Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
DIYA
I had lost track of time and now it seemed as if I had lost track of reality. Was this a fucking dream?
It had to be. Because try as I might, there was no way to explain what had just happened.
Just one hour ago, my life was normal. Uncomfortable as hell because my mother had forced me to visit the Goels, but normal. And now, the illusion of normal had been blown to smithereens.
What kind of world had I stepped into?
I knew the Goels were ruthless because you didn’t get so rich without stepping on a few backs, but I’d had no idea that they were murderers. And now, thanks to them, I was one too.
I stared at the blood on my hands. I had grabbed a knife from the fruit bowl in my room before I snuck out of the Goel mansion, and I was glad I had it on me when Ayush’s men cornered me. But I had no idea I was actually capable of using it on a living, breathing person. Or that I’d be standing in the middle of the desert in the failing light of the setting sun watching the life drain out of a man’s eyes as blood spurted out of his neck, and his friends came at me with swords. That was never the plan.
The sound of approaching hoofbeats distracted my assailants, and they turned around in surprise.
Before they could react, a gorgeous, black horse was upon them. Its rider threw himself at my assailants and I could only stare open-mouthed as he knocked one guy out with minimal effort. A scarf was loosely wound around his face, obscuring my view, and by the time he took it off to use it as a weapon, his huge horse had come to stand in front of me, protecting me from the fight.
I tried moving around him, but the horse nipped at my shoulder gently and moved to obscure my view again.
“Oww! That hurt,” I hissed, and he turned around and nuzzled my shoulder in apology.
I rested my face against the horse’s neck and breathed deeply, trying to force back my tears.
I didn’t know who my rescuer was or whether he was just another source of danger, but I was grateful for the respite.
The rider growled something softly to my assailants, and I could hear their receding footsteps as they scurried away. I stayed put until I heard their quad bikes drive away, and only then did I step out from behind the horse.
I braced myself for another attack because the man who had driven away the rest of my attackers might have saved my life, but I’d be a fool if I thought he was out to help me. If the last hour had taught me anything, it was that this side of the Thar desert was a lawless land, and it was every man for himself.
The desert was eerily silent in the growing darkness but I refused to cower before this new danger. I knew I should run as fast as I could, but I had been running for the better part of an hour and my legs refused to move any more. My throat was parched and I wondered if this new guy would let me drink some water before he killed me.
The horse neighed loudly as the man turned around slowly.
“Stay away or I’ll kill you,” I snarled, shooting a wary glance at the man who was passed out in the sand next to the man I had killed. It was mostly for show, but I had sworn I wasn’t going down without a fight. I gripped my knife tightly in one hand as my exhausted brain tried to figure out the right moment to attack him.
“Diya, calm down. It’s me,” he said softly, sounding suspiciously like Dheer.
Great! Just fucking great!
I’d heard that the sands messed with your mind in the dark. Mareechika. That’s what my old Dai Ma used to call it. The trickery of the sands.
I needed my mind to cooperate with me right now, and not give in to these untimely hallucinations. For what else could it be? There was no way Dheer - academic, mild-mannered Dheer - had just taken down four men with just a scarf for a weapon. He was a pampered royal just like me, not Indiana Jones.
“Stay the fuck away from me,” I warned, waving my knife wildly.
The man froze and raised his hands slowly.
“It’s Dheer, Diya. I would never hurt you,” he swore, and I gasped as I realised that it was him.
That’s when my knees gave way. I had a feeling I was about to do what I had never done before. I was about to faint.
Dheer grabbed me before I fell and I could hear him swearing loudly as he patted my face. I frowned at the language and wanted to tell him to keep his filthy, betraying hands to himself. But my eyes just wouldn’t open, so I decided to rest them for a minute.
“Don’t you pass out on me, Diya,” he growled. “Don’t be a chicken now, after everything.”
It took a lot of effort, but I managed to raise my middle finger in response to that slur.
“That’s my girl! Now open your eyes and look at me,” he ordered. “Wake up, Diya! We’ve got to get out of here before they send reinforcements.”
