Forbidden to the Desert Prince
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Maisey Yates
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19
CHAPTER ONE
Run.
ARIEL HART STARED at the text message on her phone. For just one breath.
Then she sprang into action. She had known this moment could come. She’d known to be prepared for it.
“Darling,” her mother had tried to reassure her, “he’s been imprisoned for years. He may have died in captivity. You don’t know if he’ll come for you.”
But she had known.
Her father had meddled in affairs he never should have and he’d used her as a chess piece and...
No time for self-pity, Ari, get it together.
She changed her clothing, quickly, taking off the cashmere sweatpants and equally soft cable-knit sweater she was wearing, trading them out for a pair of black leggings and a black hoodie that felt stiff as cardboard. She put the hood up over her white-blond hair and tucked each strand beneath it. She slipped on a pair of black trainers, picked up her black duffel bag and looked around her beautiful Parisian apartment one last time.
She’d felt safe here.
It was tranquil. Beautiful. All pale pinks and soothing tans. That she now looked like a cat burglar seemed an affront to the subtlety of the space.
She’d made a life here. Started her career.
For years she’d lived looking over her shoulder. Moving all the time, using assumed names. But about seven years after she’d...stopped. It was in the back of her mind that it could happen, she still had a go bag. But it had seemed unlikely. She didn’t know if Riyaz was alive. She didn’t know if Cairo was alive.
That was one reason she and her mother had taken it on themselves to simply...be wary. How could you call the police or an embassy about a potential threat from another country by persons who had not threatened you, in all actuality, and might in fact be dead?
But in her heart she’d known.
That he could come for her in search of revenge, or marriage.
And she didn’t want either.
She’d leave it all behind now.
She’d be a fugitive, not a fashion designer.
But there was no space for pity. Not now.
It was possibly a matter of life and death, and there was no time to feel sorry for herself in the face of that.
She’d felt sorry for herself twenty years ago when she’d discovered—at age eight—that her father had promised her to a stranger. She’d felt sorry for herself, wandering the glittering halls at the palace in Nazul, looking at all the glorious mosaics and sitting by the fountains, the scent of orange blossom in the arid desert air.
And when her father had used the access he’d gained to the palace to assist in a coup that overthrew the royal family of Nazul and left the sheikh and sheikha dead, one son thrown into a dungeon and the other...
Missing.
Cairo.
She didn’t think of him often, or at least, she tried not to.
The younger brother, the one with a ready smile and engaging dark eyes, so unlike the one she was promised to marry. The boy who had become her friend. Her confidant. Her first heartbreak.
When she was thirteen, she’d been sitting in the courtyard one day, baking in the sun and sulking, and there he’d been.
“Not enjoying yourself, ya amar?”
“It’s very hot.”
“It is the desert.”
“I want to go back to Europe. I hate it here.”
“Europe? You’re American, Ari, are you not?”
“We spend half the year in Paris.”
“Ah, how very nice.”
“Nicer than this.”
“Tell me, are you angry at this place? Or at its intent for you?”
“It’s all the same.”
“I don’t think that’s true. If you look around you might see that the place and the purpose are not one in the same. And perhaps...you might enjoy aspects of your time here.”
And then he’d reached up and picked an orange from the tree above and handed it to her.
“Whether you wish to like it or not, the trees yet grow fruit. It cannot be all bad. Think on that, ya amar.”
My moon. He had called her that for some reason she had never been able to figure out.
He said it as if to mock her and yet she’d always felt such an odd tangle inside her when he said things like that.
Cairo had been the closest thing to joy on those trips to Nazul. Though it had gotten thorny and complicated when she was twelve, and he thirteen, and he had suddenly grown very tall, and she’d found it hard to speak to him.
It had been such a funny thing. One year she’d gone to visit and they’d run around the palace like wild, feral things like they had since she was eight. And the next...she’d been shy around him. They’d had one whole year of barely speaking.
But that day she hadn’t hidden from him. That day, he’d given her an orange.
And from there something else had blossomed between them. Something tender and precious and aching. She thought she might be in love, and she knew it was impossible. After five days she’d gone back to Paris. And the day after that...
The world had ended. At least in Nazul.
The heir, her fiancé, Riyaz was taken prisoner. Held as collateral.
And Cairo?
He had either been killed along with palace resisters, his body discarded as if he were nothing, not even important enough to be identified.
Or he had disappeared.
It didn’t matter now. Riyaz was out. And that meant...
He would either seek to claim his bride or his revenge, and she wanted no part of either.
The sins of her father were his to pay, not hers.
But she would still have to face consequences.
