The Last Prince of Dahaar(7)

                The people of Dahaar need reassurance that all is well with you, they need a reason to celebrate. They haven’t had one in five years. And Siyaad needs our help. King Salim stood by me when I had no one else to rely on, when I was crumbling under the weight of Dahaar.

                Now it is time we return the favor.

                Ayaan wasn’t prepared for it. He would never be.

                How could he be, when he didn’t trust himself, when he didn’t know what could break him again, when he was constantly hovering over the thin line between lucidity and lunacy?

                But he couldn’t refuse his father, not after everything he had gone through to rule and protect Dahaar, after losing his eldest son and daughter, losing Ayaan to insanity.

                His parents had lost everything in one night, but they hadn’t broken. They hadn’t failed in their duty. He couldn’t either.

                But suddenly, King Salim’s profuse excuses at tonight’s dinner made sense. His daughter’s absence had been an act of defiance. Not that Ayaan had cared that she was absent. On the contrary, he had been glad that he didn’t need to give the concept of his betrothed a concrete form until that moment was absolutely upon him.

                And now here she was, pushing herself into his mind in a way he couldn’t just undo. Within five minutes spent in her company, he already knew more about her than he wanted to learn in a lifetime. She was stubborn, she was brave and the worst? She wasn’t conventional.

                “I understood you were too ill to be out and about, Princess Zohra,” he said, forcing utter scorn into his words. “And yet here you are, walking around the palace at night, disrupting a guest’s privacy, offering insult.”

                “Do not call me a princess. I have never been one.”

                He was too...irritated to even ask her why.

                He was chilled to the bone, as he always was when he woke up from one of his nightmares. “Fine. Please tell me why you are in my bed, in my suite, in the palace wing that is strictly forbidden to women, at the stroke of midnight. What was so important that you had to—”

                “You were thrashing in the bed, crying out. I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. Nor could I walk away and come back at a better time.”

                “Are you deaf? Or just plain dense?” The words roared out of him on a wave of utter shame. He gritted his teeth, fighting for control over a temper that never flared. “Why are you here in the first place?”

                The brown of her eyes expanded, her mouth dropping open on a soft huff. His uncivilized words chased away the one thing he couldn’t bear to see—her pity.

                “If you think you can scare me into running away by behaving like a savage, it won’t work.”

                He could have laughed if he wasn’t so wound up. Every inch of her—her head held high, the deprecation in her look, the stubborn jut of her chin—she was a princess no matter what she said. “If this were Dahaar, I would have—”

                “But it’s not Dahaar. Nor am I your loyal subject dependent on your tender mercies,” she said, steel creeping into her words. “This is Siyaad. And even here, all those rules, they don’t apply to me.” Her eyes collided with his, daring him to challenge her claim. When Ayaan said nothing, her gaze swept over his features with a thoroughness that she couldn’t hide. Did she feel the same burn of awareness that arched into life suddenly? “I came to inform you that it’s not worth it.”