Buch lesen: «The Sheikh's Reluctant Queen: The Sheikh's Destiny»

One

Laylah Aal Shalaan felt a shiver burn down her spine.

It wasn’t the below-zero Chicago December evening. That would have caused ice, not fire, to shudder through her veins.

This sensation had scalded through her so many times during the past few weeks, it was as if she were having hot flashes. Which would be some record at age twenty-seven. But then she held other unwelcome records. Like being the only female born to her family in forty years. Why not throw in premature menopause, too?

Not that she really thought abnormal hormones were at work here. An outside influence was. One she couldn’t detect when she’d tried to investigate it, though she’d been certain of its cause for some time.

Someone was watching her.

This felt nothing like having the security detail she’d once had breathing down her neck. Those men had never tried to hide themselves, and to hell with her personal space. Though she shouldn’t have resented them. They’d been doing their job. Of course, with her safety no longer among anyone’s priorities for the past two years, there were no more guards dogging her steps.

Not that she thought that she needed protection. She observed normal safety protocols, like anyone who lived in Chicago did. And since she’d exiled herself from Zohayd and come to live in the Windy City, she always had.

Until tonight.

Usually she would go home with Mira, her business partner and roommate. But Mira had left to see her father, who had been taken to the E.R. in another state. So here she was, alone at night for the first time in more than two years, leaving the deserted building from the back exit that opened onto an equally empty back street.

Not that that had anything to do with what she now felt.

She’d entered the building accompanied by the sensation of being enveloped in that watchful force field. She’d stepped out only to be caught in its electrifying embrace again.

Strangest part was, she didn’t feel threatened by that unwavering intent. Just burning with curiosity and… excitement?

She looked across the street at three parked cars. The nearest had a man slamming the hood, getting inside and driving away with the exhaust firing. The next one, also nondescript, was pulling away from the curb, too. The farthest one, a late-model Mercedes with dark windows, looked empty.

Before she could decide where the influence was radiating from, the second car suddenly floored its engine.

Before she could draw another breath, the car screeched to a halt beside her and its doors burst open. Four men exploded out. She’d barely taken two running steps when they swarmed her.

Hulking bodies and coarse faces, distorted with vile intent, filled her vision. Blood and time thickened, hindering her heartbeat and reactions as hands sank into her flesh, each dig creating a bolt of outrage and terror.

Dread exploded in her chest, fury in her skull as she lashed out with everything she had, even as shards of dialogue lodged into her brain.

“Iz only one, man.”

“Tom said there’d be two. You better not pay half now.”

“Iz the one we want. Ye’ll get yer dough.”

“You said she’d fall at ‘ur feet sniveling but she ain’t no pushover. She almost kneed me.”

“An’ she might’ve scratched m’eye out!”

“You quit snivelin’ an’ stuff ‘er in the car.”

Each word sank a talon of realization into Laylah’s brain. This wasn’t a random attack. They knew her routine.

No. They couldn’t be the presence she’d been sensing!

They dragged her closer to the car. Once they shoved her inside, it would be over.

She exploded in another manic struggle, drawing blood and shouts of pain and rage until a jackhammer collided with her jaw. Agony turned her brain into shrapnel.

Suddenly, through the vortex of crimson-blotched darkness, one of her attackers seemed to be sucked away as if into a black hole. He slammed into the side of the building with a sickening crunch.

A second assailant turned away, but a hair-raising crack sent his blood arcing inches from her face. His terrified gaze bored into hers before his body slammed into her as if from the impact of a speeding car. He took her down with him.

She struggled under his dead weight, fear pulsing through her disorientation. Who had come to her rescue? Would they turn on her once they had finished off her attackers?

The body pinning her down was heaved away. She wriggled up frantically on the freezing sidewalk and saw… saw…

Him.

A fallen angel. Huge, dark, ominous. Frightening in his beauty, radiating power and menace. Almost impossible to bear looking at, yet equally impossible to look away from.

And she knew him. She’d known him all her life.

But it couldn’t be him. Not only had he changed almost beyond recognition, but what would he be doing here? Now? When she’d been certain she’d never see him again?

