her from his wife, while her stepmother had hated her almost on sight. Tahir had liked her in the wrong way, she reasoned in a daze, while Azrael... Why was she thinking about him again? Well, Azrael had hated her on sight too.

And then suddenly there was noise, the ground beneath her shifting as a horse galloped across the sand towards her. Poor horse, she thought numbly; if it was too hot for her, it had to be too hot for the horse as well. The horse, however, carried some sort of tribesman and she contrived to stretch out an arm and wave from the shade as though she were hailing a bus to stop for her.

The figure vaulted off the horse and the ground under her hips moved at the thump of booted feet.

‘You stupid, stupid woman,’ a familiar voice scolded.

And a weird kind of joyous relief engulfed Molly as she struggled to focus on those intense dark golden eyes, which were all that showed in the headdress he wore that covered his mouth as well. Azrael had found her and, instantly, she knew she would be all right.

Azrael was less confident because the storm was moving in fast in a threatening dark smudge, which he could already see on the horizon. The high winds had brought down the mast and his phone had not worked since his last call when he had phoned in to share that he had identified Molly’s tracks. Now they were too far from the fortress to make it back ahead of the storm. How the hell had she got so far before he found her? She had travelled miles into the desert, through mile after mile of the most blazingly unwelcoming landscape on earth. And she had done it without adequate clothing or footwear and any of the many pieces of equipment that would have kept her comfortable and safe. She was crazy but she was also strong, Azrael acknowledged, squatting down to hand her a water bottle and grab it off her again before she made herself sick.

‘Hands off, Mr Grumpy,’ she told him with a giggle.

She was delirious from heat and thirst, Azrael interpreted in frustration. He lifted her and bundled her into a cloak, noting the red tip of her nose with a groan.

‘What’s wrong?’ she slurred.

‘You have burned your nose.’

‘Do I look like Rudolph?’

‘Who’s Rudolph?’ Azrael lifted her and draped her over his horse like a folded carpet. She was safe: he had found her. A little of the tension holding his powerful frame taut dissipated. He would take her to the cave and plunge her in the pool to cool her off. Hopefully by that stage the storm would have passed and they could be picked up. No aircraft could take off in such weather because it was too dangerous.

‘Santa’s reindeer,’ Molly responded thickly, struggling to vocalise and think at the same time. ‘ I don’t like you.’

‘Keep quiet,’ Azrael intoned flatly. ‘Save your strength.’

What strength? Molly would have asked had she the power because she felt as floppy and as weak as a newborn and she hated the smell of horse. ‘Horses stink.’

Azrael rolled his eyes and tugged on Spice’s reins to head for the cave where he had hidden as a child with his mother from Hashem’s soldiers. ‘You didn’t do too badly for a city girl,’ he heard himself pronounce. ‘It was an outstandingly stupid move, of course, but you travelled a great distance—’

‘Shut up,’ Molly moaned.

Azrael grinned. ‘There’s nothing I enjoy more than a trapped audience.’

‘Butrus thinks you walk on water, O Glorious Leader,’ she mumbled.

‘I am an ordinary man,’ Azrael countered with crushing calm.

Molly’s eyes closed. Ordinary? Somehow she didn’t think so. Mr Gorgeous had come after her and saved her and she was grateful even if he did annoy the hell out of her. She didn’t mind that he had become Mr Grumpy again by the time he found her. ‘Thanks,’ she framed hoarsely.

And that was the last thing Molly remembered before she recovered consciousness in what felt like a freezing cold bath. Her eyes were heavy and gritty and opening them took as much effort as trying to lift her arms out of the water.

‘No,’ a familiar voice declared. ‘You must stay in the water to cool your body down.’

She let her eyes stay closed because she thought she was dreaming. They had been in the desert where there was no water, certainly none he could submerge her entire body in. Her mind wandered off again and she drifted, only minimally aware of being roughly towelled, something catching at her ribcage and a yanking sensation before she was laid down somewhere, fabric of some kind lying lightly on her skin. She felt cool, wonderfully, blessedly cool for the first time in hours and she made no protest when she was lifted up and a bottle was put to her lips to drink. She gulped back the water and lay down again, her senses beginning to return to her. Her lashes lifted only a little because her eyes were so heavy and she had a blurred glimpse then of a man undressing.

