The Last Prince of Dahaar(34)

                                      CHAPTER SIX

                ZOHRA TOOK A sip of the sherbet and forced herself to savor the cool slide of the liquid.

                It was hard with a dozen pairs of eyes trained on her from every corner of the vast hall, each speculating why she was attending the first gathering in Siyaad after her wedding alone. If it had been up to her, she would have canceled it. But of course, the traditional Al-Akhtum gathering was even more important this year as her family needed to meet the crown prince of Dahaar and understand that he was now an integral part of Siyaad’s politics.

                Only she had left Dahaara without waiting to know if Prince Ayaan could fit it into his busy schedule or not.

                There was something about being near him, even for a limited time, that unsettled her. Something that had burrowed beneath her skin and refused to dislodge. And it wasn’t just the explosive desire that he had let her see.

                By sheer force of will, she forced a smile as another of her father’s cousins took in her attire from top to toe and made his displeasure the known. Although she wore a designer pantsuit with a long-sleeved jacket that covered up every inch of skin, it was still not the traditional caftan that Siyaadi women wore.

                She’d heard the whispers behind her father’s back, seen the sneers beneath the smiles, felt their snubs for eleven years. But her wedding the future king of Dahaar and the absence of her father today meant the claws that were usually sheathed were now out.

                She could just imagine the whispers if Ayaan let her go in a few years. Whether her father was alive or not, whether Wasim was crowned the prince or not, her life would not change.

                Would she resent Wasim and Saira as the years went on because her love for them held her back? Shuttling between Siyaad and Dahaar, a daughter but not a true one, a wife but not a true one. Nothing in her life held any significance, not to her, not to anyone else.

                She was so tired of having no one to laugh with, no one she could even call a friend, of living each day with no sense of purpose or hope for a fleck of future happiness.

                The depth of her loneliness choked her.

                Zohra stiffened as the son of her father’s cousin, Karim, came to a stop beside her. He was the most vicious of them all, hungry for the power of the throne, unhappy that her father had formed an alliance with Dahaar.

                He blocked her against the table and leaned in a little too close.

                “My sympathies, Zohra.” The false sympathy in Karim’s words coupled with that ever-present seediness made the hairs on her neck stand to attention. She knew what he thought of her. Easy. Whether it was the accident of her birth or the fact that she didn’t simper and bow like a traditional Siyaadi woman didn’t matter.

                “I knew this would happen,” Karim said, standing scandalously close. “I warned Uncle Salim that no one could be expected to accept you as his wife, even the Mad Prince.”

                Her stomach churned just hearing Ayaan spoken of like that. “You’re not fit to utter his name.”

                Shaking his head, he smiled. “Tell me, Zohra. Why did he parcel you back to Siyaad after only three weeks of marriage? Has he already figured out you are...unfit to be even a madman’s wife?” He made a tsk-tsk sound that scraped her nerves. A deathly silence fell around her. Could everyone hear the filthy words that fell from his mouth? “Is this because he discovered you are the result of your mother’s affair with a married man or because he has discovered your own...adventures into love?”