Twenty-Eight
T he women’s tent at the camp of the Ibn Rashid was swathed in the softer gloom of the hour before sunrise when Ellie was shaken awake.
“It is time,” Zeinab ordered, then moved away without further ceremony.
Ellie forced herself up from her pillow, still groggy. She tidied herself quickly and silently before slipping out of the tent to where Zeinab and the other ladies waited in their black abayas and headscarves.
Adam and Sayyid stood beside them. Adam was still without a jacket, which Ellie knew he did not mind in the least. That he had kept on his braces seemed like a minor concession to propriety.
He was holding something in his hand, flipping it distractedly in his fingers as he gazed out at the desert. It winked gold as it caught a fragment of the low lamplight from the entrance to the tent, and Ellie recognized it as Adam’s compass. The case was dented and scratched, the hinges dulled with a hint of rust.
She recalled the engraving she had seen inside the lid back in British Honduras.
To A—May you always know your path. GB
GB. George Bates.
“How did you sleep?” she asked.
He turned to her, and the pensive creases at the corners of his eyes were replaced by a smile like a slowly dawning desert sun.
“Great,” he replied with a look that felt like a caress. “You?”
His sun-stained hair stuck out at odd angles, and his jaw was darkened by a day’s growth of beard. He appeared… well, delectable, really. Ellie’s cheeks heated a bit at the sight.
“Very well, thank you,” Ellie managed to reply.
One of the leggy gold-hued dogs from the evening before sat at Adam’s feet, gazing up at him adoringly as it panted. Adam gave it a happy rub between the ears as he looked back over the camp. “I like this place.”
Ellie followed his gaze. A cluster of Bedouin men were roasting beans for another pot of coffee. A few of the dogs chased around the open ground beside them. Quiet laughter rose from the women’s tent nearby.
Ellie flashed him a warm smile. “They probably have splendid sunsets,” she noted meaningfully.
Adam met her eyes. “You remember that, huh?”
The echo of his words sang through her mind, coming to her as readily as a note from an old book.
When I get to the end of the day, I just want to take off my boots and watch the sky change for a little while.
“I remember,” Ellie replied simply, looking up at him.
Zeinab cast an assessing gaze over the group, which included both Jemmahor and Umm Wasseem, who was just finishing up her dawn prayer.
Her eyes lingered for an extra breath on the figure of her husband.
“Yalla,” she ordered. She picked up a bundle of gear that included ropes, lanterns, and an iron crowbar, then set off across the desert.
They walked across the dry, flat ground of the plateau for about half a mile, the dog trotting happily in their wake. As they approached a low, stony ridge, Ellie startled at a strange sound from around the corner ahead of them. It was a distinctly animal noise somewhere between a grunt and a yawp, utterly unlike anything she had heard before.
“What was that?” she demanded with a dart of alarm.
“Our transportation,” Zeinab replied.
They rounded the ridge, revealing a scrubby patch of grass where a herd of lumpy, intimidatingly large animals grazed contentedly.
Adam’s eyes lit up with delight. “Camels!”
The dromedaries were decked out in double-horned saddles covered in thick, colorful blankets. Tassels dangled from their harnesses, giving them a festive air that did nothing to offset the deep misgiving that Ellie felt as she looked at them. The beasts looked taller even than horses, with the added complication of their enormous humps. Where was one supposed to sit when a great big mound stood in the way?
“Sheikh Mohammed has granted us the use of his caravan for the journey to Tell al-Amarna,” Zeinab reported. “His younger son Mustafa and nephew Yusuf will guide us.”
Ellie pulled her gaze from the intimidating animals to the two Bedouin gentlemen who accompanied them.
They were possibly the most attractive men she had ever seen.
Yusuf was tall and broad, with a luxuriant mustache. Even through the flowing cut of his quftan, he was obviously of an exceptionally robust build. A rifle hung across his back, while a pair of wicked daggers were tucked into either side of his belt. They were at least as long as Adam’s machete but thinner and dangerously curved.
Mustafa, the sheikh’s son, was shorter than his cousin, with the fit grace of a panther. His rich bronze complexion contrasted strikingly with a pair of sharp gray eyes that reminded Ellie of the inescapable focus of a hawk. His haughty, angular features were perfectly accented by an elegantly trimmed beard.
While Yusuf stood with his feet braced and his hands on the hilts of his daggers, Mustafa lounged against a rock with his scimitar at his side, his posture mingling confident repose and a natural authority.
Neither fellow could have been older than Ellie, but they looked fully capable of taking on a small army—should they have deigned to do so.
Ellie did not realize that she had fallen into a line of women gaping at the two cousins until she was startled by the distinct tones of Umm Waseem’s wheezing chuckle.
“Allahu ‘akhbar,” the older woman commented wickedly before walking on.
“What did she say?” Ellie asked a little distractedly, watching transfixed as Mustafa rose from his rock to gaze out across the desert, the breeze rippling the silk folds of his quftan.
“God is great,” Jemmahor replied with a sigh. “And He really is.”
The younger woman followed the rest of the party, forcing Ellie to hurry after her—though she found herself less than eager to approach the grunting, yawning flock of camels. The sheikh’s caravan admittedly looked majestic with their saddle bells jingling softly in the pale light of imminent sunrise, but Ellie could barely manage a donkey.