She shouldn’t look, a bossy little inner voice told her brain. She shut her eyes and breathed in deep, stifling that prissy voice, and she looked. And what she saw was a sight she was persuaded even at that moment that she would never forget... Azrael naked and an absolute symphony of bronzed, muscular male perfection from his wide, smooth brown shoulders, down the long, graceful golden line of his spine to his small, taut, masculine buttocks and his powerful hair-roughened thighs. A thick blue-black mane of hair brushed those amazing shoulders as well. She closed her eyes again fast, feeling like a shameless voyeur. She was perving on him when he thought himself unobserved, having assumed that she was asleep, and she should be ashamed of herself. She had never thought a man could be beautiful before and now she had learned different because, stripped of clothes, Azrael was magnificent.

Azrael slumped down into the chill of the cave pool with intense relief. His body had betrayed him as his mind could not. He was so turned on he literally hurt from the pounding pulse of his arousal. A man without ready access to sex should never, ever be forced to undress a woman, he reasoned in exasperation. He had removed only the dress, submerging her in the bra and panties she still wore, determined not to give Molly any reason to accuse him of overfamiliarity.

And then the blasted towel had caught on the bra hook and ripped the heavy-duty bra half off, a garment more surely suited to an old and very sensible lady rather than a young and beautiful one. So, having partially detached and damaged the wretched thing, he had had to remove the bra, revealing the sort of bountiful pale curves topped by the most succulent nipples that any man would have... Azrael gritted his teeth, killing his thoughts stone dead, perspiration breaking on his brow. He was being thoroughly punished for his lack of physical control. But he had done what he had to do and she was safe and unharmed, he reminded himself soothingly. Now he should be able to relax...but relaxation had never been more of a challenge for him.

Molly wakened to a shadowed darkness that startled her as she gazed up at the craggy stone roof far above and realised that she was not in a building but in a very large cave. And then she saw the rusty old lantern glowing on the edge of the rock pool that she now appreciated must have illuminated that glimpse she’d had of Azrael naked. A small waterfall emerged directly from the rocks behind the pool and flowed down to break the still surface of the clear water. She blinked and sat up, remembering her experience in the desert with a shudder and acknowledging that, considering her earlier condition, she now felt astonishingly normal. She would have to thank Azrael. Had she thanked him? She wasn’t sure. But he deserved thanks for defying her worst expectations and coming out into the desert to find her and rescue her. So, where was he?

She sat up, disconcerted to discover that her breasts were bare but relieved she was still wearing her knickers. She was lying on some sort of old rug that smelled a little musty and her dress had been laid over her like a sheet. In haste she pulled it on over her head and scrambled upright, extracting her hair and smoothing it down in an effort to control her curls. Only then when she turned her head did she see the flickering shadows at the far end of the cave where a small fire burned and a dark figure sat, his back turned to her. She hastened to shove her feet back into her sneakers.

As she trod over the sandy floor of the cave she became aware of a low rumbling sound and her brow pleated. ‘What’s that noise?’ she asked.

‘The sandstorm is moving in.’ Azrael turned his head, his bold bronzed profile etched against the leaping flames. ‘I had to find you before it hit and we can’t return to the fortress until it’s over.’

‘Is a sandstorm that dangerous?’

‘Some of them.’ Azrael watched her move past him to head round the corner into the front section of the cavern, which was open to the elements. ‘Don’t try to go outside,’ he warned her.

Molly nervously skirted the giant black stallion tethered there and headed for the dark entrance to stare out in consternation at the thick brown band on the skyline that was already blotting out the sun and making late afternoon dark as night. A strong wind plastered her dress back against her body and made it impossible to stand her ground and, even worse, there was dust on the wind. A horrible choking cloud of dust engulfed her, flying into her mouth and her eyes until she retreated hurriedly from her viewpoint.

‘Couldn’t you have warned me what it would be like out there?’ Molly complained, shaking her hair and dress out to free them of dust and then wiping at her gritty face in disgust, grateful when Azrael passed her a water bottle.

