The Cobra & the Concubine (Khamsin Warriors of the Wind) (18 page)

The camel’s gait soothed Kenneth as he listed from side to side. As he approached the Khamsin camp, Kenneth felt stabbing regret that he had not accepted Victor’s offer to accompany him.

His cousin’s shop had turned out to be a dusty storefront in a deserted alleyway. Kenneth’s suspicions flared. If there were any profits coming from the store, he doubted it. He promised himself to have Zaid do a little checking into Victor.

Black tents dotted the pebbled sand. Warriors posted at the camp’s edge noticed him and gave an undulating cry.

It was of warning—not of welcome.

Kenneth slid off his camel, grabbing the reins. Sweat plastered his shirt to his drenched skin. He’d never sweated in the summer heat as much as he did now, facing the tribe he had thought to shun for good—facing the sheikh who had called him brother, but who called him brother no more.

People began gathering, whispering and nodding toward him. Since it was impolite to point in the Arab world, they simply stared. Kenneth felt naked, exposed. He returned their stares with a grim smile and halted short of the first tent. A herd of sheep bleated, running from him as if he were a wolf.

He felt like a snake slithering into Paradise. Not one face showed a welcoming smile. Two warriors scowled, holding their rifles at chest level, but not pointed at him.

Not yet, anyway.

A pretty woman in indigo, a blue scarf wrapped around her blond head, rushed forward. "Kenneth," she cried softly.

Elizabeth’s two slender arms surrounded him as she hugged him tightly. Emotions washed over him as he embraced the sheikh’s wife. The women were much more forgiving than the men.

"You have come back to us," she said in English. "I knew you could not forget us."

Kenneth released her, his fingers curling about her arms, hating to banish the hopeful look in her blue eyes. "Elizabeth, it is not what you think," he began.

His voice trailed off as a tight band of indigo-draped warriors marched toward him. He spotted two very familiar faces leading the pack. Once they’d been friends. No longer.

Two sets of eyes, one black as pitch, one dark as gold, burned into him. Jabari and Ramses. The sheikh and his Guardian of the Ages. There were no signs of welcome in their tight-lipped expressions. The sheikh moved near, his dark eyes blazing. He unsheathed his ivory-handled scimitar and held it to Kenneth’s throat.

"Get your hands off my wife."

His Egyptian brother had become his enemy.

The cold steel sword rested upon Kenneth’s throat. He felt an odd calm settle on him, though anger radiated from the depths of the Khamsin sheikh’s dark eyes. Those eyes had once expressed affection and understanding. Now a chilled blankness resided there. Kenneth did not remove his hands from Elizabeth. He could not let Jabari intimidate him, or he would incur the sheikh’s contempt. Better his wrath than his scorn.

"Odd way of saying hello to a visitor, Jabari," he drawled in Arabic. "I suppose this means no welcoming cup of coffee?"

"Jabari, stop it. Right now," Elizabeth snapped.

The sheikh gave a disapproving grunt but lowered his scimitar. He did not sheath it, but kept it tightly clenched in his hand.

Elizabeth stepped back, breaking Kenneth’s hold. The flare of disapproval in her blue eyes faded. She placed a sun-darkened hand on her husband’s shoulder. "Jabari, Kenneth is visiting. Will you not at least show him hospitality?"

Jabari grunted again. "I suppose I must, since as sheikh I am obliged to show hospitality to visitors."

Ramses stepped forward, amber eyes flashing. "Well, I am not," he said calmly, and suddenly Kenneth felt a huge fist smash into his mouth. Elizabeth cried out. Kenneth staggered back, overcome by shocked dizziness and pain.

Righting himself, he wiped a trickle of blood from his lip, examining the crimson on his fingertips with a rueful smile. "I deserved that," he admitted. He locked gazes with his sheikh’s guardian. "I deserved it for what I did when I left. Shall we call it a draw, or will you force me to return your kindness?"

Ramses’ cold gaze burned into him. "A draw? I am not so certain."

"Stop it—stop it now, all of you," Elizabeth cried out. "Kenneth is your foster brother, Jabari. Why are you treating him like this? He’s family!"

The normally self-possessed woman began to cry. Tears gathered in her luminous blue eyes and ran down her cheeks. "He’s family, don’t do this to him," she sobbed.

Instantly Jabari’s expression shifted to contrition. He sheathed his sword and embraced his wife. She wept into his chest. "I am sorry, my love, for upsetting you."

"Elizabeth? Is everything all right?" Kenneth asked gently, more surprised by her shattered composure than worried by the present hostilities.

"She is emotional because of the baby. She found out just yesterday that she is with child," the sheikh explained.

A petite, dark-haired woman clad in the same manner as Elizabeth—indigo
kuftan
and a light blue scarf about her head—pushed her way through the crowd. A scar flared on her left cheek. She had deep green eyes. Katherine! Her face lit up with a delighted smile.

"Khepri!" she exclaimed, and hugged him.

With a blank expression, Ramses gently reached out and pulled his wife to his side.

Terribly uncomfortable, Kenneth offered them both a rueful smile. "Your father sends his best wishes for all of you, Katherine, and the new baby you’re expecting."

Silence from the men. The women looked troubled.

Bloody hell, this was so damn difficult. He wished he’d never lashed out in anger at Jabari when he’d left. Those words had wounded deeper than any physical injury could.

He tried again, focusing on the women. "Well, I’m not surprised you’re both expecting. Ramses always did brag that a man’s hair length was a sign of his fertility."

