Читать книгу The Sheikh's Lost Princess - Linda Conrad - Страница 8

S andstorm?

Nikki had heard of them, of course. But she never dreamed they could be a problem for her in Zabbarán.

“Could the storm kill us?”

“No.” Shakir put his arm around her shoulders, guiding them closer to the boulders. “But we must take precautions.”

Why hadn’t she noticed anything wrong before he showed up? Was he lying to her about a sandstorm coming? For what reason?

She’d learned the hard way not to trust anyone. Never again would she allow herself to be taken in by a sincere-looking face and a kind manner.

As she let Shakir lead her toward a two-story mound of shale and rocks, Nikki paid closer attention to her surroundings. Yes, she could feel a slight increase in the wind’s velocity, but at this point she was only aware of a nice quiet breeze on her face. Looking around, she also noticed the pale beginnings of lavender light and knew that in the desert that meant daybreak would soon appear in all its magnificence.

Things were never as scary in the light of day as they seemed in the dark.

After climbing up a medium grade to the base of giant rock boulders, Shakir pealed off his backpack. He crouched beside her on the stony ground and opened his pack.

While searching through the pockets, he made a demand. “Give me the canteen.”

Feeling at a loss, she was in no position to argue. At least temporarily she had no choice but to let him make his demands. She gave him the canteen and he used the water to dampen a tan-colored cloth. Then he handed the cloth to her.

“What is this? Your wet T-shirt? What do I do with this?”

The predawn glow gave her enough light to see his eyes. Warm, liquid brown and fringed by long, ebony lashes, those fascinating eyes were a reminder of a time past. Whenever she’d gazed into them in her youth, she’d ended up swamped in a pool of longing and need. There was a time when she had trusted him implicitly to do the right thing. Not anymore.

“After we take cover,” he shouted, “hold the shirt over your eyes, nose and mouth. Breathe through it and don’t stop until I give the okay.”

“Cover?” Turning in a circle, she looked around and saw nothing but rocks and sand dunes. “Where?”

Shakir didn’t answer but stood and hurried over to a nearby rock-covered stand. Even through the low light, she realized this must be the water well she had been expecting to find. While lifting the large flat rock from its base, his muscles rippled and bunched under his shirt. The sight gave her an unwelcome tingle, forcing her to dig her fingernails into her palms to stay quiet.

Once Shakir had the heavy-looking rock in his arms, he used it to cover the well. Every one of his movements was economical, as though he’d been taught exactly what to do.

After returning to her side, he said, “Let’s go.”

Huh? “I don’t think …”

“Look.” He pointed off in the opposite direction of the rising sun.

She turned her head and got one of the biggest shocks of her life. The entire horizon, from desert floor to electric-blue sky, was blurred by a clay-colored cloud. A towering line of menacing dust blocked out both sky and land as it rolled over the dunes. The storm appeared to be headed right for them.

Maybe some things could be scarier in the daylight.

Shakir scooped her up next to his side and ran toward a cleft in the rocks. As they came closer, she managed a better look at the indentation in the rocks. The space seemed tiny. But never hesitating for a second, he pushed her into the small crevice.

“Cover!” He jammed in close behind her, blocking her body with his own.

Nikki had enough room and time left to raise her hands and cover her face with the wet cloth. In the next instant, a deafening roar overtook them.

The sounds of angry sands, fiercely pounding against solid stone, assaulted her eardrums. Winds roared in her ears even under the protective head scarf she still wore. Biting the inside of her cheek, she waited.

Those initial dire seconds of the storm soon turned to long desperate minutes of panic, and finally dragged on interminably for what seemed like hours. Between bouts of panic, boredom and spurts of claustrophobia, she had time to think. Time enough for the stillness of a memory.

A memory from long ago. One sunny summer day when the sky over the English countryside was not blurred with sand, but was so clear and blue it could bring one to tears. That afternoon had been meant for young lovers. It was one of those days meant to fool them into believing that true love would last forever.

But even then, as lost as she’d been in her dreams of lust and in an intense pair of chocolate eyes, in the back of her mind she must have known that love was not the road to happiness. Not for her.

Still, for those few precious months with Shakir, she had let herself believe in the dream.

She’d wanted desperately for Shakir to make things different for them. In her naïveté, he had been everything she’d thought she needed. Everything she had ever wanted. Tall, broad and so good-looking that other girls swooned over him, he was a dashing prince of the desert. An intelligent, modern-day sheik who would carry her off to a fantasy life in some faraway romantic land.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t taken long for her to awaken from the dream. Her eyes had been opened when her parents began demanding that she come home and take up her royal life. The life she had been raised to obediently follow.

