Chapter 15 #2
stood, having proved she was as trapped by nature and tradition as
every other woman.
She lifted her head and met her mother’s
unwavering gaze. The love and understanding Sahar saw there burst
the dam of her tears. She got on the bed and laid her head in her
mother’s lap and cried. She cried for the girl who had ridden off
determined to win the race, certain that her winning would change
the ways of the world and the minds of men. She cried for the woman
who had returned, wiser in the ways of the world and men, of the
hard truths and venal lies to be learned and dealt with, and of the
selfishness and selflessness that warred within each and every
person. She cried for the loss of her false pride, for Munir’s
injuries and Kedar’s death. She cried out the days and nights of
fear and hunger and depravation suffered under Yago’s short but
cruel reign. Then she sobbed her heart out for the passion she had
discovered with Aleksi, and might never know again.
The only thing she didn’t cry over was the
child she might be carrying. She held a fierce certainty she would
love that child no matter what happened between her and its
father.
As her sobs subsided, she became aware of her
mother’s soft, soothing voice crooning calming words and her
fingers tenderly combing Sahar’s hair from her wet cheeks. The last
of her tears finally spent, she rolled over onto her back and
stared up into her mother’s concerned face.
“Do you love him?”
There was no need to ask her mother who she
meant. “I don’t know,” she said. “Truly, I don’t.” She rolled over
onto her side and curled into herself. “It doesn’t matter. We’ll
marry if I’m with child, and if not, we’ll go our separate ways, as
we were always meant to do.”
She closed her eyes with a long, weary sigh,
and when she woke, her mother was gone and the sun was low in the
western sky.
Aleksi entered the great hall lit with
torches and candles, the savory scent of the coming feast teasing
his still half-starved body. He made his way past the rings of
tables and the hearty welcomes mixed with backhanded whispers to
the royal family’s long table and took his seat of honor to Sahar’s
right, who sat to the queen’s right. Beside the queen sat the king,
and to his left were two empty seats for Prince Asim, his wife,
Princess Rima, and their newborn son, the princeling Ammar, whose
birth they were celebrating along with the safe return of Sahar and
Aleksandr.
“Princess,” Aleksi dipped his head to Sahar
as he slid onto the bench beside her. The knot on her forehead was
no more than a raised bump, the bruises on her face no more than a
pale mottling barely visible beneath a light dusting of face
powder, and the raw welts on her wrists had faded to thin red
lines. She was still too thin, but in the seven days since the king
had found them and fed them, the hollows of her cheeks had fleshed
out some and her skin had resumed its tawny glow. Skin he knew the
taste and feel of intimately, and his body craved even more than
the sumptuous feast being set out before them. “You look much
rested.”
“As do you, Aleksandr.”
So, he was back to Aleksandr. No breathless,
panting my stallion moaned into his ear. No conversational,
companionable Aleksi. Not even a spitting, snarling
arrogant ass hissed at him. Aleksandr. The formal name of a
stranger.
He rubbed his shaven jaw, and caught the
faint flicker of gold in her eyes. He gave her a purposely cocky
grin, and her eyes flashed green fire. He laughed, short and quick.
She was not indifferent to him, no matter how hard she tried to
seem so in front of the watchful gazes and wagging tongues of the
assembled.
A murmuring of those tongues grew louder as
Prince Asim, carrying his newborn son in one arm, his wife holding
onto his other, walked slowly to the royal table. Both prince and
princess were beaming, their pride and joy in the bundled babe and
each other obvious. Aleksi glanced at Sahar, and saw the tears
welling in her eyes and her hand over her belly. He started to
reach out, to place his hand over hers, and drew back. Aleksi’s
touch she would’ve accepted, perhaps even welcomed, but not
Aleksandr’s.
Prince Asim helped his wife to her seat and
tenderly set their son in her cradled arms before sitting. King
Asad leaned over and said something that only they could hear,
which made his son laugh. The queen swiped a tear from her cheek,
and Princess Rima placed a kiss on her son’s forehead. Aleksi was
mesmerized by the familial intimacy of the moment, something he had
never known or seen, and he realized with a start that Sahar was
watching him, her gaze dark and fathomless.
“Welcome,” King Asad called out as he stood.
“Welcome all to this feast celebrating the birth of the Prince
Ammar and the safe return of Princess Sahar and Aleksandr to our
family.”
Loud claps and whistles broke out in the
great hall, and though Aleksi knew they were for Sahar and the
babe, still he felt a warmth in his chest at the inclusion of his
name with the word “family.” He tried to imagine how it would feel
to become an actual part of this family, to be welcomed and honored
as Sahar’s husband. A stupid dream of an illicit lover, the bastard
son of a king. The only way he’d be accepted into this royal family
was if his seed had taken root and was growing in Sahar’s womb.
