Fear like she had never known before filled her veins.
How had she fallen in love with a man who was the very epitome of everything that had gone wrong in her life, a man who would give her his name, his honor, his life in the name of duty but not his heart?
And this time, Zohra understood what love meant. She understood that it was not a battle of wills, of individual needs and desires, that it demanded sacrifice, that it demanded everything one had. It flew through her, strengthening her and weakening her, glorifying her and damning her, freeing her and yet forever binding her to him.
She sucked a deep breath in, striving to hide the biggest truth of her life. If he realized even a flicker of what she felt for him, she knew he would banish her from his life. She would lose even the little she had.
“You were twenty-one years old, Ayaan. After all these years, can you not forgive yourself even a little?” she asked, her own sorrow bleeding into her words, “Can you not permit yourself to pursue your own happiness?”
His refusal was impenetrable, sealing her fate right along with his. “Not when it cost them their lives.” The darkest of smiles curved his mouth, a cold chill dawning in his gaze. “I think you know me better than I know myself. You knew what you were going to get and you still wanted it, Princess.” His mouth found hers in a punishing kiss, every stroke of his tongue a brand of possession, every caress calculated to master. He licked the seam of her ear, and Zohra clutched him swaying on her feet. “Do you want an out now, Zohra?”
She met his gaze, her heart in her throat. “Will you give it to me if I wanted it?”
He lifted her up and carried her out of the stables. “No. I have cast off what little honor I possessed, Zohra. Now you are bound to me forever, damned to this life right along with me.”
Lacing her hands around his nape, Zohra hid her face in his chest, an intense sadness weighing her down. Just as he had said, she had entered this relationship knowing what she was getting herself into. And yet suddenly, she realized with a sinking feeling, that it was not going to be enough.
Her heart wanted everything.
CHAPTER TWELVE
AYAAN WALKED INTO the suite assigned to him in the Siyaadi palace and stared at Zohra’s sleeping form in his bed. Familiar desire and something else—a fierce longing—wound through him at the sight of her.
He should have known he would find her here waiting for him, refusing to let him avoid her, refusing to let him hide.
But then, he still couldn’t get used to the fact that she shared her body, her mind, her life with him willingly.
Restlessness that was becoming second skin scoured through him. He paced the perimeter of the bed, his gaze constantly straying toward her.
He had been fighting the cloud of awareness that had been coming at him for the week he had spent here in Siyaad. But this time, he was not enough to stop it, he could not hide from what he became, what he was changing into because of Zohra.
Because of the woman who deserved the best any man could give.
He had understood, been fascinated by, Zohra’s strength from the moment she had stormed into his suite and stood by him through his nightmare. But this past week she had become something truly magnificent, she had become a princess. And she hadn’t needed anything from him.
She had been a lioness when defending her brother and sister from the manipulative clutches of her extended family, a clever, quick study in her understanding of the immediate state affairs that needed to be organized, a formidable opponent to anyone who had dared question her role in King Salim’s affairs.