He gave a pointed look to the two Khamsin warriors, whose long locks spilled from beneath their indigo turbans. Then Kenneth touched his bare head, his waves of dark brown hair clipped and barely feathering his collar.

"Contraception?" he suggested.

The women laughed, and Ramses and Jabari both offered reluctant smiles. Kenneth turned and headed for his camel and rucksack. He withdrew a parcel and an envelope and sauntered back, handing both to Katherine.

"From your father. He sends his love."

Katherine took the items, an eager look on her face as she handed her husband the package and ripped open the envelope. "A letter from Papa. Oh my! A long one, too!"

Ramses unwrapped the square box and wrinkled his brow, reading the label. "English tea?"

"The best," Kenneth commented. Hell, it could have been arsenic for all he could read.

Elizabeth’s red-rimmed eyes shone with pleasure. "Real English tea. What a treat!"

"Thank you." Katherine glanced up at Kenneth from scanning the pages. "It’s good to see you made friends with Papa."

"He’s been a tremendous help to me."

"Kenneth," Jabari said slowly. "You have returned to us."

The mood shifted like hot sand blowing upon the dunes. Kenneth met the sheikh’s piercing gaze. "Not exactly. I need to discuss something of grave importance. In private. The ceremonial tent will suffice. I came here because I wished to honor the bond we once shared."

A flicker of emotion showed on the sheikh’s tight-lipped face. He nodded and glanced at Ramses. "Both of us will hear what you have to say." He jerked his head sideways toward the large, black ceremonial tent where war councils and important decisions were made.

The men detached themselves from their wives and strode toward the tent. Katherine clutched the white vellum in her hands, looking at Kenneth a bit bemusedly. It wasn’t a good sign. Between that and Jabari’s failure to order his men to set up guest quarters, it meant they clearly did not intend for him to stay.

He hooked his thumbs into his belt and strode purposefully, following the two warriors who were once his closest friend and brother.

He sat crossed-legged on the tent’s colorful carpet. The flaps had been rolled down to allow for privacy. Wind ruffled the sturdy sides. Kenneth studied the sheikh and Ramses, taking care to appear calm and unruffled himself. His breath came steady and even. No trace of anxiety showed. Yet sweat soaked the inside of his lightweight khaki trousers. After years of living with the desert heat, it was as if his body had totally forgotten how to adjust.

Once he’d worn this uniform of a tribal warrior: indigo
binish
, trousers, soft leather boots, and sharp scimitar dangling from his belt. No longer. Today his well-tailored khaki suit set him apart.

Jabari regarded him with a guarded expression. Kenneth studied the sheikh with equal care. Animosity crackled like flames leaping into the air between them. Kenneth’s hand briefly touched the small cobra tattoo on his right arm as if to remember another time and place when he’d fought alongside these men.

"You indicated very clearly the day you parted for England that you did not wish to see me again," Jabari said flatly.

Kenneth rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the muscles there tense. Forging ahead immediately with the news that Rashid was a thief wasn’t wise. First he must make peace with the past, with the sheikh. Deep in Jabari’s dark eyes flickered the damage Kenneth had inflicted when he left.
I’m not your brother and I never was.

That rage blazed in Jabari’s eyes when he spoke again. "I considered you my brother. I gave you a position of highest honor, to be falcon guard to Badra." The sheikh paused.

"You know I love Badra like a sister. When you came and offered for her hand, I thought it a good match."

"But Badra turned me down." Kenneth looked away.

"I could not force her hand." Jabari laid his palms open on his knees. Kenneth remembered the gesture. It meant,
What do you want from me?
Memories arose: Badra’s refusal. Her velvet soft voice cutting him to the bone.

"No, you could not force her hand," Kenneth agreed. "But you didn’t even encourage her to reconsider. No, you let me walk away with my grandfather back to England. Sometimes I wonder if you ever really considered me your true brother." Bitterness dripped from his words; silence hung in the tent.

Jabari’s voice thundered. "You lie!" The sheikh took a deep breath and fisted his trembling hands. "Not my brother? Not my brother, Kenneth? No, not a blood brother, a brother much closer."

Jabari glanced down at his side, at the jeweled wedding dagger strapped there. He removed the blade. In a swift move, it sailed through the air. The symbol of Hassid kinship landed inches from Kenneth’s boots.

"I gave you this—the Hassid wedding dagger, handed down for hundreds of years through blood. You refused it. You denied me as your brother. Not I!"

Kenneth studied the blade that had cut him off from the tribe that raised him, from the brother who loved him. In his own way, he had rejected Jabari as cruelly as Badra had rejected him. His heart twisted as he continued staring at the dagger. It pierced the carpet like a dividing line, reminding him of the ties he’d cut with his former brethren.

Khamsin no longer.

The sheikh could not ever forgive such a tremendous insult. But if he knew the reasons behind the refusal...

"Jabari, why do you think I refused your dagger?"

The sheikh lifted his chin and squared his shoulders, facing Kenneth with an air of dignified pride. "Because you turned your back on everything Egyptian. You were turning your back on me because, when you found out you would become a wealthy English duke, you were ashamed of us. Of me as your brother."

"Ashamed of you?" Kenneth let loose a short bark of laughter. "My God, all this time ... you thought I was some high-handed English snob?"

Ramses and Jabari stared at him as if he’d lost his wits. "What exactly is so amusing?" Ramses asked evenly.

Kenneth gulped down a breath. "Everything. You thought I was ashamed. I was—but not of you. It took all my strength to board that ship and leave behind this life, everything I had known and honored and loved." He continued to laugh.