The Sheikh's Forbidden Virgin(10)

She wasn’t there. He knew it, felt it like a shock to his system, rippling unpleasantly through him. Somehow, somewhere, she had gone. A sharp pain stabbed him in the gut, memory and anger and fear. Aarif’s mouth tightened, his eyes narrowed against the dazzling glare of the sun.

He saw Bahir glance at him in question, but Aarif did not want to see the older man now. He wanted to see Kalila. He wanted to know she was safe. He needed to.

He pushed away from Bahir, through the crowds, scanning the strange, smiling faces for a glimpse of the untarnished loveliness he’d seen in the garden last night.

Where was she?

He caught sight of the aide he’d assigned as her babysitter, and grabbed the man’s elbow. ‘Where is the princess?’ he demanded roughly.

The aide flinched under Aarif’s rough grasp. ‘She went into the church for some cool air. I thought there was no harm—’

Aarif swore under his breath and let the man go. His gaze searched the square before he found what he was looking for—an ancient church in the Byzantine style, made of a startling white stone with a blue cross on top of its dome. He moved towards it with grim purpose.

The door was partly ajar, and Aarif slipped inside quietly. The church was refreshingly cool and dark, and empty save for a few benches and some icons adorning the walls. Kalila sat on one of the benches, her back to Aarif. Something about her position—the rigid set of her shoulders and yet the despairing bowing of her head—made Aarif pause.

He took a breath, waited for the rush of fury to recede, acknowledging to himself it had been unwarranted. Too much. And yet for a moment he’d thought—he remembered—

He cleared his throat, and Kalila turned her head so her face was in profile, her dark lashes sweeping her cheek. ‘Have you come to take me away?’ she asked, her voice soft, as if it were being absorbed by the stone.

Aarif took a step towards her. ‘I wondered where you were.’

‘I wished for some air.’ She paused, and Aarif waited. ‘I’ve always liked this place. My parents were married here, you know. It was founded when the Byzantines went down to Africa—well over a thousand years ago now.’ She gave a little sigh as she looked around the bare walls. ‘It survived the invasion of the Berbers, the Ottomans, the Turks. A noble task, don’t you think, to keep one’s identity amidst so much change?’

Aarif took a step closer to her. ‘Indeed, as your country has done,’ he said, choosing to guide the conversation to more impersonal waters. ‘I know the history of Zaraq well, Princess, as it is a neighbour of my own homeland, Calista. When nearly every other kingdom was invaded and taken over the centuries, yours alone survived.’

‘Yes, because we didn’t have anything anyone wanted.’ She gave a little laugh that sounded cynical and somehow wrong. ‘Ringed by mountains, little more than desert, and inhabited by a fierce people willing to fight to the death for their pathetic patch of land. It’s no wonder we survived, at least until the French came and realised there was nickel and copper to be had under our barren earth.’

‘Your independence is no small thing,’ Aarif said. He saw Kalila’s hands bunch into fists in her lap.

‘No, it isn’t,’ she agreed in a voice that surprised him; it was steely and sure. ‘I’m glad you realise that.’

Aarif hesitated. He felt the ripple of tension and something deeper, something dark and determined from Kalila, and he wondered at its source.

In an hour, he reminded himself, they would be on a plane. In three hours, they could be at the Calistan palace, and Kalila would be kept in the women’s quarters, safe with her old nurse, away from him. The thought should have comforted him; he’d meant it to. Instead he felt the betraying, wrenching pain of loss.

‘We have enjoyed the festivities, Princess,’ he said, ‘but you were right, we must go. The hour grows late and a storm looks to approach, a sirocco, and living in the desert you know how dangerous they can be.’

‘A storm?’ Interest lifted Kalila’s voice momentarily. ‘Will the plane be delayed, do you think?’

‘Not if we leave promptly.’

She hesitated, and Aarif resisted the urge to take her into his arms. He wanted to scold her, tell her to stop feeling sorry for herself, and yet he also wanted to comfort her, to breathe in the scent of her hair—

Irritated by his own impulse, he sharpened his tone. ‘I regret to disturb your tranquillity, Princess, but there is a duty to fulfil.’ There always was, no matter how crippling the weight, how difficult the task.