Was her jolted brain conjuring up an imaginary savior?

If so, why not one of her cousins who were as well equipped to fill the role? Why him?

Why Rashid Aal Munsoori?

But with her senses stabilizing, no doubt remained. It was Rashid. A remote, if steady, presence in her life during her first seventeen years. The man she’d had a crush on since before she could remember.

He was now facing the remaining two attackers like a monolith, his one-of-a-kind face carved from the coldness of the night, majestic head almost shaved, juggernaut body swathed in a coat that flapped around him like angry creatures from the abyss.

The men recovered from their shock, charged him, snarling, slashing switchblades at him. Dread deluged her.

Unfazed by her shout or their attack, Rashid maneuvered like a matador fielding raging bulls, harnessing the mindlessness of their charge against them. His arms and legs lashed out in a choreography of deadly precision, his methods merciless, flawless, as second nature as breathing was to her. He looked like an avenging demon reveling in vanquishing the loathsome quarry he lived to prey on.

By the time she pulled herself to her feet, Rashid had the two men plastered against the building. One had lost consciousness. The other hung in the air, feet kicking feebly.

Over the night’s moaning wind, she heard rumbles issuing from Rashid. They didn’t sound human.

For a crazy moment, she thought they might not be. That he did have some… entity inhabiting him, one that wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than taking those men’s lives.

That conviction broke her paralysis. “You’ll kill them!”

At her choking protest he turned his head and… ya Ruhmaan.

Merciful God—what had happened to him? He barely resembled the man she’d obsessed over all her life. The eerie blankness in his eyes, the serene viciousness baring his teeth. Like a beast in killing mode.

And that scar…

“And?”

She shuddered. His voice. It completed the impression. That some demon occupied him, had taken him over, was metamorphosing his body to suit its nature and needs, was using his voice to transmit its darkness and danger.

This man who’d once been Rashid was serious in his question. He had no compunction about killing in principle, and none at all about snuffing out the lives of the thugs he’d conquered.

There was no way to appeal to the mercy of this creature. He had none. Of that she was certain. She couldn’t use fear of consequences, either. She was as sure he felt no fear of any sort. He seemed to feel nothing but violence and vengeance. It was as if he’d stepped in to punish the criminals, not to save her, the victim.

Only appealing to his logic remained.

“And there’s no need.” She could barely form words in her frozen, constricted throat. “You’ve already beaten them—to a pulp. None of them will be out of intensive care anytime soon.”

“Putting them back together will be a gross waste of medical resources. I should spare society the cost of their continued existence.” He turned his eyes to the man wriggling and whimpering in his hold. “Scum like this don’t deserve to live.”

She ventured closer, feeling as if she was interrupting a lion’s kill. “A death sentence is over the top for their crime, don’t you think?”

Still looking at the struggling man, Rashid said, “The ones they’ve committed so far, you mean. They would have probably ended up killing you—”

“No, man…” The man choked, terror flowing from his eyes. “We were only… goin’ to hold ‘er… for ransom. A bro recognized ‘er for a princess… from one o’ those filthy rich oil kingdoms… said we’d get… serious dough… for ‘er. We weren’t going to hurt ‘er… or touch ‘er…” he spluttered the qualification when Rashid squeezed his throat harder. “I… swear. Danny got carried away when she hit him… and you probably killed him for it… but I didn’t do anything to her… don’t kill me… please…”

In spite of everything, she pitied this flimsy creature in the body of a brute. He’d been reduced to blubbering in the grip of a force the likes of which he hadn’t known existed.

The imbalance of power should have been in their favor, four hulks versed in violence. But Rashid had overpowered them like a superior feline would a pack of rats.

But it was as if he didn’t even feel her there, had been debating with his inner demon the actions he should take, finding only approval from it.

She had one last shot before this situation passed the point of no return. Give him, and that demon, something to appease their merciless convictions.

She ventured a touch on his arm, flinched. Even through the layers of clothes, electricity arced from the steel cables he had for muscles to strike her to her toes.

