The Healer's Warrior (11 page)

He needed her to touch him. He didn’t close his eyes or truly relax because he was anticipating the moment when Jem’ya would warm the oil in her palms and then slide her hands across his skin. Tareq needed her to touch him not just because he was in pain, but because he felt like a leper, like an abomination, entirely undesirable and undeserving. He wanted to know if she could stomach it. Could Jem’ya bring herself to touch someone like him?

When the moment finally came, when Jem’ya’s fingers pressed and kneaded at his shoulders, there was relief, but no peace. Tareq didn’t feel the usual deep calm of being in Jem’ya’s care. It was because things weren’t the same. They were not at the Coast. The sound of the tide washing across the shore was not in the background. There was no playful banter between him and her. There was no smell of salt water and woodsy incense or the familiar warm fragrance of Jem’ya’s body.

“You don’t smell the same,” he murmured absently.

Jem’ya paused massaging his arm, then resumed without a word.  When the session was finished, Jem’ya stepped back from the table. Tareq stood and stretched. His muscular arms and legs felt loose and relaxed but he did not have his peace of mind;
Mahsalom
. As he stretched, rolling his shoulders and arching his back, Jem’ya stared blankly at an area of the marble floor.

“What is the name of the incense that you use in your home at the Coast?” Tareq asked.

Jem’ya met his eyes, her brows lowered in suspicion.
“Clove.
And
agarwood
.”

He nodded. Then he stepped towards her. Tareq tenderly grasped her soft hand and bowed to kiss the top of it, but Jem’ya immediately slipped her fingers away.

She hid her trembling hands behind her back. “May I leave?”

Tareq looked at her with disappointment. He was not disappointed with her, but with himself. Tareq noticed that her dark skin did not have the healthy glow that he always admired. His gaze trailed up from her hand, across her arm and finally to her face. “What do you usually use on your skin?
A special lotion?”

 Jem’ya stared at him, wary of his curiosity. They were harmless questions but they made her nervous nonetheless. Being alone with him for too long made her uneasy, and he was standing too close. “I use the oil of the Shea nut. May I leave?”  

As soon as Tareq nodded, Jem’ya rushed to retrieve the black
burqa
from the coat hook on the wall, pulled it on and hurried out the door where Bahja was waiting for her. Tareq sighed and turned to the desk for his clothes. He pulled on his pants and tightened the belt. As he picked up his tan shirt from the desk, he noticed something glittering beside the water bowl. It was the pearl and gold earrings. To see the earrings discarded there further weakened his hope. Yet some hope remained, clutching onto the memory of Jem’ya’s smile, to the feeling of her fingers in his hair, and to the chance that the impossible thing she’d mentioned in her half-dream was the same impossible thing he desired as well.

He picked up the earrings and carefully dropped them into his pocket.

Tareq went down to the cellar late the next day. He wanted to make sure that the incenses and oil he’d sent for had arrived and that they were to Jem’ya’s liking. He went down the cellar’s dark stairway and down the hall towards the light of Jem’ya’s room. As he stepped in front of the gate and Jem’ya came into view he was struck speechless. Jem’ya was using the Shea nut oil on her skin. She did not take notice of him. Tareq took a step backward, back into the shadows to watch her.

The skirt of Jem’ya’s dress was hiked up to her hip and her foot was perched on the seat of the chair. Tareq was mesmerized as he watched her hands massage the oil into her shapely calf. Her fingers rubbed circles across her radiant brown skin. Her hands smoothed over her knee. She stopped to pour more oil into her palm. She moisturized the sensitive space behind her knee and worked her way up. Tareq felt his desire coiled tight and burning in his gut as her hands began to oil her curvaceous thigh. The thought of his own fingers pressed into her dark supple thighs almost sent him past the edge of self-control.  

Tareq was startled from his appreciation of Jem’ya by the sound of Bahja clearing her throat. He turned to see Bahja smirking beside him with her arms full of clean, folded clothes. Tareq’s face flamed with embarrassment. He avoided her green eyes, which were bright with amusement, and dashed away. Tareq did not reach the stairs before hearing the sound of Bahja laughing.

Bahja’s laugh startled Jem’ya. She took her foot down from the chair and let the bottom of her dress fall over her legs again. “What is so funny?”

“It seems you just gave Tareq quite a show. You are the only person that has ever made our prince blush so red!” Bahja laughed and wiped the tears from her eyes as she unlocked the gate. She continued laughing as she placed Jem’ya’s clothes into the small dresser.

 Jem’ya’s cheeks and neck became hot. She had never felt ashamed of her body before but the thought of Tareq watching her made her flustered.  Jem’ya frowned and crossed her arms across her chest, hiding her nervous hands. “He should be ashamed of himself,” she huffed.

As Tareq strode down the hall his humiliation turned into annoyance. Bahja often said or did things that hurt or embarrassed him, but Tareq could never be too mad at her because it was always what he needed to hear or needed to face.

“Well if it isn’t the Prince of Purity!”

Tareq saw Qadir and felt guilty. He hadn’t seen his older brother in days and Tareq was ashamed to admit he had forgotten about him. Usually he would check on Qadir every day, but lately his thoughts were elsewhere.

A representation of his bold personality, Qadir always wore bright tunics. Today’s color was lime green. The brothers stopped in the middle of the hall to talk.

“Hello, brother,” Tareq nodded.

