Читать книгу The Royal House of Karedes: Two Crowns - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 12

IT WAS the same, it was always the same. Agonisingly, torturously the same, where he could never change what had happened, what would happen, replaying again and again in his mind as he watched, helpless, hopeless…

He knew it was a dream, and still he could not wake himself from it. The nightmare grabbed him by the throat, swallowed him whole in its cavernous jaws, so all he could hear was his brother’s choked cry of desperation.

‘Aarif…’

And he did nothing. He felt the searing heat across his face once more, his hands reaching out to grasp—to save—his brother, but Zafir was too far, and farther still, his face pale and terrified as Aarif fell into the water and it rushed into his mouth and nose, closed over his head…

‘Aarif…’ The voice was softer, sweeter now, a whisper from another world, the real world, yet still the dream did not let him go. He shook from the force of it, great tremors that racked his body with emotional agony.

‘Aarif…’ It was Zafir again, his voice trailing away, the cry of a boy, a child, and yet holding the relentless ring of condemnation. ‘Save me…’

The voice rang in his eyes, faint and desperate, and there was nothing Aarif could do. There was nothing he could ever do.

Aarif shifted restlessly on his blanket, his face contorted with both pain and anguish.

‘Aarif…’ Kalila whispered, but he didn’t hear her. Couldn’t. He was locked in a far more terrible world than the one they currently inhabited. Tentatively Kalila reached over to touch his shoulder, wanting to stir him into wakefulness, but Aarif jerked away from her light touch.

‘No…no!’ His desperate scream ripped through the stillness of the tent, the night, and caused Kalila’s hand to freeze inches from his shoulder. That agonised shriek was a sound she would never forget. It was the sound of a man in mental agony, mortal pain.

Aarif let out another shuddering breath, his hands bunching on the blanket, and Kalila saw the faint, silvery tracks of tears on his cheeks.

Her heart twisted painfully at the sight of so much suffering. What kind of dream could hold him in such terrible captivity?

‘Aarif…’ she tried again, her voice stronger now. ‘It’s all right. It’s just a dream.’ Yet even as she spoke she realised it was not just a dream. A mere figment of imagination could not hold Aarif so strongly in its thrall. This was something far more terrible, far more real.

Kalila couldn’t bear to see him suffering so; it cut at her heart and she felt near tears herself. She leaned over him, smoothing the damp hair away from his forehead. ‘Aarif,’ she said again, her voice breaking, and then he opened his eyes.

Their faces were close, so close that when his eyes opened it felt as if he touched her with his gaze. Kalila was conscious of her hand still stroking his hair as if he were a child to be comforted.

Aarif stared at her, the vestiges of his private torment still visible on his ravaged face, and then he let out a choked cry and tried to roll away.

He couldn’t; she wouldn’t let him. She didn’t know why she wouldn’t, only that she acted on instinct. No one deserved to bear that kind of pain alone. ‘Don’t,’ she whispered. Her fingers threaded through his hair, drawing his gaze back to hers. ‘What torments you so?’ she whispered. Aarif said nothing. She could feel his racing heart, heard him swallow back another cry. Gently, a movement born still of instinct, she trailed her fingers down his cheek, tracing the path of his scar as if her touch could heal that grim reminder of what—?

Kalila didn’t even know, but she felt it, knew the pain Aarif was experiencing must be a personal memory, a private grief. His hand clamped over hers, his fingers trapping and yet clinging to hers, and he shook his head, trying to speak, but unable to.

Kalila stilled, her fingers on his face, and Aarif closed his eyes. A shudder went through his body, a tremor of remembered emotion, and naturally—too naturally—Kalila put her arms around him and drew him to herself.

His head was on her shoulder, his silky hair brushing her lips, his body, hard and muscular, against hers. His arms came around her, and Kalila realised she had never been so close to a man, every part of their bodies in intimate contact. It felt natural, right, this closeness, their bodies wrapped around each other in an embrace born of comfort and need. It humbled her that a man like Aarif would accept her caress, that he might even need it.