Azrael, who had not put his head cloth back on, raised a satiric black brow at the question. ‘Would you have listened to me? I think you prefer to reach your own conclusions.’

Molly pursed her lips in acknowledgement as she folded down on her knees on the other side of the fire. She knew she was stubborn, didn’t need reminding of the fact and was well aware that she would never have ended up in her current predicament had she been of a more malleable disposition. ‘I’ve had to rely on my own judgement for years,’ she said defensively. ‘I live alone.’

‘You have no family?’

‘No...well, I have my grandfather but he has dementia now and he’s in a care home because he can’t be left alone while I’m at work. My mother died when I was very young and my father, a few years ago,’ she told him. ‘And you? Any family apart from Tahir?’

‘No parents alive either. I have Tahir’s father, who was once my stepfather, but it is not a family relationship since my mother’s death. I try, however, to maintain good relations with him because his country is on our border,’ he admitted bluntly. ‘And sometimes it is a struggle to maintain even that because his outlook differs so much from mine.’

‘In what way?’ Molly questioned curiously.

‘Quarein has lately cracked down on the freedoms of their minorities and some of those affected have fled over the border to claim refugee status here in Djalia. Despite his many other sins, the former dictator did not persecute minorities,’ Azrael explained with a wry quirk of his sculpted lips. ‘Sadly, Tahir’s father, Prince Firuz, fiercely disapproves of Djalian tolerance, but it is what my people want, and when I took the throne I promised to protect the freedoms of all Djalian citizens. Our refugees fall into the same category.’

‘I think being all-inclusive is good,’ Molly said thoughtfully.

‘But that has costs as well,’ Azrael pointed out ruefully. ‘Every decision leads to a reaction, and not always the one I want or expect.’

‘So, being a king isn’t all rainbows and kittens?’ Molly quipped.

‘No, it’s hard work and no fun,’ Azrael admitted grimly. ‘And I worry constantly about making a mistake that could damage my country.’

‘And then Tahir kidnapped me and dropped you in it,’ Molly commented softly, strangely touched by his honesty about what it was really like to be a glorious leader.

Looking very sombre, Azrael nodded. In the firelight, his black hair had the glossy, iridescent sheen of a raven’s wing, feathering round his shoulders, framing that beautiful face of his, his cheekbones smooth cut and sharp as bronzed blades. But he was so serious, so incredibly serious, Molly registered with intense frustration. If he had a lighter side to his nature, he never showed it and she had yet to see him smile.

‘Smile...’ she urged helplessly.

‘Why?’ Azrael asked baldly. ‘There is nothing to smile about.’

Molly laughed, easy humour tilting her full lips into a helpless grin. ‘You can be such a misery. But look at us... I would have died out there if you hadn’t found me. And you rescued me, for which I shall be grateful for ever. I’m fine, you’re fine, we’re both safe...even cosy,’ she selected, indicating the leaping flames of the little fire with a playful gesture. ‘You’ve got plenty to smile about now.’

‘Are you grateful enough to drop the idea of prosecuting my brother?’ Azrael shot at her, fighting the disturbing truth that her easy grin was captivating and made her eyes sparkle while the reflection of the flames picked out amazing rich copper tones in her wonderful hair. He could not afford to be sidetracked by his natural male instincts.

Her grin immediately died. ‘I’m sorry, no...and that wasn’t a fair question. I thought we were talking off the record and I let my guard down... I was trying to be friendly,’ she extended uncomfortably.

‘I’m never off the record,’ Azrael admitted flatly, while on another level he was trying to suppress he was wondering exactly what ‘friendliness’ encompassed in her parlance.

During his six short months in London the year before, he had met women who offered him sex as casually as a handshake and as freely as if he were offering a workout at the gym. It had been a learning experience that had sent him from initially shocked to ecstatic and, finally and surprisingly, to a kind of repugnance he couldn’t adequately explain. He didn’t know whether it was his upbringing or some innate conservative streak somewhere inside him, but he had discovered that careless intimacy was a challenge for him. That was why he had considered getting married. But marriage would bring other difficulties and he thought he had enough to deal with without inviting more problems into his already very demanding life.

‘That’s unhealthy,’ Molly told him without hesitation.