She swallowed a lump of agitation. “Wouldn’t you rather they live to suffer the consequences of their crimes? You’ve probably given them all some permanent disability.”

When his dark gaze turned to her again, it felt as if he was seeing her for the first time, letting her and her words breach the barrier of his implacability.

Suddenly, he unclenched his hands. The men, both unconscious now, thudded to the ground like sacks of bricks.

Relief shuddered through her, the freezing air filling her lungs. Rashid had killed before. But it had been as a soldier in three wars. Here, it would have been different. And she couldn’t have even those thugs’ deaths on her conscience.

As he stood appraising his handiwork, she sensed his demon scratching at its containment to be let loose to finish its job. But Rashid seemed in control of their symbiosis again, back to being the ultramodern desert knight who had the world at his feet and everyone in it at his disposal.

He produced his cell phone, called the police then an ambulance. Then he turned to her. “Did they hurt you?”

At his question, she suddenly felt the imprint of their hands all over her arms and back. But the epicenter of pain was the left side of her jaw. Her hand flew to it instinctively.

He urged her below a streetlight. She stumbled at the feel of his hand on her arm, then again as he kicked one of the thugs in the head when he began to stir. The contrast between his violence with her attacker and his gentleness with her was staggering.

Once within the circle of light, his hand moved hers away from her face so he could examine it.

“Maybe I will kill them after all.”

She almost flinched at his verdict, attempted to make light of it. “For a right hook?”

“That was the beginning of the abuse that would have left you scarred for life, if not physically then psychologically. They do deserve to die.” She grabbed his arm as he moved, feeling she had as much chance of stopping him as she would a hurricane. His muscles eased beneath her frantic fingers. “Relax. I’ll only make them wish I had killed them.”

“How about you leave it to the law to deal with them?”

His hooded eyes grew heavier with disapproval. “You’d rather let them get away with it?”

“Certainly not. I just believe in appropriate punishment.”

Those lethal eyes flared ebony fire. “What would be appropriate for abusing and kidnapping a woman, putting her through hell fearing for her life, before maybe ending it?”

She bit her lip at the terrible scenario that could have come to pass if not for him. “When you put it that way, a death sentence doesn’t look too extreme. But that didn’t happen.”

“Only because I stopped them.”

“And now we can’t punish them for what could have been, only for what actually was.”

“That’s according to the law—here. Where I come from only hadd’al herabah is appropriate punishment for this heinous crime.”

She shuddered again as she imagined the ancient punishment sanctioned in their home region for those caught red-handed in major crimes like this—amputating an arm and a leg from opposing sides.

Deeming the subject closed, he turned to the fallen goons. And she saw it. A glistening wetness below his coat.

Sick electricity forked through her as she grabbed his arm, jerked him into the light. He pulled away from her frantic grip, made her grasp him to restore her balance. Her hands sank into the unmistakable warmth of blood.

She tore them away, looked down at her crimson-stained palms before looking up at him in horror. “You’re injured!”

His gaze moved from her upturned hands to his midriff before travelling up to hers. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” she exclaimed. “You’re bleeding! Ya Ullah!”

Something like… annoyance? Impatience? simmered in his eyes. “It’s just a scratch.”

“A scratch? Your whole left side is drenched in blood.”

“And?” There he went again with that and of his. “Are you squeamish? I hope you won’t faint.”

“Squeamish?” she exclaimed. “It’s you I’m worried about…”

Dread clogged her throat, more suffocating than anything she’d felt on her own account. His nonchalance had to be shock. His wound had to be severe to bleed that much, to not have registered its pain yet. Adrenaline and cold must be all that was keeping him on his feet. By the time the ambulance arrived, it might be too late…

Stem his bleeding. Buy him time.

Tearing her scarf from around her neck, she lunged at him, pressing its creamy softness against the tear in his sweater. He stiffened, his hands covering hers as if to push them away.

She threw her weight at him, pressing him back against the side of the building, panting now. “We must apply pressure.”

He stilled against her, stared down at her, his face a mask. Was he on the verge of losing consciousness?