Neither of them spoke.

His still-racing heart pounded against her own chest, and after many long moments where the only sound was Aarif’s ragged breathing she felt it slow. She stroked his hair, felt his fingers tighten reflexively on her shoulder. Still neither of them moved beyond those tiny gestures, neither of them spoke.

Kalila knew that to speak, to even think would break the moment between them, with its precious fragility, its tenuous tenderness. In a day and night of unreality, this felt real. It felt, she thought distantly, before her mind turned hazy and still once more, right.

Another long moment passed and Aarif’s breathing steadied. Now was the time, Kalila knew, for them to roll away, to close their eyes, to forget this brief and wonderful intimacy, this moment of desire stolen from a lifetime of duty.

Yet she didn’t, and she knew with a sudden, thrilling certainty that Aarif wouldn’t. She knew as he lifted his head, his eyes gazing darkly, hungrily into hers, what he would do.

He kissed her.

It was not the hard, urgent kiss she’d been half expecting, something born of the reckless desperation of this stolen moment. Instead it was sweet, tentative, his mouth moving gently over hers until it bloomed into something stronger and sweeter still as he deepened the contact, his tongue exploring her lips, her mouth, his hands reaching to cup her face, to draw her even closer, as if he was seeking something from her—and she gave it.

Kalila gave herself up to that kiss, let it reverberate through her heart and mind, body and soul. It was, she thought hazily, a wonderful first kiss. For she’d never been kissed before, not like this, not like anything.

She’d kept herself apart, pure, as she’d always meant to do, as she’d had to do as a princess betrothed since she was twelve. Yet now her mind drifted away from that realisation, for with it came the ugly knowledge that this was far more wrong and selfish an act than running away in the first place.

This was betrayal of the deepest kind, yet her mind—and heart—skittered away from that word for this felt too wonderful. Too right.

The kiss deepened, lengthened and grew into hands and touch, their bodies a living map to be explored and understood.

Aarif fumbled at first with her clothes, but somehow the buttons and snaps gave way and her skin was bare to his fingers, his hands gliding over her flesh before his lips followed, and Kalila gasped at the intimacy, the exposure that made her feel vulnerable and yet treasured.

Loved.

They moved as one, in silence, the only sound a drawing of breath, a sigh of pleasure, the whispering slide of skin against skin. It felt like a dream, a wonderful and healing dream, as Aarif’s hands moved over her, touching her in places that had known no man’s caress.

She opened herself up to him, parting her legs, arching her back, wanting his touch, needing this new caress, this forbidden intimacy.

And then she touched him, tentatively at first, her hands exploring, seeking, discovering the hard, muscled plane of his chest and stomach, the surprisingly smooth curve of his hip, the ridges on his back—more scars.

Now was not the time to ask where they came from, what terrible memory Aarif kept locked in his heart. Now, Kalila thought, her lips touching the places her hands had gone, brushing over that satiny skin, was the time for healing.

She wouldn’t think about what this meant. She pushed the thought, the implications, firmly away, and let herself drift in a haze of feeling and emotion, let Aarif’s hands and mouth seek her as she gave herself up to him and the maelstrom of pleasure and wonder he caused to whirl within her.

She’d never imagined the feelings to be strong—sharp—she gasped as he touched her, gasped in surprise and wonder, and felt Aarif smile against her skin. She loved that she’d made him smile, that there was a joy to be found here.

And yet a moment came—as Kalila knew it would have to—when they could have stopped. Should have. Clothing bunched and pushed aside, their bodies bare and touching, Aarif moved on top of her, poised to join his body to hers in an act so intimate, so sacred and precious and unfamiliar, and yet so right. His eyes sought and met hers, a silent agreement. They gazed at each other, neither speaking, both complicit, and then their bodies joined as one.

Kalila gasped at the feeling, her hands bunching on his back, the twinge of discomfort lost in the exquisite sensation of this union, the fullness of him inside her, the sense of completion that reverberated through her body and heart.

