Her eyes swept him with now blue-cold disdain. "So you have an extreme form of masochism among your perversions, huh? Figures."
"Not to me, it doesn't. At least, it didn't. But I am discovering I'd welcome anything from you."
She snorted. He shook his head as he huffed another chuckle. He couldn't believe it himself, how fully he meant that.
Sighing, admitting that for the first time in his life, he was experiencing something beyond his control, he reached for what had survived of his bloody clothes. And though she aimed more detestation at him, he felt her unwilling coveting spread over every inch of his cold flesh, heating it from the inside out. He shuddered at the caress of her eyes over every bulge and stretch of his muscles as he carefully pulled his clothes back on.
His satisfaction rose. Her reactions to him had not only alternated between delightful and brutal honesty, they were as overpowering as his. Her mind might be telling her to slash him open, but everything else was clamoring for his nearness, delighting in his every detail. And of course that was making her madder. At him.
He'd finished dressing before it occurred to him to try the heater. It was still working.
He turned his gaze back to her with a smile, and she slammed him with a disapproving scowl.
"Now you turn on the heater. Were you trying to see how long you can last before you succumb to hypothermia? Or were you hoping I'd offer you the best remedy for it?"
"Flesh-on-flesh warming." He almost shivered with imagining the mind-melting sensuality of such an act with her. "And now you've cornered me. I must admit either that I was such a remiss male that I didn't think of it, or such an inefficient field officer that I didn't remember the onboard heater. Will I get leniency points if I cite my reason for failing to think of it to be preoccupation with your golden self?"
"Nah. I have another explanation. You didn't think of it because you're cold-blooded like all your species. Snakes."
A laugh overpowered him and sent another bolt of pain through him. "Ah, I've never been so inventively insulted before. I can't get enough of whatever spills from your mouth."
Her smile was one of condescension and disgust. "I'm such a refreshing acid bath after all the slimy, simpering sweetness you usually marinate in, huh, you jaded jerk?"
He put a protective hand to his side as he laughed again and groaned in pain simultaneously. "What you are is literally sidesplitting. It is positively intoxicating what an irreverent, fearless wildcat you are, ya nadda jannati."
"Don't you dare call me that again!" she growled.
"Talia … "
She slammed her fist on her thigh in chagrin. "And don't call me that, either. I'm T.J.-no, Dr. Burke to you. No-I'm nothing to you. So don't call me anything at all!" He began to say her name again but she bulldozed over his insistence. "And now I take back everything I called you. You're not monqethi or buttuli. You're just one of those self-serving, criminal dictators. Or wait-since you were sent to retrieve me, you're probably one of their lower ranks, maybe even disposable. Not that it makes you any better than the higher-ups."
Everything inside him stilled.
Then he slowly asked, "You don't know who I am?"
"You're an Aal Shalaan," she spat the name. "That's all I need to know."
Would knowing exactly who he was change her attitude? For the better? By now, he was hoping it would. Her antagonism, now that it seemed there to stay, was fast losing its exciting edge.
Then he inhaled. "I'm not just an Aal Shalaan. I'm Harres."
"Yeah, I heard you the first time. But just Harres, huh? Like you're Elvis or something!"
"Around here? I'd say I'm more Captain Kirk. And you really have no idea, eh?"
Her eyes narrowed on him. "So you're some big shot?"
He huffed, the last traces of elation snuffed. "The third-biggest shot around, yes."
He saw that lightning-fast mind of hers reach the conclusion. She still stared at him, as if expecting him to say something else to negate his declaration and her deduction.
He quirked a prodding eyebrow at her. He wanted to reach the new status quo his identity always triggered and be done with it.
She shook her golden head dazedly, her lips opening and closing on many aborted outbursts, before she finally managed to voice one.
"You're that Harres Aal Shalaan?"
"You mean there are others? And here I thought I was the one and only."
"And here I thought the dumb-blonde stereotype had been long erased. Clearly not in Zohayd, if you think I'll believe that."
"Actually I think you're superiorly intelligent and extensively informed. In general. In this specific case, I think you're suffering from severe and very damaging misinformation."
"Fine. One of the hallmarks of superior intelligence is an open mind. So here's my mind, wide as the desert and ready for amending info. What is the king's second son and Zohayd's worshipped minister of interior doing on a hostage-retrieval mission?"
"You see? Brilliant. You cut to the core of logic in any situation like an arrow. And as the question is the only one to be asked, the answer is as singular. I couldn't entrust anyone else with retrieving you. I had to be here myself. And I thank the circumstances that necessitated my presence."
She cracked a bitter laugh. "Sure, because it turned out to be me, and I'm unique, magical, and our meeting under these circumstances is an unprecedented and unrepeatable act of munificent fate, and all that over-the-top drivel."
His hands itched with the need to capture that proud, obstinate head, subdue her resentment, resurrect her hunger.
But he knew that would backfire. He was finally realizing the gravity of the situation. The depth of her prejudice. He had no idea what had formed such an iceberg within her, but if he wasn't careful, all his efforts to win her trust would be wrecked against it.
He let the last trace of the smile go. This needed to be serious, heartfelt. That would be easy. He didn't have to act either sentiment. "A few minutes ago, before learning my identity turned you from an ally into an enemy, you would have agreed with all that you now consider devious nonsense."
Her eyes lashed him with more vexation. He realized that her belief that she'd been taken in was exaggerating her anger. "Sure I would have. I was being worked by a master manipulator. But then, after I escaped being interrogated to death by a gang of desert hooligans, anyone would have seemed a knight in camouflage to my fried mind and senses. But you're not being very clever. Telling me who you are was the worst mistake you could have made. You would have served your goal far better if you'd let me believe you were small fry, one of the hundreds of 'princes' with the odd drop of Aal Shalaan blood. Exposing yourself as the premium pure brew only makes you more accountable for the crimes your family perpetrated. It makes you the enemy I'm here to bring down."
Talia watched her words sink into Harres Aal Shalaan.
She'd managed to wipe away that indulgent smile that had seemed permanent on his face a couple of minutes ago. Now she'd gone a dozen steps further, causing his expression to be engulfed in a tide of grimness.
She almost bit her tongue, but she might get poisoned by the venom flowing from it.
But she couldn't stop. Disappointment urged her to pour it out before it ate through her. Her hero, her savior, the man who'd risked his life to rescue her, was an Aal Shalaan. And not just any Aal Shalaan. One of the four big guns. And the one who had as much jurisdiction and even more law-enforcement power than the king himself. Which meant only one thing.
He had more to lose than any other member of his family.
He had everything to lose.
And she was using her considerable provocation powers to declare herself in a position to affect those incalculable losses. While she was stranded in the desert with him, with no way of rejoining humanity except through him.
Any bets she ever would now?
She held her breath for his reaction. So rage and indignation and-damn him-him were loosening every last one of her discretion screws. But not to the point where she'd lost track of the possible, and expected, consequences.
He lowered his gaze, relinquishing hers for the first time. She watched the long sweep of his downcast lashes as they stilled, her heart ramming her ribcage. Next time he raised those eyes he'd take off the mask of geniality and tolerance. They'd be cold and ruthless. And he'd no longer be her persuader but her interrogator, not her rescuer but her warden.