She put on her backpack and headed to the door, and opened it.
And stopped.
He was there.
Standing there. Taller, broader and just plain more than when last she’d seen him. It wasn’t Riyaz, or a cavalcade of soldiers, like she’d seen in her nightmares. It wasn’t the monster she had trained herself to fear, to run from.
It was him.
Cairo al Hadid.
Very much alive.
And in her hallway.
“Ya amar,” he said. “I have come for you.”
Sheikh Cairo Ahmad Syed al Hadid had been a man without a country for far too long.
Perhaps that was not an accurate portrayal of the situation. He had a country. And he had not forgotten. He had made it his mission to take down the invading forces. All these years, he had not forgotten. The screams of his mother. The dying bellow of his father as he took his sword and did battle, though it was futile. Because he was King of Nazul, and he would have never let it fall without a fight. And it would never have fallen if not for the betrayal.
A betrayal at the hands of the Hart patriarch. Dominic Hart had gotten greedy. He had taken his connection to the royal family of Nazul, and he had decided instead to take the money of a vicious warlord in order to betray the al Hadid family.
The man had been an Eastern European mercenary who’d decided he was done running missions and gaining power for others, and had decided to take power where he could for himself. He’d chosen Nazul because it was rich in natural resources, and small enough, with few enough allies on a global scale that he would face few consequences for his actions.
But Cairo had seen that there were consequences. That man had been on the throne these past years, and Cairo had taken great joy in ending his reign. In watching his face when Cairo and his army for hire had stormed the palace and he’d known.
He’d known.
Cairo was not there to take prisoners.
Bloody battles had a cost. Revenge had a cost.
But Cairo owed that debt. He still owed a debt.
His life, his desires, his body, his soul. They were not his own. He’d lost his right to a life that belonged to himself all those years ago on a desert night when he’d made a mistake that had cost everything.
And so he’d lived these past years knowing this moment would come, and that when it did, he would give all to see his country restored.
To his brother sitting on the throne, as the rightful leader of Nazul.
He’d escaped the palace that day.
But he’d known he would return.
He had moved to England and begun using the name Syed al Shahar, his mother’s family name. He had used his wit and his understanding of systems to get himself into the finest schools on scholarship. From there, he had begun to build an empire.
And people might know Cairo as a playboy, businessman and mogul, but they did not know that he had been a boy who had watched his family die in a palace in a far-off desert kingdom that made few headlines.
What was yet more global unrest, after all? It had been a blip on the radar of the news media in Europe and the United States, for what did they care? People killing each other in a country that none of them wanted to visit anyway.
That was how they ranked their concern. Did they wish to vacation there? Or was the country in question potentially going to invade them? If not... A cruel footnote in the history of a world filled with cruel histories. Unremarkable. And yet, it had changed his entire life.
He had known, though.
He had known that Riyaz had survived. He had felt that in his bones. Either way, Cairo’s loyalty was to Nazul. And he had built his empire on the foundation of wanting nothing more than to destroy the men that had killed his family. That had taken his legacy.
And he had known that if his brother truly were being held captive, then he must be rescued. Cairo would always come for him.
He might be Syed to the world, but he had always been Cairo.
Always.
He knew what he had to do. All the parties, all the excess...it was never for him. And if it successfully helped to burn away the memories of what had happened in Nazul?
He did not mind having those memories blurred.
He didn’t need them sharp to fulfill his mission.
He knew who he was. He might have indulged himself in the pleasures to be found in the world. It had started as a way to gain access to parties and by extension, to people.
But he found that he had an endless capacity to work hard, and to pursue divine degradation even harder.
And so he had built himself an empire. One that allowed him to move freely between nations. Collect allies and data, and many other things that aided him in this overthrow of the overthrowers.
He’d also found himself in many rooms with men who were dangerous and lacked scruples. He’d saved a girl from one of those rooms.
Brianna Whitman.
He’d helped her escape the fate set out for her by her father, sent her to school, and she’d become an accomplished life coach for people who had come from difficult circumstances, and while he found all of that to be modern, soft nonsense...
It had seemed less nonsensical when he saw his brother for the first time in fifteen years. He’d hired Brianna then, to go and try to help him. Coax him back to the world, to the position of his birth. She was there now, trying her best to help him become the man he was meant to be, rather than the beast he’d been fashioned into through years of isolation.
Riyaz was free. But Riyaz was not... He was certainly not fit to rule. He was blunt and he lacked even basic manners. He had spent the years in the dungeon reading and honing his body into a war machine. He was a strange mix of things, his brother. Well-read, for he’d had nothing to do in the dungeon but read, and he’d done so to keep his language alive. He had also worked out exhaustively to avoid letting any part of him atrophy.