Nikki did her duty, stepped up and complied with her parents’ bidding. She sent Shakir away. But secretly, as she had spoken those hateful words of goodbye, she’d hoped against hope that he would not leave willingly. She wanted him to take a stand and make his own demands.

Wishing for him to love her enough to fight for her, Nikki had held her breath. She waited for Shakir to plead his case and offer to steal off with her and hide from her responsibilities.

But he never did. Shakir never demanded anything. He simply hadn’t loved her enough to fight. He’d heard her out, then turned silently and walked out of her life for good.

What had become of him since? she wondered. It was a question that had haunted her for many years. Perhaps once the storm was over, she would finally get the answers to her burning questions. But she would have to be smart when she asked those questions. Smarter than she had ever been in her past.

With disappointment after disappointment, she’d grown much wiser over the years. And she knew how to be careful. Particularly careful with what she said.

Shakir felt Nicole’s legs giving way just as the last of the sandstorm’s winds rolled off into the distance like the waning echo of a ringing bell. His own limbs were stiff from standing, but he eased back and let her limp body slide into his arms.

“We were lucky,” he said as he lifted her and carried her out of their narrow rock shelter. “The storm was a small one.”

Still holding the by-now dry T-shirt, her hands dropped to her chest and she blinked her eyes against the bright sun. “You call that small?” Choking on her words, she tried to swallow past the build up of dust in her throat. “How long were we standing there?”

“A few hours.” He understood how she felt. His throat was parched and gritty, too, and tiny grains of sand layered every bodily crevice.

He helped Nicole ease herself onto a nearby flat-surfaced rock. Then he pulled off his goggles and earpieces and looked around the small area surrounding the water hole.

Checking his watch, he discovered the sand had blasted the clear face and he could no longer make out the time. “Sandstorms can sometimes last for days.”

“Days? I wouldn’t have been able to stand for that long.”

He would’ve seen to it that Nicole stood for however long the storm took. Even if the winds carried on for a week. He had sworn to let nothing happen to her. Nothing.

The sun shone from directly overhead, making Shakir give thanks to the desert mother that it was spring season and not the dead of summer. Still, during the hottest part of the day, extreme heat could rise to uncomfortable levels even in the spring months.

Within a minute or two of scouting the area, he found what he’d been seeking. A makeshift shelter from the sun formed underneath a natural rock ledge. As was the case at many desert water holes, long ago desert travelers had constructed a shelter to provide shade for daylight resting periods. Generations of travelers had used the shelter ever since.

Shakir hadn’t bothered to look for the shelf to use as their shelter from the sandstorm. More of a cave-like structure, the shelter was too low to the ground to provide enough protection from blowing sands. He had learned in his boyhood that standing on higher ground made far more sense as defense against the winds. But used as a cool place to rest until dusk, this shallow cave would do fine.

Hanging tenuously on to the rough surfaces of the rock she’d been using, Nicole rose to her feet. Her knees wobbled for a moment, but eventually she managed to stand.

Once she was on her feet, deep ragged coughs began racking her body. He scolded himself for neglecting to see to her needs. What kind of a proficient desert rescuer was he? He handed over the canteen and helped her take a few swallows.

“Keep the canteen with you and take small swallows periodically over the next few hours while we are at rest. Don’t gulp the water. Your body cannot absorb it yet.”

She nodded that she understood. Shakir noticed then that his dehydrated body had also begun rebelling against the growing heat of midday. Shoving aside the piles of new sand, he removed the rock covering from the water well. After reopening the well, he moved as quickly as possible, refilling a collapsible bladder from his pack with the precious liquid.

Now they needed shelter. “Come on. It’s time.” He reached out, ready to take her by the hand.

Staring up at him, her eyes took on that distrustful expression once again. “Time for what? How did you find me in the dark anyway?”

Shakir grew irritated with her questions. He was the one who knew how to survive the desert. Knew it far too well, in fact. But as long as they were to remain in Zabbarán, for her own safety, she needed to defer to his judgment and experience.

After taking a deep, calming breath, he finally remembered that Nicole was a fragile creature. High-strung and spoiled. The princess was probably experiencing a form of PTSD due to her capture and imprisonment. He’d learned all about the psychology of victims during his training in modern warfare for the British. It would serve him well to keep that training in mind and try to put aside his ancient warrior training at the hands of his mother’s father.

Nicole was a woman with no experience at hard living. As a princess royal she was more accustomed to servants and satin sheets, and he needed to cut her some slack.