The camels looked both larger and significantly less stable than donkeys.
Mustafa called out an order, and with a groan, one of the beasts lowered itself down to sit on the ground.
Zeinab hopped nimbly onto the saddle, folding her legs beneath her with practiced ease.
The Bedouin gave another order, and the camel rose—but not all at once. In a manner that seemed designed to toss one to the ground, first the front half of the animal straightened, tilting the saddle to an alarming angle before the rear end deigned to join in.
Zeinab rode it all out with no apparent trouble.
Umm Waseem set her black satchel on the back of the saddle of her mount. Ellie studied the bag carefully. Would the stout older woman have tossed it up there quite so casually if it were full of explosives?
Ellie’s own camel waited placidly in front of her. She eyed it with unease.
Clearly intent on pressing its advantage, the creature made an even more unsettling noise, then extruded a wet glob of spit, which landed in the sand near her boots.
“Perhaps I can simply walk to Tell al-Amarna,” Ellie offered reasonably as Adam joined her.
“Want a hand up?” Adam offered, eyes twinkling with amusement.
The camel ground its teeth, which were far too close to Ellie’s face. The sound was terrifying.
“I would really rather not go up at all,” Ellie admitted.
“Who’s a beautiful girl?” Adam said warmly.
Ellie realized that he was addressing the remark to the camel. She wondered how he could be sure that the creature was female—until she glanced past it at the beast that Mustafa was riding and noted the presence of an enormous and very obviously male set of accouterments dangling between its legs.
“That’s right, gorgeous,” Adam continued happily. “Now, how about you sit down? Hoosh!”
Yusuf had used the word a minute earlier for Jemmahor’s ride. Adam accompanied it with a tap to the camel’s knee—and with a groan and an awkward lurch, the monster knelt.
Of course, he had already figured out how to wrangle the beasts. Why wouldn’t it take him more than five minutes to do it?
He was Adam Bates.
Adam held out his hand. “This is the part where you climb on, Princess.”
The sun chose that moment to breach the horizon. The first rays of dawn fell across his rugged profile, gilding it with light. His eyes were warm and happy as he gazed down at her.
Words burst from Ellie’s lips on a wave of pride and affection. “You really are magnificent, you know.”
Adam stilled as though her remark had struck him like a dart. A grin slowly lit up his face.
“You saying that to be nice?” His tone shifted from a rich warmth to wryness. “Or to put off getting in this saddle?”
The tease was casual—but the brightness in his eyes was real. The glow of it filled Ellie up like the light of dawn spreading across the sky.
Jemmahor’s laugh cut through the air, and the camel brayed, reminding Ellie that she wasn’t alone. She glanced over at the rest of their party.
Umm Waseem waited nearby with implacable patience. Sayyid exchanged a quiet word with his wife while Jemmahor let Yusuf help her onto her camel, obviously enjoying the attention. Mustafa watched over them with his hand on the pommel of his sword, looking as though he were posing for a painting.
“What do you think we’re going to be up against once we get to Amarna?” Ellie asked.
“A glorified antiquities thief and a bunch of hired thugs.” Adam flashed her a smile. “Nothing we haven’t handled before.”
A familiar worry flashed through her. “What about Neil and Constance? Do you think they’re all right?”
“I think Connie is more than capable of handling herself,” Adam returned confidently.
“And my brother?” Ellie prompted more dryly.
“He’s gotta stick around for me to give him hell about that stupid note of his, doesn’t he?” Adam let the wry twist fall from his lips. He reached out and touched her face. His thumb brushed comfortingly over her cheek. “We’ll get them out when we get to Amarna, if they haven’t found a way to escape already.”
“It’s my fault that either of them got involved,” Ellie insisted with a dart of guilt.
“Nah,” Adam replied.
“Excuse me?”
“You didn’t hold anybody’s feet to an iron,” Adam pointed out. “They chose to come along.”
Ellie studied his face in the soft light of the early morning. “And you?” she asked solemnly.
His blue gaze burned down at her. His hand slipped to the back of her neck, his fingers tangling lightly in her hair. “I chose it too. And I’d do it again in a goddamned heartbeat.” His mouth quirked into another smile. “But now you’re definitely just stalling.”
Ellie cast an exasperated and skeptical look back at the waiting camel. “How do you know it’s not going to try to eat me?”
“She’s a vegetarian.” Adam more or less picked her up and set her on the saddle. He tapped the camel’s flank. “Qūm! Up you get!”
Ellie flailed out to grasp the horn of the saddle as her mount thrust up its front legs, throwing her against the rear of the seat. She bit back an instinctive yelp, and then the rear half of the animal was rising, lurching her forward.
At last it was done. Ellie found herself clinging to a perch that was far higher from the ground than it had any right to be.
“Keep both your legs on one side,” Adam instructed her as he easily mounted his own camel, his body instinctively shifting along with the animal’s movement as it rose. “You’ll be more comfortable.”
“Nothing about this feels comfortable!” Ellie shot back.
“You look great up there,” Adam countered wickedly. “Yalla!”
The camel lurched into a trot, and Ellie clung to it as it bounced after Zeinab, Sayyid, and the others, the yellow dog dashing along in their wake with a happy bark.