But he had no practice of applying these things in the real world. He could hardly hold a conversation, let alone engage in matters of global diplomacy.
Cairo’s taking of the palace in Nazul was a secret. To the nation, to the world. They’d power, but they continued to operate in stealth mode, particularly as he figured out when he could present Riyaz to the people.
They would have only one chance to do so.
Riyaz could not be seen as weak mentally. He could not be seen as affected by what he’d endured. The people would want a strong, triumphant return.
When Riyaz had been freed from the dungeon, Cairo had been there.
His brother had been dressed in near rags, his hair and beard long. Cairo had expected to find him weak and pale, but Riyaz had been built of pure muscle and rage. He refused to go outside. He refused to sleep in a bed. He spent much of his time in the dungeon still.
He had asked for two things upon his freedom.
A cheeseburger, and Ariel Hart.
Ariel...
The name had been a jagged, whispered memory to Cairo.
But he had known just where she was.
He had always known.
He had thought of going to her, many times. And yet he’d known there was only ever one circumstance under which he could see her again. If Riyaz wanted her.
And Riyaz wanted her.
So Cairo would do what Riyaz had asked. He owed him that.
“You had to know that I would come for you,” he said.
“I...”
She was beautiful. She was orange blossoms in a mosaic garden that he had not seen in more than a decade. She was rich, perfumed air. She was a moment in time he could never have back.
It was the impact of her that shocked him. For Cairo was dead to most things in the world. He felt rage, and he felt desire, he had felt something larger than himself when Riyaz had been freed from the dungeon.
But this... Her... She was incredibly beautiful. She surpassed that which she had promised to become. For she had always been lovely.
Her robin’s egg blue eyes were wide as she looked up at him. She was dressed as if she was ready to run. She had been warned.
“Are you here to kill me?” she whispered.
“No,” he said. “That would be far too basic, and I am a civilized man.”
“And not dead,” she pointed out.
“No. At least not last I checked.” He looked at her yet more intently. “Did you think that I was?”
“I did not discount it.” She looked away, and he was certain he saw regret in her eyes, sadness. But he was not swayed by it. “I know the fate of the rest of your family.”
“Riyaz lives.”
She nodded slowly. “Is that why you’re here? Because of Riyaz?”
“Yes,” said Cairo. “I am here on behalf of my brother. You don’t seem shocked that Riyaz is alive.”
“There were rumors. That he had been kept alive and imprisoned in the palace. Collateral of some kind. I do not fully understand.”
“Neither do I. But can one understand the will of a madman? Your father is included in that.”
“My father’s betrayal of your family was not something I had any idea of.”
“And I have no designs to blame you for it. You were a mere child.”
“So were you.”
He regarded her for a long moment. He had not felt like a child. Not since he had escaped the palace that day. He had known then that all he could do was survive. He’d had to. For he was the only remaining, living member of his family that was not being held in captivity. Survival was not an option. It was a directive.
“Then, you aren’t here for revenge?”
Revenge would be a much simpler task. Revenge he’d taken already and it had been easy, cathartic.
Ariel had never been easy for him.
But atonement required sacrifice.
And she was that.
“No. I’m here to ensure that the contract is honored. My brother has been freed, and he needs a wife.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of you trying to find another one.”
“No. There is not. You were promised to my family, and my family has lost too much of what it is owed. I will not see this ended as well.”
She tossed her hair, looking every bit the haughty American socialite he had always thought lurked beneath the rather sweet, large eyed demeanor that she had always portrayed when she came to visit Nazul. But it was not genuine. He could see that just as easily. She was trying to be brave.
“It seems a bit like crying over spilled milk,” she said.
He was not a cruel man. But he was not a man who knew how to bend either. And there were certain things he refused to suffer. Fools, attempts at manipulation, and attitude from the woman whose father had engineered the murder of his parents.
“It is not milk that has been spilled, ya amar, but blood. The blood of my parents. And it is not spilled milk that causes anguish even now, but lost years. Fifteen years Riyaz has been in the dungeon. Fifteen years. Without human contact. With nothing. While I made the weapons that would claim his freedom. And you wish to speak to me in cliché. Let me return one for you. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. A life in captivity... For a life in captivity.”
What she wanted didn’t matter here. It could not matter. Softness here, with her, was unforgivable. A mistake made once before and never again.
Never again.
