The Last Prince of Dahaar(6)

                “Of course you’re not a servant.”

                He stepped off the bed as though he couldn’t breathe the same air for another moment. She stared at the broad expanse of his back. The scar streaked through his back too, like a rope bound around his body.

                He pulled on a T-shirt and stood by the foot of the enormous bed, his hands behind him, as though waiting for her to come to her senses.

                Heat spread up her neck and she gritted her teeth.

                She had nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about. She had seized the only opportunity available to her. She had seen a man in the throes of a violent nightmare and tried to help.

                She slid to her feet, the muscles in her legs trembling.

                “What was so important that it had to be said in the middle of the night?”

                This was it. This was why she had risked coming into his suite. And yet, her tongue felt as if it was glued to the roof of her mouth.

                “Should I send word to King Salim?”

                She stared at him, the sudden threat in his words, the raw command showing a different man. “There’s no need to involve my father in a matter that concerns me...us. I’m sure we can settle this between ourselves and come to a conclusion that is agreeable to both of us.”





                                      CHAPTER TWO

                SHE WAS HIS betrothed.

                Ayaan felt the world tilting at his feet as what he had guessed curdled into undeniable reality.

                This slip of a woman, who had the nerve to climb onto his bed and hold him through a nightmare, this woman, who was even now meeting his gaze with an arrogant confidence, was the woman he had agreed to marry just a few hours ago?

                He hadn’t given her a moment’s thought. She was nothing more than a bullet point in the list of things he had agreed to in the name of duty.

                He stood unmoving, the need to vent his spiraling frustration burning his muscles.

                Her light brown hair was combed away into a braid. Her eyes were brown, huge in her long face. A strong nose and mouth followed, the stubborn jut of it saying so much about the woman.

                She wore a light pink tunic over black leggings, a flimsy shawl wrapped loosely around her torso. Her outfit was plain for a princess, giving no hint as to what lay...

                With a control he had honed tight over the past few months, he brought his gaze back to her face. He had indulged himself enough. How the woman looked, or what kind of a body she had, held no significance to him.

                Her mother had been American, someone had mentioned it to him. But she was a copy of King Salim. The same no-nonsense air about her, the proud chin, the dogged determination it must have cost her to be near him during his nightmare.

                He had no doubt about how violent he could get when caught in one of those nocturnal episodes. It was the reason he detested having anyone even within hearing distance. And despite every precaution he took to hide the truth, to spare his parents, they had already earned him the title of Mad Prince.

                If only the world knew what a luxury madness was compared to his lucidity.

                He didn’t want to marry this woman any more than he wanted the mantle of Dahaar. The latter, he had been able to postpone. The former...?