Aarif buried his head in her shoulder, his hair brushing her lips, his body straining for both of their releases, and she clasped him to her, gasping in wonder and shock. She never wanted the moment to end, never wanted to feel alone again—

The realisation was as wonderful as the sensation of his body moving in hers, and as her body finally gave itself up to the spiralling pleasure and the joy she found that at last, now, she felt free. That she knew who she was.

What she’d been meant for.

The aftermath, she thought as Aarif rolled away from her, was as eerie and silent as that of the storm. Aarif lay on his back, one arm flung over his face. The silence that had wound its seductive spell around them moments before now stretched taut as a wire, and just as sharp.

Kalila was suddenly conscious of the sand in her scalp, the stickiness on her thighs. Moments before she’d felt only joy, and now it was replaced by something far worse. Something sordid. She felt used and cheap and dirty, and she didn’t want to.

Yet, a whisper within her mocked, isn’t that just what you are? You just betrayed your fiancé with his brother.

She closed her eyes, felt the flood of remorse that she’d kept at bay while pleasure had reigned in her body and heart, still turned her bones to runny wax. She felt the regret wash over her in engulfing waves, and could only imagine how Aarif felt.

Aarif…a man bound by duty and honour. A man with whom responsibility weighed heavily, endlessly. What could he be thinking now?

She sneaked a glance at him and saw he hadn’t moved. Only moments ago she’d touched his skin, kissed him, loved him.

Love.

Could she love Aarif? Did she?

She barely knew him; he was unforgiving, unemotional, unpleasant, and yet when she’d held him in her arms…

When he’d touched her as if he knew her, not just her body, but her heart. Her mind.

When he’d smiled.

Kalila swallowed. She couldn’t possibly love Aarif, yet what had happened between them was real, it was something—

‘Aarif.’ Her voice came out in a croak. She had no idea what to say, where to begin—

‘Don’t.’ The one word was harsh, guttural, savage. Aarif rolled up in one fluid movement, his face averted from hers, and with a vicious jerk he peeled the tape away from the door. Kalila watched him, her heart starting to pound with a relentless anxiety, and a deep misery settled coldly in her bones.

Another jerk and the tape was off; he flung it to the floor before pushing through the flap and out into the desert’s darkness.

Kalila could hear the crunch of his bare feet on the sand, the low nicker of one of the horses and Aarif’s soothing murmur back. Tears—stupid tears—stung her eyes. He was kinder to the horses than he was to her.

And yet, that insistent whisper protested, the horses didn’t do anything. They are innocent. You are not.

Innocence. So prized, so precious. So important for a woman like her, a woman poised to marry a king, and she was innocent no longer. Instinctively Kalila glanced down, saw a faint rusty smear of blood on her thigh. In another age that bit of blood would have been proof of her innocence, her purity, her whole reason for being a wife. It would have been displayed with bawdy jokes and satisfied smiles. In another age, she realised, swallowing down a hysterical laugh, she would have been killed for what she had just done.

Her innocence was gone.

And yet even so, despite the regret and shame and even fear coursing through her, she couldn’t forget the feeling of Aarif in her arms, in her body. She couldn’t forget, and she didn’t want to.

What kind of woman did that make her?

She took a shuddering breath, tried to calm her racing thoughts, her racing heart. She needed to think, to plan. She needed to speak with Aarif.

With a bit of water from the canteen she cleaned herself up as best she could and dressed, combing the tangles from her hair with her fingers.

Then, taking another deep breath for courage, she slipped through the flap and out into the cool night.

The air was cold and sharp, the sky glittering with stars. The sand dunes were cast in silver by the moonlight, and the air after the storm was perfectly still.

Signs of devastation could be glimpsed, shadows of broken rocks, twisted roots. Briefly Kalila offered up a prayer for the rest of her party, sheltering at the airport. She prayed no one would lose a life because of her own folly.

Her own selfishness.

