His arm pressed into her shoulders, the heat of his body a deceptively safe haven around her. But nothing could have tempered the chill in his eyes, or the cruel smile that played on his lips. “Are you still eager to belong in Dahaar, Princess, to be my wife in every way that matters?”
* * *
Ayaan laughed as he stood at the entrance to the abandoned stables about half a mile from the encampment. Five years of neglect showed in the decrepit structure.
From the moment he had stepped onto the desert floor, the structure had mocked him, jeered him, called to him with its very presence. To resist that call, to pretend that it didn’t exist, to pretend it wasn’t the cause for the very cold that pervaded his bones, filled him with a white-hot fury.
He had not even indulged the idea of sleeping tonight. So he had ventured out and found himself lingering outside Zohra’s tent. There was something to the acute disillusionment, the pain in her eyes that had tugged at him even as he had painted the cruelest picture of what life with him would hold for her.
He had wanted to go in, take her in his arms, do what he could to wipe it from her mind. He understood the loneliness that never left her eyes, understood how it leeched out the simplest of joys from one...
Apparently, his mind had more control than he had assumed because he had no idea when he had moved toward the stables.
He stepped over the threshold, the high dome-shaped ceiling giving it a cavernous feeling. It was a long, rectangular interior, giving a direct view of the empty stalls.
More than one lamp had gone out, the light from the remaining feeble ones just enough to prevent the whole area dissolving into utter darkness. He ran his fingers over his nape, feeling the chill in the air seep into his pores. Goose bumps instantly pebbled over his skin. The smell of the horses and the hay, the echoes of the soft whinnying of beasts long gone hit him with the force of a gale. Every hair on his body stood to attention, his core temperature quickly dropping.
Beware of your triggers. When you feel an episode coming, put yourself in a trigger-free zone.
The words of the trauma specialist reverberated through his skull.
He closed his eyes. Fear dug its claws into him, chipping away conscious thought.
He had loved horses and stables once, it had been his lifeblood. He had spent countless nights in the Dahaaran stables hiding from Azeez. That boy was, however, dead.
His legs struggling to keep him upright, he walked the perimeter of the stables.
He knew what was going to happen. And yet he couldn’t walk away. If he was damned to have these episodes for the rest of his life, then he would bloody well have them when and as it suited him.
Distress fingered up his spine and knotted at the base of his neck. He curled his fists, focusing on the simple act of breathing in and out. The quiet took on a life of its own, becoming his worst nightmare. It hammered at him, inching its way past every rationale, every shred of sense he threw its way.
He was a twenty-six-year-old man who was skilled in three different martial arts.
But his psyche didn’t understand reason, recycling and feeding itself on fears and terrors from five years ago. The unflinching quiet, the smells and sounds of the stable, all of them pushed under his conscious, inciting reactions that had no base in reality.
A frustrated growl escaped his mouth. He slid to his knees, an invisible rope tugging away at him. And then it came.