“I found you by using the infrared goggles,” he explained. “Spotted your footsteps in the sand as you walked away from the chopper. You made no attempt to hide your trail. Within a half mile I knew where you must be heading. Water is too precious in this country. You would surely stop at the closest well.”

He wanted to ask why she hadn’t jumped at the chance to leave with the other women. But he had a gut feeling that she wasn’t yet ready to talk.

“It’s time to take shelter from the sun, Nicole. Over there.” He pointed out the low, dark cave at the base of the rocks.

“Oh. But … What if there are snakes in that cave? And other poisonous creatures might be hiding inside there as well.”

Shakir took her by the hand. He made a pass and grabbed his pack off the ground, then dragged both pack and woman across the sand.

“If we encounter snakes,” he ground out, swallowing his annoyance at being questioned, “we will eat them. Other poisonous creatures will simply have to make room for us.”

He felt a shudder ripple through her body and took small pleasure at giving her something else to think about. But as they crawled into the cool, shaded cave, he felt chagrined by his bad behaviour.

Years ago, as her lover and friend, he had never let his uncivilized side show. It had been easy to hide his true nature when he was around her during those halcyon days. She was soft and sweet and kind to a fault. Sophisticated and quiet, she’d been the antithesis of the life he had led up to that time.

Even as an inexperienced youth, he’d known their relationship was only a dream. That it could never last. And though he’d been shocked to learn she was a princess, he had not been surprised in the least when she told him goodbye. He’d expected that end to their affair from the beginning.

In a way, he’d even felt grateful to her for the reprieve. He had grown weary of trying to be someone he was not. His life with her had been in a kind of limbo up until then, living with the knowledge that at any moment a small slip in his behaviour would’ve shocked her into running away. He’d known it was only a matter of time.

Yes, he’d wanted her. But he had known from the start that an intelligent woman like Nicole would not stand for living with a man who couldn’t control his baser instincts. At some point his true nature would’ve shown through. He couldn’t have helped himself. It was a big part of who he was. A side of him built into his genetic structure.

For the entire time they’d been together, Shakir had lived on a razor’s edge of self-control.

“It’s cool in here,” Nicole murmured after he found her a sandy spot to sit. She sounded surprised.

He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her—yell at her. As long as they were in the desert, she must learn that he knew best.

Instead, he merely nodded and asked, “Do you think you can eat something?”

“Not snake?”

He couldn’t hold back the chuckle. “No, not snake. But you might like snake meat a lot better than you will one of these American-made MREs.”

“MREs?”

“Armed services food. Meal, Ready-to-Eat. This one is meant to give you quick strength and stamina.”

He handed the MRE over and showed her how to open the package. “This isn’t much. But I didn’t imagine we’d be trying to survive in the desert for this long.”

Nikki would’ve liked to strangle Shakir with her bare hands for both teasing her about the snakes and for his wisecracks about surviving in the desert. But since he had knowledge of survival tactics that she didn’t possess, she settled for strangling down the MRE.

“You appear extraordinarily hungry,” he remarked as she concentrated on swallowing past her dry throat. “Most people in the desert lose their hunger to the heat. How long has it been since you’ve eaten anything?”

After struggling with the last bite of the MRE, she said, “I haven’t eaten since I came to Zabbarán. Maybe it’s been a few days. I’m not sure.”

“The Taj didn’t feed you?”

She took a few more sips from the canteen. “The food they gave us was drugged. I did not dare to touch a bite.”

“How’d you learn about the food being drugged?”

Nikki leaned back and closed her eyes, but her voice was rough. “Lalla took pity on me. We struck up a kind of friendship when I first arrived. She warned me not to eat, and she sneaked clean water in for me to drink.”

“Don’t think about it now. Rest.”

With her eyes closed, Nikki’s mind blocked out all the images of the past few days and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. When she awoke, she couldn’t tell how much time had passed. But Shakir was still sitting in the same place and his eyes were still trained on her. Watching her closely.

“Feeling better? Sleeping should’ve helped.”

She nodded and took a sip from the canteen.

“Nicole … What else did the Taj do to you while you were a captive?”

“Nothing much.” She stretched and wiggled her toes. “They made all the women bathe and forced us to wear special robes. But Lalla told me the elder wanted to keep us pure for the auction. He wouldn’t allow any of the guards to touch us.”

Shakir grimaced and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “The Taj elder planned to auction off the women prisoners.” He sounded angry. “Do you know to whom?”