She moved gingerly across the sand to Aarif; his back was to her, one arm braced against the rock overhang. His head was bowed, every taut line of his body radiating anguish. Anger.

She stood a few metres behind him, her arms creeping around herself in the cold, and waited.

What could she say? What could he say?

What, she wondered distantly, could happen now?

A long moment of silence passed; the horses shifted fretfully and a slight breeze stirred the hair lying limply against her face. Then Aarif spoke.

‘What we’ll do,’ he said in a cold, flat voice, as if they were in the middle of a conversation, ‘is tell everyone I found you this morning. You sheltered here alone, and I found a protected place of my own. Then at least your reputation will not be called into question. I don’t think there is anyone in the party who wishes to cast doubt on you or this marriage union.’

Kalila heard his words echoing relentlessly through her, but they didn’t make sense. He was sticking a plaster on a wound that required major surgery.

‘That’s all very well,’ she finally said when she’d found her voice, ‘but it hardly addresses the real situation.’

‘I hardly think you want your father’s staff knowing what happened,’ Aarif replied, his voice still cold and so horribly unemotional. ‘I am trying to salvage this mess, Princess.’

‘How? By lying?’

‘By protecting you!’ Aarif turned around, and Kalila took an instinctive step backwards at the anguished fury twisting his features. ‘God knows I made this mess, and I will be the one to clean it up.’ He spoke with such a steely determination that Kalila quelled.

‘How?’ she whispered.

‘I will have to tell Zakari.’

She closed her eyes, not wanting to imagine that conversation, or what it meant for her. For her marriage. ‘Aarif, if you do that, you will ruin my marriage before it even begins.’

‘I will tell Zakari that it is my fault—’

‘And you think he will believe that? That you raped me?’ She shook her head, disbelief and disappointment warring within her. She didn’t want this, this sordid discussion of what had just happened between them. She couldn’t bear to talk cold logistics when her heart cried out for him now—still—

‘I was responsible,’ Aarif insisted in a low voice. ‘I should have stopped, turned away—’ He shook his head. ‘I accused you of being selfish, Kalila, but it is I who have been the most selfish of all.’ He muttered something under his breath and stalked away, his body so taut his muscles almost seemed to be vibrating with a seething self-loathing.

Kalila took a few tentative steps towards him. She wanted to touch him, to reach him, yet every instinct told her she couldn’t. He had shut himself off completely, walled himself with his own sense of responsibility and guilt.

Still, she tried.

‘Aarif, I could have protested. I could have stopped. We are both to blame.’ His back was to her, and he said nothing. Dragging a breath into her lungs, she forced herself to continue, to lay her heart open to him as her body had been. ‘The truth is, I didn’t want to. I wanted to be with you, Aarif, from the moment you touched me. The moment I touched you, for if we are going to apportion blame, then I was the one who first—’

‘Don’t,’ he cut her off, ‘romanticise what was nothing more than a bout of lust.’

Kalila blinked. She felt as if she had been slapped. Worse, she felt as if he’d taken the handful of memories they’d just created and crumpled them into a ball and spat on them. ‘No,’ she whispered, ‘it wasn’t.’ Aarif was silent, and she spoke again, her voice wavering and then finally breaking, ‘Aarif, don’t make this into something sordid—’

‘It is sordid!’ he snapped. ‘Everything about it is sordid, Kalila, can’t you see that? My brother trusted me, trusted me, with your care. He asked me to come fetch you because he believed he could depend on me, and I did the worst thing—the only thing—that would betray him utterly.’ He swivelled to face her, his face pitilessly blank. ‘There is nothing good about what happened, Kalila. Not one thing. You might have felt a brief pleasure in my arms, but it was cheap and worthless, and if you had any sense of honour or duty, you would know it.’