He splashed some water on my face and I opened my eyes unwillingly. When I raised my head off his shoulder, the world still spun around me and I still felt queasy, so I took a few shallow breaths as I willed the earth to stop moving like a crazy ball.
“Who were those men?” he asked.
“Ay… Ayush Goel’s men,” I whispered.
“Can you sit up?”
I nodded slowly trying not to jostle my head too much. That was a lie, and Dheer knew it.
“Let me rephrase my question. If I put you on the back of my horse, do you promise not to fall off until we get home?”
“I can make no promises because my home is very far from here,” I informed him, wondering if he had forgotten where I lived. Nine years was clearly a very long time.
“I meant my home,” he explained patiently.
I shook my head more vigorously and forced down the bile that rose in my throat at the sudden movement.
“No! I won’t enter your home.”
Not now. Not ever.
He blew out a short breath and a muscle jumped in his jaw as my meaning struck home.
“You have no choice, Diya. We have to get you to safety before Ayush sends more men after you, and right now, my home is the safest place for you.”
He picked me up like I was a sack of potatoes and set me on his horse sideways.
“Put me down right now,” I yelped.
But Dheer ignored me as he forced my right leg over the edge of the saddle and climbed up behind me. He was facing forward and I was facing him. He reached around me and grabbed the reins.
“Put your arms around me,” he ordered, but I shook my head stubbornly.
He rolled his eyes and I could feel the exasperation in the rigid lines of his body against me.
“Diya, do as I say and put your arms around me, otherwise you’re going to fall off and break your neck,” he snapped.
“My hands… my hands are stained,” I whispered. “With blood.”
He froze in the saddle as he understood my discomfort.
“That’s okay. It’ll wash off,” he replied softly. “Off my clothes and off your hands. I promise.”
“I killed a man, Dheer,” I confessed.
“I know. And if you hadn’t killed him, he would have killed you, Diya. You did well.”
I winced at his praise and raised my head to glare at him. What the hell was wrong with him?
I had just killed a man! There was nothing praiseworthy about it, even if it had been necessary for my safety.
“This isn’t a graphic novel, Dheer. I’m not some sort of superhero, so stop geeking about my killing skills,” I snarled. “I’m a murderer! And I will spend the rest of my life in jail.”
He snorted in derision as he waved a hand at the desert around us.
“There are a lot of bodies and secrets buried in these sands, Diya. You’re not going to jail. My men will see to the cleanup.”
“Ohmigod! What men? What kind of operation are you running here, Dheer? And are we going to ignore the fact that you just Indiana Jones-ed your way across the desert to save my life?”
“Should I have called the police control room instead?” he snapped. “You would have been dead and buried long before they arrived, Diya. I did what I had to do. This is the reality of our lives. We do whatever we need to do to survive in these lands.”
I shuddered in horror at his words. What kind of bizarre alternate reality had I stepped into?
Dheer was one of the most civilised men I knew, so why was he talking like a feudal warlord? And what did he say to those men to scare them off?
We were galloping across the sands by now, and each movement of his horse jolted me closer to Dheer’s body. I tried to hold myself stiff and upright, but it was impossible. Eventually, my neck began to droop and I gave into the temptation of curling up against his broad chest. Only for a minute, I promised myself. His arm tightened around me like a vice and he ran a hand up my back slowly as he held me against him. I looked up into his face, studying it from up close.
He looked so stern and forbidding. This wasn’t the boy who had chased me around the koi pond in my father’s palace before he kissed me for the first time. This also wasn’t the man who had smiled coldly at me as he introduced me to his fiancée. My whole body stiffened at the memory and I bolted upright.
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t touch me,” I spat and tried to pull his arm away from my middle. “You might have saved my life, but that doesn’t give you the right to touch me inappropriately.”
His face was shadowed in the darkness as he glared down at me.
“Babe, if you think this is inappropriate, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” he murmured in a husky voice that sent tremors down my spine. “Now, settle down before you make us both fall off.”
Bastard! I peeked at the ground and regretted it immediately because it seemed so far away from me. Falling off this horse was a sure shortcut to heaven, and I hadn’t been through the battle of a lifetime to die so easily. I held on to Dheer tightly and ignored the soft laugh that vibrated through his chest.