‘No, it is a fact,’ Azrael shot back at her coolly. ‘I am who I am and I can’t change that or step back from it when it suits me. Everything I do reflects on my status and I will be judged for it.’

Molly tossed her head in dismissal. Her copper ringlets danced round her flushed cheeks, her temper beginning to spark in the face of his relentless gravity. ‘I’ll be honest too, then. I very much resent your continuing apprehension on your brother’s behalf. I didn’t ask to be in this situation. He put me in it and he planned the kidnapping, which is even worse,’ she argued.

Even before she had finished speaking, Azrael unfolded with angry speed from his seat on the sand. He moved so fast that she blinked, her attention unerringly caught by the seamless silent grace and tightly coiled energy that was so much a part of him. ‘We will not argue about that matter here and now,’ he stated, staring down at her with engrained arrogance.

But Molly refused to be diverted. She had to plant her hands on the sand to rise upright again and it felt clumsy because she was ridiculously conscious of how much less agile she was in comparison with him. ‘I will argue with you if I want to,’ she responded, wishing that statement didn’t sound slightly childish to her own ears even if it was what he needed to hear.

Azrael stalked down the length of the cave to grasp the lantern and carry it over the saddle bags resting by the wall. Molly was helplessly entranced by his fluid movements because he flowed like water without making a sound, while his perfect hawkish profile was etched in shadow against the wall.

‘Are you going to ignore me now?’ Molly prompted helplessly.

‘I am not in the mood for another...dispute,’ he framed impatiently. ‘Particularly not while we are stuck together in this cave for the duration of the storm.’

Her teeth gritted together. ‘I would prefer to clear the air.’

‘We cannot clear the air unless you are willing to compromise,’ Azrael fired back at her, stalking back towards her, all seething masculine energy and soundless grace, dark eyes glittering a warning in the subdued light.

‘Why should I be willing to compromise?’ Molly demanded stormily, for throughout her childhood and adolescence she had been forced to make continual compromises. Unpleasant realities had limited her and removed her choices. She hadn’t been able to change the truths that her mother was dead, her father was indifferent and her stepmother disliked and mistreated her. As soon as she had attained adulthood and independence she had sworn never to be forced into compromises again and to put her own wants and wishes first. These days only Maurice’s needs came before her own.

‘Have an energy bar while you’re thinking about it,’ Azrael urged, dropping one into her hand, long brown fingers briefly brushing her palm, sending the strangest frisson of awareness travelling through her unprepared body.

Involuntarily she collided with his smouldering dark gaze and it was as if fireworks broke out inside her, magnifying the leap of heat low in her pelvis that made her breasts tighten and her nipples peak. It unnerved her because she had never felt that way before and instantly she wanted to back away from him. It was attraction, of course, she realised that, but feeling that way even when she was angry with him unsettled her because she had always assumed that anger would be a defence against feeling anything she didn’t want to feel. Eager to lose that uncomfortable awareness of him, she turned hurriedly away and tore open the energy bar. Out of the corner of her eye as she ate she watched Azrael lead the horse to the pool, where it noisily drank its fill.

‘What do you call him?’

‘Spice.’ Azrael smoothed the stallion’s flank in a gesture of affection. ‘He is the best horse in my stable.’

‘I’ve never been this close to a horse before,’ Molly admitted. ‘I grew up in the country though. There were horses in the field next to the house but I was too nervous of them to get close.’

‘Come here...and meet him,’ Azrael urged, extending a long-fingered brown hand in a fluid invitation.

‘I’d really rather not.’

Azrael studied her in astonishment. ‘And yet you walked out into the desert without fear?’

‘That was different. Ignorance was bliss. I didn’t know what it would really be like. I’ve never even been abroad before,’ Molly heard herself confide as her feet moved her closer because, as soon as Azrael had recognised her fear, her pride had come into play and forced her forward.

‘Never? You’ve never visited another country?’ Azrael queried in amazement, for he had always assumed that in an era of cheap travel all Western people travelled widely.

‘I could never afford to travel,’ Molly advanced reluctantly. ‘It’s always been at the top of my wish list, though, but necessities come first, you know...although I suppose you don’t know what I’m talking about, given the wealth Tahir seemed determined to splash in my direction.’