Kalila opened her mouth but she couldn’t think of a single thing she could say. Tears rolled slowly, coldly, down her cheeks. Aarif watched her with such an obvious lack of sympathy that she felt as vulnerable and exposed as she had underneath him, her body open to his caress.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he said, his voice as sharp and cutting as a razor. ‘You’re thinking you’ve fallen in love with me.’ He spoke the word—love—with such contempt that Kalila could only blink. ‘You told me you wanted love. Not an arranged marriage, you said. And so now you think this is it. Love.’ He shook his head, holding up one hand to stop her from speaking, although Kalila’s mind was too shocked and numb to frame even a syllable. ‘Oh, I don’t think you realised what you were doing. You were caught up in the moment as much as I was, but now you’re desperate to make it into something, to believe we have something.’ He spoke with a sneer that reverberated through her. ‘Well, we don’t, Princess. All we have is a mistake, and it is my duty to rectify it. As for your marriage—Zakari is a kind man. He can forgive.’ He paused, his lip curling. ‘He’ll have to.’ He turned to walk away, to leave her alone with his harsh words, his cold condemnation.

Kalila’s head was bowed under the weight of his judgment, and she spoke through stiff lips. ‘You are saying this because it’s the only way you can accept what happened.’

Aarif stilled, stiffened. ‘Still clinging to fairy tales?’ he mocked, but she heard—hoped she heard—a current of deeper hurt and even need beneath his sneering tone.

‘This doesn’t feel like much of a fairy tale to me,’ Kalila replied, lifting her head, her chin tilted at a proud, defiant angle. ‘I’m not going to cheapen what happened between us, Aarif, simply because it was wrong. And, yes, I know it was wrong. I accept that, but I also accept that for a few moments you clung to me, you needed me, and I needed you. And we found something together that I can’t believe everyone finds.’ Tears sparkled on her lashes, she felt another one drip onto her cheek, but she kept his gaze. ‘Believe what you want, if it makes you feel better,’ she said. ‘Believe your own version of the fairy tale, Aarif, but I know the truth.’

Aarif’s mouth tightened in a hard line, his eyes dark and angry. Kalila looked up and saw the stars were fading into an eerie grey dawn, the first pale pink finger of daybreak lighting the flat horizon. ‘It’s morning,’ she said. ‘Time to go.’

They packed up in stiff silence. Kalila wrapped herself in numbness; the pain and the realisation, the repercussions and the bittersweet memories, could all come later. They would come, she knew; she wouldn’t be able to stop them.

For now, she busied herself with mundane tasks of rolling blankets and folding the tent, feeding the animals and making herself as presentable as she could given their limited resources.

She had no mirror, but she didn’t need one to know her hair was in a wild tangle, her eyes dry and gritty, her face wind-reddened, her hands rough and chapped.

Would Zakari be waiting at the Calistan airport? Would he see her like this?

Would he know?

For the first time she hoped he was still seeking after his precious diamonds. The longer he stayed away, the longer the reprieve she had. The longer until the reckoning.

And yet it would come. She knew it would come, and the thought had the power to dry the breath in her lungs and cause her heart to pound with relentless anxiety until she surrounded herself in numbness once more.

It took them three hours to ride to the airport. Kalila was weary and saddle sore, conscious of the new tenderness between her thighs, the utter, aching weariness in every muscle, sinew and bone.

She followed behind Aarif as the sun rose higher in the sky, its rays merciless and punishing. Aarif did not falter once as they made their way through the shifted sand, a landscape utterly changed from yesterday, and yet he rode with an unerring sense of direction, of rightness.

Of course, Kalila thought with a weary wryness, of course he would know just how to get to the airport, an airport he’d never even been to. A man like Aarif never strayed off the path, never made a wrong turn—

Except once. Last night he had.

What had caused him to stumble? To reach out for someone, for her? Kalila’s heart ached as she thought of it, remembered how it felt to hold Aarif, to be held by him. To be needed, touched, loved.

You’re thinking you’ve fallen in love with me.

Her mouth compressing into a grim line, Kalila lowered her head and focused on the rough trail, her mare plodding wearily after Aarif’s mount.

When the airport, a low, humble building of tin and concrete, came into view, Kalila almost felt relieved. She was tired of the waiting, the tension. She wanted to get it over with, the explanations, the lies. Then she wanted a hot bath.