She shrugged, but then she wasn’t sure he was really seeing her movements in the shade of their cave. He seemed lost in his own world.

“I think it was better that I didn’t know. I’ve been having a hard enough time sleeping as it is.”

Now why had she admitted that? It was a slip of the tongue she should not have made. And she had promised herself to be careful with her words.

Thankfully Shakir did not appear to catch her slip. She wasn’t sure what she would’ve done had he asked her to explain her restlessness. Nikki would never rest again until her son was back in her arms.

Still staring out into dead space, Shakir nodded absently.

Finally he spoke. “How did the Taj capture you? Was it through violence? Were you injured?”

Uh-oh. This explanation could be a minefield if she wasn’t extremely careful.

“No. I came here willingly. I thought I was coming to Zabbarán for a legitimate job. It wasn’t until I arrived at their port city that I realized I was really a prisoner.”

“A job?” Shakir sounded incredulous. “But why would someone like you, a royal princess, need to work?”

Damn it. She wasn’t ready for this explanation yet. How could she be sure that he would not use her story against her somehow?

Who was he—really? He didn’t seem like the same person she remembered loving in her college days. Who had he become over the years?

“Uh … Before I tell you my story, I need to hear yours. What are you doing here? What does your family, your wife, think of this? And tell me how you knew I was in Zabbarán and in need of help. You were looking for me when you came, weren’t you?”

He took a couple of swigs from his water skin and then stared out at a spot over her shoulder. “That’s a lot of questions.” Then he pinned her with a sincere look. “I have no wife. No one who is waiting for my return. And as for why I was looking for you, my older brother, Darin, obtained a listing of foreign women being held prisoner in the Taj elder’s fortress. I spotted your name on the list and knew I had no choice but to come for you.”

“How did your brother get the list? Why would he even have access to such a thing?”

Sudden horrible ideas popped into her head and made Nikki tremble with nerves. Was Shakir’s older brother supposed to have been one of the bidders? Had the Kadirs stolen the women out of the Taj prison so they wouldn’t have to pay for them? Just who was she dealing with here?

She backed up as far into the cave as she could go.

“This may be hard for you to believe,” Shakir began. “But the Taj Zabbar have declared a kind of cold war against the Kadir family.”

“Why would they do that? And if they have, why hasn’t it been on the news?”

His lips spread in a wry smile. “There was a time when you trusted everything I said.” Sighing, he gave his head a slight shake. “I only wish I knew why they hate us today. Our old family legends say the two tribes have been enemies for over five hundred years. And supposedly about fifty years ago, my family took sides against the Taj Zabbar and sided with the country of Kasht, their neighbors.

“The Kasht government offered the Kadirs control of Zabbarán’s only seaport. I guess my grandfather’s generation decided that a deep water port was a good enough prize to trade arms to the Kasht. Unfortunately, those weapons allowed the Kasht to kill and imprison a hell of a lot of the Taj people—women and children included—before they could win their freedom a few years back.”

“I can see why the Taj might hate you. But …” He barked out a sharp laugh. “Yeah, I know. It was a long time ago, and revenge is an odd reason for war. Nevertheless, the Taj have already blown up one of our port facilities in America, killing a dozen people including my uncle. And we’ve tracked the Taj elders’ movements as they’ve made several attempts to kill my brothers and me.”

Shakir’s unusual story rambled around in her head, while she tried to make sense of it. “I can’t say I have any great love for the Taj Zabbar,” she admitted.

But were the Kadirs any better? “I know firsthand that the Taj run their country like a medieval fiefdom. And they apparently have no trouble at all dealing with drug lords and mobsters from around the world. Still, if things are as bad as you say, I don’t see why your family hasn’t gone to the United Nations and the world community seeking help.”

“How do you know we haven’t?”

“I would’ve learned about it from the news.” He opened his hands, palms up, as if trying to find something he could say to make her understand. “The civilized world won’t listen to us without proof. The Taj pretend to be weak and innocent. We’ve been forced to start up a covert defensive army of sorts, designed to gather as much information about the Taj and their activities as possible.”

“So that’s how you learned about the women prisoners being held for auction?” His explanation sounded logical enough.

She had no reason to doubt. She’d already found out just how sneaky and terrifying the Taj Zabbar could be.

“I didn’t think the Kadir family had a home country.” Could the Kadirs fight such a powerful enemy? “I mean, aren’t you Bedouin? How can you possibly manage to protect yourselves without borders to defend?”

“It’s not easy, Nicole. The Kadirs will have to become tougher than the Taj. Fortunately, some of us already are.”