Duty and the Beast(11)

It was as she passed beneath that last richly decorated arch and  wondered what she would find beyond that she heard it, a voice, a shout,  and then splashing and laughter. Men's laughter, coming from some kind  of pool. She swallowed as she swung around, pressing her back hard  against the cool, tiled wall, grateful she had heard their voices before  stumbling unknowingly into their midst. She should not be here. She had  come too far.

And then she heard his voice amongst the others, Zoltan's, and the  bitter taste of bile rose in her throat as she remembered how supremely  difficult it had been to walk from that library with her back straight  and her head held high when all she had felt like doing was collapsing  in a heap in despair-how it had taken every shred of her self-control to  force herself to wait until she had walked through the door of her  suite before she could let her tears go. She could not bear to see him  again with those memories so vivid in her mind.

His voice rang out again, issuing some kind of challenge. There were  calls and laughter, and the challenge seemed to be accepted by another.  The unfairness of it all grated on her raw nerves, rubbed salt into her  still-fresh wounds. Clearly Zoltan was not agonising too much over the  stress of a forced marriage, for all his protests about not wanting to  take a wife. Clearly he was not suffering unduly, if he could take time  out to frolic in a pool with his friends without a care in the world.  And clearly he had not felt the need to cry his heart out on his bed at  the unfairness of it all. The truth of it struck home again. She was  nothing in this world but a pawn in a game where she didn't even merit a  move.                       
       
           



       

There came a splash then, the sound of thrashing water and cheers, and  curiosity got the better of her. Who were these men with Zoltan? Could  they be the ones who had accompanied him to the desert encampment last  night? Maybe she could take one look. It wasn't as though the pool was  private; there was no gate and she was simply out walking.

Making sure she stayed in the shadows under the archway, she peered out  past the garden surrounding the pool. There were two men there, neither  of them Zoltan, standing cheering at the far end of a broad sapphire  pool, partly shaded by twin lines of palms. Though it was nowhere near  shady enough to hide the scars that marred one man's back, the skin  twisted and brutal-looking, and she wondered what could have caused such  a mess as the water of the pool was torn apart by churning arms, going  stroke for stroke as two more men devoured the length of the pool.

Until they reached the end and the water erupted as someone emerged,  using powerful arms to springboard out a mere head before his rival.

'I win,' the first said, offering his hand to the second.

Zoltan, she realised, disappointed as her eyes drank in the sight of him  dripping wet. How typical that he should win the race. How unfortunate.  She would have loved to see him lose. She would love to see something  or someone wipe that smug look of superiority off his face and the sheer  arrogance that infused every part of his body, every glistening muscle,  every hard-packed limb.

Of course he would not have an ounce of fat on him, she thought with  added resentment, he would not allow such a thing. She had seen enough.  And she almost managed to turn away until he flexed his shoulders as her  eyes caught the play of muscles under broad shoulders and tracked down  the vee of his torso, to where his hips were encased in black lycra  above the start of those long, powerful legs.

She sniffed, refusing to be impressed. So maybe she had been wrong  before. Maybe he was not exactly like Mustafa, at least not in this one  respect, she thought as she remembered the fat man scratching the  bulging of his gut through his robe with long, almost feminine  fingernails ending fingers adorned with gaudy rings. She shuddered,  knowing how close she had come to that repulsive fate.

Still, it made no difference to her how many muscles Zoltan had, and she  did not care that his skin glistened a golden-olive in the light. Not  when in essence he was exactly the same as his half-brother. Not when  there were still so very many reasons to hate him with every fibre of  her being.

And she was sure, with time, she would find more.

'I gave you a head start,' his vanquished rival claimed as she watched  furtively from the shadows. 'Let's make it best out of three.' Zoltan  laughed and slapped his friend on the back, turning his face to the sky  to shake the water from his dark hair. She had to blink and look again  to make sure it was him.

Zoltan actually laughed? Was this the same man as the monster she had  met today in the library? Was this the dark barbarian who had snarled  and growled and so smugly informed her that she had no choice? For when  he smiled, when he laughed so openly, his face was transformed. Not  handsome, exactly. He would never be handsome. His face was too dark,  his features too strong, like the strongest, bitterest cup of coffee  imaginable. But with laughter lighting his dark features he almost  looked human.

Almost-good.

Electricity sizzled down her spine and her mouth turned ashen.  Tomorrow-tomorrow-this man would be her husband. This hated man would  lie next to her in bed, wearing even less than he was wearing now. And  expecting her.

She shivered, feeling a growing apprehension that the unknown would soon become known.

She clutched the flowers in her hands to her face, burying herself in their fragrant scent.

This was not how she had imagined it would be.

'Princess Aisha?'





CHAPTER FIVE



THE flowers fell from her hand as she turned, the vizier behind her  bowing respectfully. 'One of the maids saw you walking. Is there  something in particular you were looking for, Princess?' He glanced  across at the pool, and she followed his gaze to where all four men were  now gathered at the near end, laughing together, all four of them  bronzed and built, with strong masculine features, all of them  impressive in their own way. Once again she wondered whether they might  be the same men who had helped pluck her from Mustafa last night. Her  gaze returned to the enigma that was Zoltan. There was something about  him that set him apart and that caused her pulse to trip. 'You are a  long way from your suite.'

She turned to see him watching her. 'I was enchanted by the garden,' she  said, her cheeks blazing with embarrassment at being caught peering  covertly from the shadows and now openly staring. 'I did not know where  the path would lead me. I was about to head back.'                       
       
           



       

He nodded. 'Rani has brought your meal. Perhaps you would permit me to  show you back to your suite?' he said, and she knew it wasn't a  question. She also knew she wasn't about to refuse.

'Of course,' she said, wanting to be as far away from the mystery that  was Zoltan-the laughing barbarian with the gleaming skin, the man who  would be her husband tomorrow-as she could get.

'Princess!'

Too late.

She felt his call in a searing sizzle of heat down her spine,  guilt-stricken that she had been discovered, a voyeur in the shadows,  and not only by the vizier but now by Zoltan himself.

She wondered how much humiliation it was humanly possible to suffer in  one day, for right now, the supply seemed endless. And this time she had  no-one to blame but her own wretched curiosity.

Would he be angry with her for spying on him? Or would he laugh at her,  the way he did, with unsubtle jibes, mocking words and that unmistakable  upturn of his lips?

Either way, she hated him all the more for it. And she hated her own  stupid lack of judgement for not leaving the moment she had realised he  was here. Hated that he made her feel so off-balance and uncertain.  Hated that he so badly affected her judgement.

She dragged in the scented air as she turned, praying for strength, steeling herself for the confrontation.

But nothing could have prepared her for the full impact of that  near-naked body approaching. Her mouth went dry, her heart rate doubled  and kept right on going, and her eyes didn't know where to look. He was  so big, his glistening golden-olive skin beaded with moisture, his chest  sprinkled with black hair circling dark nipples before arrowing south,  over a taut, hard-packed torso  …

She dared not look too far south. Instead she focused on the white towel  he had picked up and which he now used to pat his face dry as droplets  continued to rain from the slicked-back tendrils of his hair. But the  snowy whiteness of the towel only served to highlight the rich glow of  his skin, to contrast against the darkness of his features, and would  have been of much more help to her right now if he lashed it firmly  around his waist.