Juhanah came running out first, her face grey with anxiety. ‘Oh, ya daanaya! My child! We feared you were dead, both of you!’ Even as Juhanah wrapped her in an embrace the old nurse’s eyes slid speculatively to Aarif and Kalila saw it.

So it begins, she thought, closing her eyes and letting herself be comforted. The whispers, the rumours. Her reputation couldn’t be protected, not from imaginations, minds.

And it didn’t even deserve to be.

‘I found Princess Kalila a few hours ago,’ Aarif said. He’d slid off the horse and handed the reins to an aide, giving terse instructions for both horses to be returned. ‘She’d taken shelter in the storm, as I had, and when the winds died down I came upon where she had been waiting out the storm.’ He spoke coolly, impersonally, his gaze flicking not even once to her. And stupidly, irrationally, Kalila felt hurt.

She almost started to believe the terrible things he’d said to her that morning.

‘Thank God,’ Juhanah said, clutching Kalila to her bosom once more. ‘Thank God you found her, Prince Aarif.’ She took Kalila by the shoulders, giving her a little shake as if she were still an unruly child to be disciplined. ‘What were you thinking, Kalila? To run off like that? If your father had discovered—’

‘King Bahir does not need to know about a young woman’s moment of foolishness,’ Aarif cut in smoothly. His voice was pleasant although there was a warning hardness to his eyes. ‘The princess explained to me that she had a moment of folly, of fear. It is a fearsome thing, for a young woman to meet a husband she has never seen. For a moment—a moment only—the princess thought to run away. She did not go far, and in truth she was planning to turn around when the storms caught her. She knew she wouldn’t make it back to the caravan, so she sheltered by a rock. I found her in the morning, and we returned at once.’ Aarif smiled, this recitation of lies so easily given that even Kalila was almost convinced, despite the obvious evidence to the contrary. Yet if anyone thought of it, no one dared to ask why her mare, As Sabr, was there with saddlebags and provisions.

It would be better for everyone, Kalila acknowledged, to pretend this hadn’t happened. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure she could do that. Her glance slid to Aarif, but he wasn’t looking at her. His face was hard, blank, resolute, and Kalila wondered if she would ever see the other side of him again.

Conscious of an uncomfortable silence and the many pairs of staring eyes, she forced herself to give a weak nod before bowing her head. ‘It is true, Juhanah. I had a moment of weakness, and I regret it deeply. It was wrong of me.’ Her head still bowed, her gaze slid once more to Aarif—wanting something from him, even now—but he was staring fixedly ahead, a cool and remote look on his face even though he smiled.

‘Poor darling,’ Juhanah murmured. ‘At least no one has been harmed.’

‘Everyone sheltered safely here?’ Aarif surmised, and when this was confirmed he gave a brisk nod and moved towards the airport, already taking out his mobile and punching in some numbers. ‘Then it is time to return to Calista.’

Juhanah made a squeak of protest. ‘But Prince Aarif! The princess is tired and dirty. She cannot meet her intended this way. We must return to the palace so she can wash, prepare—’

Aarif turned around. ‘I fear that would not be wise, madam. The princess’s place is in Calista now. As for the king seeing her in disarray, never fear.’ He held up his mobile. ‘I have just received a message that he has been delayed, so there will be time for the princess to prepare herself—’ he glanced at Kalila, who jerked under his cool gaze ‘—as she sees fit.’

With a little nod, Aarif turned and walked into the airport.

‘Poor darling,’ Juhanah fussed again. ‘To not even bathe or change your clothes—’

‘There is a washroom in the airport,’ Kalila said with a shrug. She didn’t want Juhanah’s motherly fussing, didn’t deserve it. ‘I’ll wash my face and comb my hair and be myself in no time.’

Yet the words held a hollow ring, for Kalila knew she would not be herself again. She’d found herself—her freedom—in Aarif’s embrace, and she was unlikely to do so ever again.