“The Loveless Lord!
The Restrained Royal!”

His brows rose. “Qadir, will you shut your mouth?”

Qadir frowned.
“The…Sexless Sheik?
No!
The Not-so-Randy Raja!”

Tareq finally cracked a smile and Qadir laughed, pleased with his ability to humor his uptight little brother. Tareq’s smile fell as he noticed that Qadir did not look well. His face was ashen and his skin was moist with sweat.  “Are you feeling alright?”

“Huh? Oh, I’m fine.” He sighed. “Actually, no, I’m not. I quit drinking, you know.”

“Really?
When?”

“This morning.”
Qadir shrugged and lowered his brown eyes.

“Well…that’s a start, right? I want you in clear mind and good form when we gain rule of Samhia. Soon you’ll be my right-hand man, brother.”

Qadir smiled but Tareq saw a hint of sadness in the lines of the man’s thin face. In an instant, his expression returned to its usual mischievous smirk. “So, Prince of Purity, there is a rumor making its way around the palace that belies your reputation. A rumor about a beautiful dark-skinned woman kept hidden in the cellar?”

Tareq’s eyes widened. “Who are the people saying these things?!”

“I’m exaggerating. It isn’t exactly a rumor. More like confidential information that was passed on to me.”

Tareq’s jaw tightened.
“Bahja.”

“Yes.” Qadir chuckled. “Then it’s true. Oh, I can only imagine what you are up to down there. You should be ashamed of yourself.” He smirked.

He was very ashamed. Tareq could not bring himself to tell Qadir the truth of what he had done to Jem’ya and her family.

“Who are you to judge, Qadir?” Tareq growled in that moment of shame-fueled panic. He swallowed past the lump in his throat. “I mean, look at
yourself
,” he muttered.

Qadir flinched. Hurt was evident in his dark brown eyes. Tareq opened his mouth to apologize, but Qadir wordlessly brushed past him and continued walking down the hall. Thoroughly disgusted with himself, Tareq rolled his eyes up to the gold-flecked ceiling. Then he clenched his eyes shut. The people he cared about were all turning away. His life was falling apart.  

In his room, Tareq sat on the edge of his bed rolling the gold and pearl earrings around in his hand. He studied them and realized they represented Jem’ya. Jem’ya was the pearl, something precious from the sea. And like the pearls she was trapped in a gilded cage, trapped in the palace.

Tareq couldn’t bring himself to let her go, yet he didn’t want to keep her imprisoned here. She hated him still, but it seemed like she could stand him a little bit more each day. At least he could see her and have chances to make things right. He still sought her forgiveness though it was the most exhausting goal he’d ever set.

He was tired of his feelings. Too easily, his emotions became monstrous and intense and disabled him. Tareq felt the distance between him and Jem’ya like a chasm in his spirit. He feared he would slip into the same dark place he’d lingered in for a time at the age of seventeen, the place in his mind that made him wish for a warrior’s death.

There was a knock on the door. Bahja entered. “Prince Tareq? The rebels from the
Cambe
settlement have been located. Hakan will lead a squadron to fight them. He asks if you wish to join him.”

His emotional reactions were destroying his life. He needed to be calm and logical. Tareq needed to clear his mind and the only way he knew how to become numb was to fight. When you face death on the battlefield, there is clarity. What is trivial recedes, and then what is true reveals
itself
. Tareq nodded. “Tell Hakan I accept.” He stood from the bed and tossed the earrings into a drawer. Then he began to put on his armor.

CHAPTER FIVE

A bright splatter of blood hit Hakan’s cheek, speckling the black star and cobra tattoo beneath his right eye. Hakan’s thick arm tensed as he pulled his sword from the dark flesh of the screaming tribesman and swiftly brought the blade down on the shoulder of another man who tried to attack from behind. As Hakan fought he also kept an eye out for the royal prince. Hakan was immediately concerned to see Tareq still on his horse. Prince Tareq never took his horse into battle.

The black horse paced impatiently back and forth and around as it stood in the middle of the chaos without any commands from its rider. The prince sat glassy-eyed and still in the saddle, the reins limp but clenched in his palms.

 From the corner of his eye, Hakan saw a spear leave a tribesman’s hand. It shot through the air towards the vulnerable neck of the unaware prince.

Tareq’s heart had burned with righteousness as the kingdom’s soldiers trekked onward through the desert and grasslands to find the
Cambe
rebels, but when the squadron finally came upon them, Tareq felt a wave of dread chill his stomach. And as the Samhian soldiers raced across the dry brown earth and clashed with the shrieking tribal warriors, the chill spread to his chest and arms, paralyzing him atop his horse. He was stricken and yet he could sense everything.  He felt his sweat falling in rivulets down his chest underneath the leather and bronze armor. The thickness of the simmering air made his lungs labor for oxygen. His eyes stung from the fine dust blowing about, but he couldn’t blink. He was experiencing this battle around him like no battle before. He saw the beasts. He saw the bloodthirsty animals all of these men had become.

 Sharp gnashing teeth slick with saliva, bloodied hands and swords, loin cloths made of a victim’s robes, a dark smirk on a bearded face, and the screams. The shrieks clawed at Tareq’s mind. They rung in his ears, reverberating and amplifying until it all sounded like Jem’ya’s deafening wail for her dead brother. By the grace of Allah, Hakan’s voice came through.

“Down,
your
Highness!
At your right!”