‘Unlike his, my life has not always been one of wealth, comfort and security. Perhaps, had he had my experiences, he might have grown up a little faster than he has. For many months, when my mother and I were being hunted, we lived in this cave—’

‘You lived...here?’ she pressed in astonishment. ‘You were hunted? By whom?’

‘Hashem. He had executed my father and he wanted to remove me from my mother’s care. She lived here in very trying conditions for my benefit, a princess who had never known hardship in her life,’ he explained heavily. ‘She could have gone home to her family in Quarein but she was afraid that the man who was then ruling Quarein would insist on handing me over to Hashem.’

‘What age were you?’ Molly exclaimed, shaken by what she was learning about his past because it lay so far outside her naïve expectations.

‘Ten years old.’ Azrael had never before had to explain his background to anyone because all his people naturally knew his history, and he wondered why he was confiding in her. Was it the magnetic warmth of compassion in her eyes and her dismay on his behalf? He questioned why her reaction should break through his usual innate reserve.

‘Ten?’ Molly gasped helplessly. ‘What sort of horrible person would even consider handing over a child to the man who had executed his father?’

Azrael swallowed hard, for he was even less used to having to admit the relationship that had weighed him down with shame from birth. ‘Hashem was my father’s father, my grandfather, and had he sworn not to harm me his claim to me would have been acknowledged because after my father’s death, I became Hashem’s heir.’

Molly was poleaxed as she put those facts together. ‘Your grandfather executed his own son?’ she whispered in horror.

Azrael’s chin lifted in a grim nod of acknowledgement. ‘My father led the rebel forces before me,’ he proffered in a harsh undertone, emotion unconcealed in the flare of his nostrils and the narrowing of his amazing gold-tinted eyes. ‘But twenty years ago those forces were not strong enough to depose Hashem and the coup failed.’

‘And your father paid with his life,’ Molly completed for herself.

‘Out of respect for him and the many who died at Hashem’s hands, we prefer to refer to him as the dictator, rather than the King,’ Azrael completed, using the opportunity to clasp her hand and draw it down gently over Spice’s smooth, warm neck. ‘Hashem tarnished the throne with his hunger for absolute power.’

‘But your people obviously don’t hold that against you or you wouldn’t be King now,’ Molly said for herself, taken aback when the horse nudged her shoulder, evidently enjoying her attention and wanting more of it.

‘I must always be careful not to betray their trust.’

And an international scandal unleashed by the King’s half-brother could well cause a lot of trouble, Molly found herself thinking with regret, and then she was annoyed with herself for thinking along such lines. After all, she was British, not Djalian, and Azrael’s dysfunctional family history should have no bearing on her righteous wrath over what Tahir had done to her. She petted the horse, striving to suppress a fresh leap of anger at her predicament.

‘I could’ve had an adverse reaction to that drug Tahir used on me and been injured. Many things could have gone wrong,’ she pointed out.

‘But luckily they didn’t,’ Azrael interposed softly.

‘I’m afraid I still want Tahir to face the full consequences of what he did,’ Molly murmured thinly.

‘I would agree if he were an adult, but he’s not.’

Molly’s brow furrowed, her eyes widening. ‘What do you mean...he’s not an adult? Of course, he is! How old is he? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?’

Azrael stared back at her, his stunning dark golden eyes frowning at her question. ‘I assumed that you knew his age. How could you mistake Tahir for an adult? My brother is sixteen years old—’

‘Sixteen?’ Molly yelped in rampant disbelief as she whirled away from the horse. ‘You can’t be serious! I was kidnapped by a teenager?’

‘You really didn’t know,’ Azrael registered in wonderment as he scanned her incredulous face.

‘Of course, I didn’t know!’ Molly rounded furiously on him with that admission as she crossed the sand on restive feet. ‘I tried to find out his age at the first lesson but he was evasive and his English was poor. I was afraid I was getting too personal and being rude, so I let it go. Sixteen, though...my goodness, he’s a giant for sixteen!’

‘Perhaps, but he is not particularly mature,’ Azrael remarked. ‘Surely you noticed that, at least?’

Molly bridled at the faint edge of scorn to that question. ‘Well, yes, I did notice but I was very aware that he was from a different culture and I don’t know what’s normal for young men in your society.’

