Fire erupted in that beautiful gaze. The fear was all gone now and she was pure, ferocious anger. Her small body bristled with the force of her emotion, her chest rising and falling with it.
She raised her hand and even realizing what she intended, Ayaan couldn’t move, couldn’t stop her. She slapped him hard, the sound of it ringing around them.
Her chin wobbled, tears falling onto her cheeks. “I am beginning to believe you are truly mad.” Her voice was as sharp as the sting of the slap she had delivered. “Why else would anyone invite such pain upon themselves? You knew what might happen to you here. The desert, these stables, this is why you have been such...a monster this past week, why you kept everyone away...” She wiped her tears on her sleeve.
“You saw your brother and sister die here. Why walk in here?” She shoved him again, feeble as her energy was. “I want an answer.”
In the face of her angry energy, he clasped her gently, a knot in his throat. “If I hid from it, if I pretended that it didn’t exist during this trip, it would forever haunt me. I needed to come here, I needed to see what it could do to me.” When I looked at you next, I needed to know that I faced it instead of hiding.
Shaking her head, she tugged his hand off her. “And if it had pushed you past that edge, if it had robbed—”
He pulled her to him and tucked his face in her hair. “That was a price I was willing to pay.” He swallowed hard, the scent of her seeping into his cells. “My life, Zohra. How could you be so stupid as to follow me?”
She pushed him again, tears flowing freely across her face, trying to break free. “And you think you are not fit to be king, that you don’t have what it takes? You are a ruthless bastard, Ayaan. You have all the arrogance that is required to rule your blasted country. Now, let go of me.”
“No,” he said loudly, crushing her with his arms, emotion robbing him of any sense.
She landed across his knees, the air knocked out of her. She fought him every inch of the way, but he didn’t give a damn. He kept his grip on her gentle, but letting go of her was a concept he just couldn’t grasp in that moment. She pounded her fists into his stomach. He held her shoulders in a tight grip and forced her head down.
As if sensing his intentions, she stilled. She felt soft and warm against his thighs. Combing his fingers through her hair, he checked for any swelling. There was none.
“There’s no swelling, Ayaan,” she said, wriggling under his hold.
He closed his eyes, fighting the wet heat of tears prickling at the back of his eyes.
With his hand under her shoulders, he dragged her toward him, nothing gentle left in him anymore.
“I told you there is no swelling, Ayaan. I was just disoriented for a few seconds, that’s all. I—”
But he was past caring, past honor, past good sense. He moved to his knees, lifted her up and started walking out of the stables.
“Ayaan, put me down,” she said squirming against him.
He tightened his hold on her, crushing her against him. Did she have any idea how delicate she was? Did she not know what a mindless beast he became in the throes of a nightmare, what a chance she had taken with him? “No.”
“Ayaan, please, you are scaring me.”
He had to laugh. She was scared now? The woman was scared now after putting him through that? “Again and again, I warned you to stay away from me. But you didn’t listen. You made a choice, ya habibati. That choice has consequences.”
He took the path toward his tent and a shudder went through her. “Where are you taking me?”
“To my tent.”
“The maid will tend to me. I want a bath and I want to sleep.”
“You can do all that in my tent.”
“Why?”
“I could have seriously hurt you, Zohra. A few more seconds and I would have...” He pulled a deep breath in. The hard knot in his throat remained, his chest so stiflingly tight that it was a wonder he was able to breathe at all.
“But you didn’t, Ayaan.” Her fingers feathered over his jaw. “You stopped. Ayaan, please, it was my choice to follow you, mine. This is not your fault. You couldn’t know who it was. You were drowning in that memory, you were not yourself. You can’t hold yourself—”
“When you should have cowered from me, you didn’t.” He stepped over the threshold of his tent and dismissed the guards. “I close my eyes and I see you...against the wall. Ya Allah...if you...”
He threw her on the bed, shivering from rage. Her face was pale, her brown eyes glittering in the light of the lamps. “I could not let you go through that alone, Ayaan.”