He undid her hands, replaced them with his. “I’ll do it.” She sensed that he would, not because he believed he needed it, but to keep her away. “You can go now.”

Huh? He didn’t only want her to stay away, but to go away?

She shook her head, hands smeared in his blood trembling. “I have to be here when the police arrive.”

He reached for her hands, wiping them clean with the other end of the scarf. “I’ll say they attacked me. Those lowlifes will welcome my adjustment. A jury will give them a lesser sentence for attacking me rather than you.”

“But you wanted them to get the harshest punishment possible.”

“Whatever sentence the law passes won’t be that. I am bound by no such limitations, and I’ll make sure they’ll never think of doing this to anyone else ever again.”

“You mean you want them to get off lightly so you can administer your own brand of justice…?” She threw her hands up in the air. “What are we talking about? You’re injured. And I’m going nowhere but to the E.R. with you.”

“Since I’m not going to the E.R., the only place you can go now is home.” At her head shake, his voice hardened. “Take my car and drive a few blocks away. My guards will come to escort you back home. They’ll come up with you to make sure the coast is clear and will stand guard until we make sure this abduction plan had no contingencies.” When she didn’t move or answer he exhaled forcibly. “Go now, before the police arrive. You’ve been through enough on those scums’ account. Walk away and forget this ever happened.”

“I can’t and won’t leave you. And you will go to the E.R. Is that your car?” She indicated the imposing Mercedes.

He nodded. “I stopped to send a file from my phone.”

“And that’s when you saw me being attacked.”

He didn’t nod again, his gaze growing incapacitating.

“Give me your keys.” A formidably winged eyebrow told her what he thought of her demand. “I’m driving you to the E.R.”

“As you pointed out, I can’t leave the crime scene. The police will be here in minutes.”

“They can take our statements at the E.R. You might succumb to hypothermia and shock in those minutes.”

“I will succumb to nothing. I’ve had injuries a dozen times worse, endured them for days in conditions that make these pleasant in comparison.”

She knew he wasn’t exaggerating. She couldn’t imagine what he’d endured in war, couldn’t bear to think what kind of injury had given him that blood-curdling scar that slithered like an angry snake from his left eye down to his jaw, neck… and below.

Noticing her eyes on his scar, his lips compressed. “As you can see I’ve survived far worse. Don’t concern yourself over this glorified paper cut.”

Retorts fired in her mind, froze on her tongue. What did he think her? A selfish twit who’d grab the easy way out and run away?

But if he thought so, then…”You don’t recognize me?”

That eyebrow rose again. “I need to know someone to come to their rescue?”

“That’s not what I meant.” She knew he’d defend to the death anyone in need of his superior powers. He’d once made a career of it as a warrior. He’d clearly never stopped being one.

He just as clearly hadn’t recognized her.

Then he said, “Of course I recognized you. Just like the one who sent those goons did. You’re more recognizable than you evidently think you are, Princess Laylah.”

So he did recognize her. Which actually shouldn’t have been a sure thing. There’d been far… less of her when he’d last seen her, and she’d been wearing glasses back then, too. He’d always made her feel he’d never seen her, the way he’d look through her, like he had everyone else. Even now, nothing in his demeanor indicated that he knew her. The reticent Rashid she’d known had become impenetrable.

“I saw you many times around the city before tonight.”

Would this man stop surprising her? “Y-you did? Where?”

“I have offices in this building. You also frequent the restaurants I do.”

He had been the presence she’d felt!

Now that made sense. As did the fact that he hadn’t thought of acknowledging her until he’d been forced to, to save her life no less. She’d always known Rashid had been a far-fetched dream, but he’d become an impossible one after he’d turned from her closest cousins’ best friend to their mortal enemy.

“You clearly don’t recognize me,” he added.

“I’d as soon not recognize myself, Sheikh Rashid.”

Everything in him seemed to hit Pause. The wind, the whole world followed suit.

Okay. That had come out too… revealing. Another attack of what her mother called her “crassness affliction.” She’d thought she had it under control, but it seemed she couldn’t control her brash candor any more than her mother’s family could their crooked ways.