‘We are people, exactly the same as you!’ Azrael lanced back at her with simmering irritation.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, what I’m trying to say is that, yes, I did notice that he was immature but I kind of blamed that on his upbringing and his not having any experience of my world,’ Molly expanded, refusing to rise to the bait of his annoyance. ‘I am not prejudiced in any way, Azrael.’

‘If that is so, I am glad to hear it,’ Azrael conceded, his wide, sensual mouth compressed. ‘Unfortunately for all of us, my brother gave no prior sign of the insane thing he did to you. Tahir is an average boy. He spends hours playing computer games and he’s mad about cars and girls.’

‘And he kidnaps his English teacher, who is almost seven years older than him! No way is that typical!’ Molly shot back at him fierily and she spun away from him, exasperated beyond bearing by his arguments.

‘No, it is not typical,’ Azrael admitted grudgingly. ‘But I cannot help but blame myself for not taking more of an interest in him. It is unlucky that he is so much younger and that I have been so preoccupied here. Our mother died last year and it hit him very hard—’

‘I refuse to listen to a sob story on Tahir’s behalf!’ Molly flung back at Azrael in frustration, her eyes bright with mounting fury. ‘That is not fair to me. Why should I consider Tahir’s state of mind when he did not consider what he was doing to me?’

‘I said that we should not discuss this here,’ Azrael responded icily. ‘I do not want you shouting at me.’

Molly’s hands knotted into fists. She watched Spice sidle back out to the front of the cave, presumably as spooked as his owner by her loud voice, and then turned back to scrutinise Azrael’s lean, darkly handsome but undeniably frozen features. She was darned if she was going to apologise, most particularly not when it felt amazing to not care about the impression she was making and to speak her mind freely. After all, growing up she had been deprived of that freedom far too often. Forced to fit in with other people’s expectations, she had had to try to placate her stepmother simply in the hope of gaining peace. But appeasement hadn’t got her very far and hadn’t made the older woman any kinder.

‘My emotions don’t come with volume control,’ she confessed tightly. ‘And I am not usually this emotional but the past forty-eight hours have been very upsetting for me and I’m on edge, which means my temper is on edge too.’

Almost imperceptibly, Azrael’s lean, powerful frame became a little less rigid. ‘Obviously I can understand that but I cannot tolerate shouting.’

Molly sucked in a steadying breath, dismayed by the realisation that the more he prohibited her natural behaviour, the more he simply made her want to shout. There was something very basic in her, she sensed, that literally had to fight Azrael’s dominance and, inexplicably, when she spoke her mind to him in anger, she felt as if she was finally being herself and was unashamed of the fact. ‘And I cannot tolerate being told that I can’t shout,’ she confided guiltily. ‘Yet I very rarely do it. Obviously you make me angry and aggressive—’

And without the smallest warning, Azrael smiled and it illuminated his serious features like a sudden flash of sunlight, firing up the gold in his eyes enhanced by his ridiculously thick black lashes, accentuating his exotic cheekbones, revealing even white teeth and a wonderfully shapely mouth. That charismatic smile made him so handsome that her heart jumped inside her and her tummy dropped as though she had gone down in a lift too fast. She was startled; her mouth ran dry and her breath caught in her throat.

‘So, it’s my fault that you shout,’ Azrael derided silkily in a tone she had never heard from him before.

‘Yes,’ Molly replied squarely. ‘I find you extremely annoying. You try to tell me what to do. You patronise me. Then you freeze if I get annoyed...but you’re the one making me annoyed!’

Azrael paced closer as silent as a stalking cat on the trail of prey. ‘I don’t annoy other people—’

‘And I don’t shout at anyone else,’ Molly interposed.

‘Perhaps you are focusing your anger with Tahir on me,’ Azrael suggested.

‘No!’ Molly disagreed, reluctant to acknowledge that she could possibly be that unaware of her own responses. ‘But why did nobody tell me that I was teaching a teenager? Looking at him, I’d never have guessed that he was still only a boy. Someone should have told me what age he was.’

Azrael lifted a fine ebony brow. ‘Or you should have asked one of the embassy staff.’

