Chapter Eight #3
With a single look, he cut off her objection and as she followed behind Mahmood, who led them towards the small dining room that Malik had always preferred to the large, dynastic room used for entertaining, he could have sworn he heard her mutter something about still not being scared of him.
He smirked, which he covered just before she cut a glance at him over her shoulder. No one had ever teased him the way she seemed to be comfortable doing. No one save Ishmail. And he wasn’t quite sure why that made him feel so pleased and so achingly sad at the same time.
When he saw her eating, he finally felt as if he could breathe.
Colour was beginning to come back into her cheeks and although he could tell that she was tired, she was animatedly talking about the visit earlier that day and also peppered Mahmood with questions about the history of the palace.
He explained how there had been evidence of settlers on this land from over a thousand years before and how each successive generation had built onto what had once been considered nothing more than a military staging ground.
‘I’m thankful that Omrhain is west of you, rather than east. Safe from any invasions from here at least,’ she said with a laugh, and Mahmood looked half in love.
Gone were the nerves that had held her so tight, the misery that had haunted her eyes.
Such a simple thing, telling her that he wasn’t ashamed of her, didn’t blame her…
and she was a different person. She was back to the woman that he had met on the island, and he wasn’t entirely sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
‘Can we go to the baths now?’ she said eagerly, pushing back the now-empty plate of sweet treats that Mahmood had insisted she try.
Malik swallowed. ‘Of course.’
Even though he was beginning to regret that they’d ever been mentioned. It was on the tip of his tongue to make up an excuse, to find something, anything, to get out of what he knew would be pure torture.
‘You’ll join me, won’t you?’ Hana asked.
‘Yes, of course,’ he replied, instead of answering ‘no’ as any sane man would have done.
Malik thought of her as they followed Mahmood down into the lower levels of the palace, the cool marble beneath their feet doing nothing to soothe the cold sweat that was breaking out across his back.
Hana. In the baths. Wet.
You do realise it’s ironic? he imagined his brother asking as he changed out of his clothes and thrust himself beneath the powerful sprays of the shower, cleaning himself so as not to drag sweat and sand into the baths.
That you’re so utterly convinced you can’t lay a finger on your own wife?
She is too innocent, Malik mentally replied.
He could just see Ishmail rolling his eyes.
She wants you, his brother poked.
She’s too naive to know what she wants.
Not so naive that she can’t kidnap a royal. Not so naive she can’t marry, have children, help rule a country.
Children.
Children that could look like her and also like him.
Children that could have a mother who stayed, who defended and protected, who understood, instead of fleeing.
Frustrated with the bent of his thoughts, he let out a growl and accidentally sent a staff member scurrying from the dressing room. He reached for the black izaar, wrapping the long material around his hips and securing it at his waist.
Just before he left, he caught sight of himself in the mirror and realised that for the first time in memory, he’d not wondered how someone—how Hana—would respond to the sight of his shoulder.
Unsettled by what that meant, he stalked from the changing suite, relishing the bank of wet heat that struck him as he entered the beautifully designed baths.
He came to a shocking halt, not from the impressive sight of the turquoise tiled mosaic walls, the huge bronze urns containing ancient ferns, gold lanterns protecting flickering candle flames or incredible shafts of moonlight from the open turret many, many floors above them.
No. All he saw was Hana, dressed in a flowing burgundy silk robe, cinched at an impossibly small waist, that fell elegantly to the floor and draped over the breasts into a near scandalous V that made him want to cover her with his body.
Instantly he was engulfed with a kind of desire he’d never experienced before.
He was burned, scarred, not by a childhood accident, but by her, irrevocably and completely.
Her hair fell down to the base of her spine, with the front sections twisted back and out of her face.
She had transformed once again into the jinn that had haunted his dreams and threatened to capture his heart, and he both wanted and hated her for it.
She was a weakness he didn’t have the strength to deny.
And when she turned and levelled that excited gaze on his, he saw the exact moment her eyes heated at the sight of him, the way her breath caught in her chest, the gentle flush beneath skin bronzed by the sun, and for the first time in his life he wanted to be the beast he was rumoured to be, so that he could take what he wanted from her so desperately.