And then he reached out and took her by the arm, propelling her from her apartment. But she did not move quickly enough, so he lifted her off the ground with ease, cradling her in his arms as if she were a bride he were to carry over his own threshold. Laughable. She was not for him. She never had been. Always, from the beginning, she had been meant for Riyaz. And Riyaz had been robbed of... Absolutely everything.
It was that which fueled him now. The rage that he felt on behalf of his brother. And the need to atone for his part in it.
He was dimly aware that she was punching him. But her fists were like pebbles against an oak. Of no consequence. His family had suffered. His only punishment had been to see it, when he’d deserved the same death.
All these years, he had lived a life. A life that was fueled by his need for revenge. A life that was purgatory, but a life all the same.
And she... She had been here in Paris. She had been everywhere. Living unfettered by the horror that had taken place at the palace. He did not pause to wait for the elevator, rather he carried her straight down the stairs of the old building, down and out to the street where his limousine was idling against the curb.
He opened the door on his own, and all but threw her onto the plush seat. He closed the door firmly and locked them in. “Drive,” he said to his driver.
The man was paid well enough not to question anything. Which was good, because Ariel began to protest. And did not stop.
“He’s kidnapping me,” she said to the driver.
The driver’s ice-cold glance connected with Cairo’s in the rearview mirror. And then Cairo slowly put the divider up between the front and the back of the car.
“He does not care,” said Cairo.
“Cairo, what good does it do to have me marry your brother?” She looked around wildly, as if something suddenly dawned on her. “You don’t really want me to marry him, do you? Am I going to be publicly executed or something? Since my father is already dead?”
“I told you already, it is not revenge I’m after,” he said. “Public execution is barbaric. Your father was barbaric, Ariel. And if he were alive, perhaps I would treat him as he treated my family. It is a travesty that he was able to die so neatly. A heart attack. Bland, nondescript and far too quick. My mother screamed in agony. My father fought until his very last breath.” She had the decency to look cowed by that. “It is not so simple as having you pay for his sins. It is about the restoration of Nazul. You were part of an original promise that was made to my country, to my brother. Your father was part of fracturing the peace of our country, the rightness of the world. What better image to present to the people than to see Riyaz back on the throne, with you as his bride, as if none of the bad things had ever happened?” He nearly laughed. For there was no erasing the past, no matter how beautifully you tried to gild the present. “Most importantly of all, it is what Riyaz has asked for.” Though he wasn’t sure his brother saw it how he did. But he had a plan in place to protect Ariel and please Riyaz. “The responsibility of restoring Nazul is mine.”
“How is it yours?”
“Riyaz has been in a dungeon for fifteen years, how do you suppose he is?”
For the first time she looked subdued. “How is he?”
“Not well,” he said. “When it becomes public knowledge that he lives...”
“It is,” she said.
“I do not believe that it is.”
“My mother knew. She texted me and she told me to run. Because Riyaz was out.”
He paused for a long moment. “There must be somebody inside the palace with a connection to your family.”
“Unlikely.”
“We brought back many of the old staff who once worked there. Perhaps it was a mistake.”
He was hell-bent on making things as they were. It was the only way. But in this... He had clearly miscalculated. Thankfully, however, it had not been leaked to the media at large. But who knew what Ariel’s mother might do with it. She had never seemed like a craven or greedy woman, but then, neither had her husband. And he had been secretly plotting to aid in the overthrow of their family.
Yes, Cairo had learned at a very early age that you could not trust anyone.
“Regardless,” he said. “We are attempting to ensure that Riyaz is ready. To face the public. There is a team with him now, and they are working with him.”
“Are we going to the palace now?”
He was silent for a moment. “No. We must be certain that he is... For all that you might think that I am barbaric, that I would oversee your public execution, it is actually not my goal. So until I have made certain it is not my brother’s, I will be keeping you safe. With me.”
“With you?” She spoke the word as if it were laughable.
“Yes. I take my position in the monarchy very seriously. Riyaz is the heir, and I am the spare. But I was also the one who was spared captivity. It is my job now to use what I have to support him.”
“And what is that?”
“Social graces,” Cairo returned.
“I don’t know that they’ve been on the best display.”
“My apologies for your struggle,” he said.
“Cairo...”
“You knew. You knew I would come for you. You were prepared to run. Your mother was prepared to text you to run. Do not act surprised by it now.”
“I had rather thought that murder would be the aim.”
“No. So you should be relieved.”
“I’m not.”
He looked at her, hard. “This was always how it would be. You knew that. You knew it when you were a child. You know it now. The al Hadid family is an inevitability. We are the sun in the desert. You cannot outrun us. And you cannot extinguish us. Your fate is sealed.”