So be it. She’d never be able to give him anything of equal value to what he’d given her tonight, so she’d at least give him the truth. He could do with it as he wished.

It appeared he was at a loss what to do with it. Her confession had clearly stunned him.

His response, when it finally came, was to pretend he hadn’t heard it and to pursue his previous point. “Back my statement, that they attacked me and not you, and I will go to the E.R.”

He was trying to spare her the postattack ordeal, from the investigations through to the trial.

Still…”I can’t let you bear the burden of this mess.”

Those daunting shoulders barely moved in dismissal. “In comparison to the messes I deal with daily, this is a breeze.”

She’d bet. Rashid had created his IT development empire from scratch in record time. He must have dealt with endless obstacles and adversaries to remain at the top of such a cutthroat field. And it would be a mess for her, sabotaging the peaceful life and low profile she’d struggled to create since she’d left Zohayd.

“Okay.” The tension gripping the night eased, until she added, “But only if you let me drive you to the E.R.”

“You think I won’t keep my word?”

“I think you’d keep your word even if it meant your life.”

Another long, empty stare greeted her statement, which she now realized signified surprise. “Why this stipulation, then? You think I can’t drive myself?”

It was her turn to shrug. “I’m taking no chances.”

His grimness deepened until she was certain he’d say no.

Suddenly, he handed her the bloody scarf. She fumbled with it as if with a hot coal as he fished inside his coat for a pen and a notebook. He scribbled a few lines, tore the paper out, bent and tucked it onto a thug. A calling card on gifts for the police?

The thug stirred as Rashid whispered in his ear before slamming him into the ground, snuffing his consciousness again.

Calmly rising, he retrieved the scarf from her limp fingers, turned on his heels and crossed the street to his car.

He was leaving?

She watched him go, at a loss for what to do.

Instead of taking the wheel, he walked around to the passenger’s side. Then, leaning over the car’s top, he looked across the distance at her. “Coming?”

Her heart gave a thunderclap of relief as she stumbled into a run, her four-inch stilettos a staccato of eagerness on the asphalt.

In seconds she was inside the posh car, heard faint sirens in the distance as the door closed behind her with a muted thud.

Trembling with the urge to throw herself at him and hug him, she turned to him. “Thank you.”

He ignored that. “Are we waiting for them after all?”

“Oh, no.” She fumbled for the ignition, discovered that the car was running, the motor so smooth it didn’t produce sound or vibration. The car was such a dream to handle that even in her state, she drove to the nearest E.R. without incident.

As she parked, he turned to her. “Now drive home. I’ll have the car and a driver at your disposal from now on.”

He was almost out of the car before she flung herself after him. “I’m coming in with you.”

His stare was even more spectacular in close quarters. “The deal was to drive me here, not escort me inside.”

She clutched his arm tighter. “New deal, then.”

“You have nothing to thank me for.”

Now he answered her earlier thank you.

“I wasn’t thanking you for saving my life, since I figured you’d have an allergic reaction to that. I was thanking you for letting me bargain with my safety for yours. Don’t revert to being an aggravating superhero and insist on walking into the night alone.”

After yet another long stare, he turned and exited the car.

Her heart constricted with disappointment and anxiety. If she persisted now, she’d be imposing on him.

Well, tough. That big, bad warrior would just have to use his endless stamina to put up with her concern.

The moment she was out of the car, her heart gave that boom that only he provoked. He was standing at the E.R. entrance, his pose worthy of the superhero she’d likened him to, one hand braced on his lean hips, the other still gripping her bloody scarf.

He was waiting for her.

She ran toward him, her heartbeat overtaking her feet.

Before she reached him, those cruelly sensuous lips twitched. Was that a smile? She wouldn’t know. She’d never seen him smile.

Before she could make sure, he turned and strode inside.

He had her running to keep up with him, demonstrating that her concern was needless. And that he wouldn’t make it easy for her to see her purpose through.

Once she knew he’d be okay, she’d show him exactly how much she’d put up with to be with him. That, if he let her, she would follow him to the ends of the earth.