‘I’m coming,’ she said at last, and there was a new resolute determination to her tone that relieved Aarif. She rose gracefully, glanced at him, her eyes fastening on his, and once again Aarif was transfixed by that clear gaze, yet this time he couldn’t read the expression in it.

‘I’m sorry, Prince Aarif,’ she said in a quiet, steady voice, ‘for any trouble I’ve caused you.’ She laid a hand on his arm, her fingers slender and cool, yet burning Aarif’s skin. Branding it, and he resisted the desire to cover her hand with his own, to feel her fingers twine with his once more. A simple, seductive touch.

He raised his eyebrows in surprise before managing a cool smile. ‘There has been no trouble, Princess.’ Carefully, deliberately, he moved his arm away from her touch.

Her hand dropped to her side, and she smiled back as if she didn’t believe him, going so far as to give her head a little shake, before she moved out of the cool church into the dusty heat of the crowded square.

The festivities were blessedly winding down by the time they found their way back to the royal party. Aarif was glad to see Kalila’s—and his—absence had not been noted, although Bahir gave them both a quick, sharp glance before indulging the crowd in a formal farewell of his daughter. He kissed both her cheeks and bestowed his blessing; while they went on to the national airport, he would return to the palace.

Kalila accepted his farewell with dignity, her head bowed, and then turned to enter her car. Everyone followed suit, the doors closed, and with a sigh of relief Aarif saw they were at last on their way. Surely nothing could go wrong now.

The cars moved slowly through the crowded streets of the Old Town, still chased by a merry crowd of well wishers, then back onto the main boulevard, a straight, flat road lined with dusty palm trees that led to the airport.

The airport was only ten kilometres away, but Aarif noted the darkening smudge on the horizon with some dismay. How long would it take to load all of the cases, make any arrangements? He knew well enough how these things could drag on.

As if to prove his point, the cars slowly drew to a halt. Aarif rolled down his window and peered ahead, but through the dust kicked up by the line of cars he could see nothing.

A minute passed and nothing moved. With another muttered oath, Aarif threw open his door and strode down the barren road to the princess’s car.

He rapped twice on the window and after a moment Kalila’s nurse, a plump woman with bright eyes and rounded cheeks, rolled down the window.

‘Prince Aarif!’

‘Is the princess well?’ Aarif asked. ‘Do you know why we are stopped?’

‘She felt ill,’ the nurse gabbled. ‘And asked to be given a moment…of privacy…’

A sudden shadow of foreboding fell over Aarif, far more ominous than the storm gathering on the horizon. He thought of his conversation with Kalila only moments ago in the church, her talk of independence, her apology for troubling him, and the shadow of foreboding intensified into a throbbing darkness.

‘Where is she?’ he asked, and heard the harsh grating of his own voice. The nurse looked both alarmed and offended, and drew back. Aarif gritted his teeth and tried for patience. ‘This is not a safe place, madam. I do not trust her security in such an inhospitable location.’ He glanced up; the smudge on the horizon was growing darker, wider. Makaris was at least five kilometres behind them, and rocky desert stretched in every direction, the flat landscape marked only by large, tumbled boulders, as if thrown by a giant, unseen hand.

The nurse hesitated, and Aarif felt his frustration growing. He wanted to shake the silly woman, to demand answers—

‘She’s over there.’ The woman pointed a shaking finger to a cluster of rocks about twenty metres away. A perfect hiding place.

Aarif strode towards them, his body taut with purpose and fury. He didn’t know why he felt so angry, so afraid. Perhaps Kalila did indeed need a moment of privacy. Perhaps she was ill. Perhaps this was all in his mind, paranoid, pathetic. Remembering.

Yet he couldn’t ignore his instinct; it was too strong, too insistent, a relentless drumming in his head, his heart.

Something had gone wrong. Something always went wrong.

Still, as he approached the rocks he hesitated. If Kalila was indeed in an indelicate position, it would not do to disturb her. Yet if she was in danger, or worse…

What was worse? What could be worse than danger?

Yet even as Aarif turned the corner of the rocky outcropping, he knew. He knew just what nameless fear had clutched at him since Kalila had apologised in the church, or perhaps even before then, when he’d heard her unhappy sigh in the garden.