Then his dilemma would be staying to be
consort to a princess, always less than his royal wife and her
family, and never his own man, or dragging her back to his
homeland, bringing her down to his level, wife of a bastard horse
trader.
“To the Prince Ammar,” someone shouted, and
Aleksi realized it was Nasim, the Cheetah, brother and chief
counsel to the king, and uncle to Asim.
“To the Prince Ammar,” the gathering
responded, lifting their goblets high.
“To Princess Sahar,” Nasim said, lifting his
goblet again. “The first woman to ever ride in the races. Who not
only rode, but won the first and placed in the second, and who
survived the third, despite the Wolf’s treachery.”
“To Princess Sahar.”
“To Aleksandr.” He lifted his goblet and
nodded to Aleksi. “Who saved the life of my future son-in law,
Munir, and who brought my niece home safe to us.”
“To Aleksandr.” The chorus of voices was
praise Aleksi took pride in.
He glanced at Sahar, and she at him, her
cheeks flushed and her eyes flaming. It took every shred of
self-will to keep from pulling her up beside him, to fold her in
his embrace and claim her in front of her family with a kiss as
heated and passionate as her glare.
He stood alone and faced the gathering.
“To friends old,” he said, raising his goblet
to where Pyotr and Serge sat at a table a few rings back from the
titled, “and to friends new.” He raised his goblet to Munir, who
sat at the end of the royal table with Halah. He raised his goblet
to the queen and the king. “To my generous and honorable hosts,” he
said, and then lifted his goblet to Prince Asim and his wife, “and
to the newest and cherished son of this esteemed family.” He looked
down at Sahar and lifted his goblet high. “To Princess Sahar, who
rode as good a race as any man, and who saved my life as surely as
I saved hers.”
The gathering clapped and whistled as Sahar
slowly stood, a fine sheen of sweat beading on her flushed cheeks
and forehead. Aleksi started to sit, and stopped when she grabbed
his hand and held on tight. She took a sip of her wine and cleared
her throat.
“To my family,” she said. “For believing in
me enough to let me go and loving me enough to bring me back.” Her
father chuffed and her mother smiled and swiped at her tears.
Sahar’s voice caught and cracked. “To my—my brother, and his loving
wife and their glorious son, born of their love. I am so very happy
for you.” She sniffed and Aleksi gave her hand a gentle squeeze.
“To Aleksandr,” she said. “Who could have easily won the last and
most prized of the races, but who chose to come after me instead.”
She raised her goblet to him. “He saved me from evil men intent on
evil deeds.”
Aleksi lifted her hand in his and placed his
lips on the back of her fingers, inhaling her warm, exotic
fragrance. The hall filled with a mixture of applause and whispers,
rent by a shrill feminine twitter.
“Are you courting the princess now, my
bastard half-brother?”
Aleksi lowered his and Sahar’s hands, but
didn’t let go. “If I was, Anastasia,” he answered her evenly, “it
would be of no concern to anyone but myself and Princess Sahar’s
family.”
“What of your family?” she insisted with such
high-handedness that Aleksi bit off a snort of laughter.
“What family is that?” he said. “I’m the
bastard son of a king who does not claim me. I have no family.”
Wearing nothing but a loose bed tunic, Aleksi
went to the door of his chambers that led to a small balcony
overlooking the inner courtyard and opened it at the light but
insistent knocking.
“Sahar? What are you doing here at this time
of night?”
She nodded toward the hundred-year-old cedar
that ruled over the courtyard gardens. “Get dressed and meet me in
the tree,” she said, and then slipped back over the balcony wall
and down the trellis she’d climbed to his rooms.
He quickly donned a pair of breeches and went
over the balcony wall to the hand and footholds carved into the
ancient cedar’s trunk. He climbed up, then pushed open the trap
door to a platform built amongst its sturdy branches. There he
found a small gallery with high rails, two benches and a pile of
pillows and blankets strewn about. Sahar was sitting cross-legged
on a blanket on the floor, her back against one of the benches.
Aleksi sat, crossed his legs and leaned his back against the
opposite bench.
“I’m sorry if I woke you,” she said.
He shook his head. “I wasn’t sleeping. I find
I’m not used to such comfort. In truth, I find my bed too soft and
too empty.”
“I find my bed too empty these past nights as
well,” she admitted.
He reached out to pull her to him, and she
held out a stiffened arm. “That’s not the reason I asked you to
meet me here.”
“No,” he said, pulling his hand back and