‘I had no reason to suspect he was that young and I’m not sure it changes anything.’ Molly looped a long coppery rope of curls back from her hot face and glowered at Azrael accusingly. ‘Why should it change anything? It was a grown-up crime,’ she blustered, not knowing what she planned to do or how she felt about the unexpected fact she had just learned.

But the fact of the matter was that occasionally teenagers did do crazy things and, ironically, nobody knew that better than Molly. At the age of fourteen, Molly had packed her bag and run away from her family home. She had planned to go to London to become a musician in a band, for goodness’ sake. Sadly, the cost of the train fare had thwarted that fanciful ambition and in a rage of tempestuous teenage fury she had landed on Maurice’s doorstep, where he had talked some sense back into her.

Maurice had returned her to her father’s home and when she had seen her, her stepmother had said angrily, ‘I knew it was too good to be true. I knew you’d come back again!’

And then her father and Maurice had had an argument, for which she had also received the blame. Her slight shoulders drooped at her distressing recollection of that day. That was the moment that she knew that she would not approach the police in London about what Tahir had done. He was sixteen and, while she couldn’t forgive him for the fright he had given her and the risk he had taken with her health, she knew that teenagers could make stupid decisions and fatal mistakes and she realised that she no longer wanted him to pay the full adult price for his wrongdoing.

In addition, if she went to the police about what Tahir had done, it would inevitably attract the interest of the press and she didn’t want her name and her face splashed across the newspapers or people speculating about whether or not she might have encouraged Tahir in his delusions. Nor would the subsequent scandal improve her employment prospects. No, there would be no benefit to her in making an official complaint.

Abstractedly, she studied Azrael, guessing that he had probably been a very sensible teenager with an outlook older than his years. ‘You never did tell me how far we are out here from the airport.’

‘Several hundred miles,’ Azrael murmured, his attention welded to the tender fullness of her naturally pink lips while he inevitably wondered if they would taste as soft and lush as they looked.

Her green eyes flew wide. ‘Several hundred?’ she repeated in disbelief, clashing with shimmering dark golden eyes that made her feel oddly light-headed and even more oddly detached from her brain. ‘But how did you get me to the fortress yesterday?’

‘By helicopter, of course,’ Azrael explained. ‘We fly in and out. The cars pick us up at the landing site and drive us the rest of the way—’

‘But there must be a road somewhere nearby—’

‘No. Beyond the oil fields we do not yet have a country-wide network of roads, nor will we have until our construction engineers embark on that project,’ Azrael admitted, faint colour lining his sculpted cheekbones. ‘This part of the desert has always been fairly inaccessible.’

Molly experienced a sudden startling desire to smooth her fingers gently across one of those exotic cheekbones and so foreign was that forbidden prompting that her face began to flush as she questioned it. She had never before wanted to touch a man of her own volition. Her fingers fluttered and her nails bit into her palms, her breathing struggling in the new tightness of her chest. A kind of craving was snaking through her like a wildfire that burned everything that stood before it, and it shook her because that craving was so powerful it swallowed all common sense.

A drumming boom sounded outside the cave and she flinched.

‘It is only the storm,’ Azrael breathed tautly when a crashing roar seemed to shake the very rock walls of the cavern protecting them.

‘I would have hated being caught outside in that,’ Molly admitted shakily, ultra-conscious of the smouldering silence enclosing them and speaking in a deliberate attempt to shatter an atmosphere that was becoming suffocating. ‘I didn’t realise it would be so violent.’

‘The elements in our climate are often violent and perverse,’ Azrael declared huskily, reaching for her hand and tugging her closer, knowing that what he was doing was wrong but utterly unable to continue battling the urge to touch her. ‘Just as you make me feel things I don’t want to feel...’

Her hand engulfed in his, Molly looked up at him, knowing she should back away, knowing that she should be listening to the voice of reason inside her head. But that close to Azrael she couldn’t think, she could only feel. And what she felt just then was the incredibly seductive sensation of being thrillingly alive, her heart thumping fast while adrenalin raced in her veins.

‘Tell me not to touch you,’ Azrael urged thickly, brilliant dark deep-set eyes shimmering like gold ingots across her hectically flushed face.