The Sheik's Command (9 page)

T
he afternoon light was low, the sun beginning to drop behind the hills. As Nikki bathed Samira’s forehead she wondered what Zakir was doing, how his talks were going.

The image of Gelu’s cold eyes snaked back into her mind, and she shivered slightly. How was she going to get out of this?

A shadow darkened the entrance of the small adobe hut. Nikki stilled, her hand resting on Samira’s hot forehead. She sensed it was Zakir. Guilt reared up inside her, and her pulse began to race.

Slowly she glanced up.

He filled the doorway, a dark silhouette in a black tunic and riding boots, scimitar at his hip, the bejeweled hilt of the jambiya sheathed at his waist catching the fading light.

Her heart began to thud.

“It’s okay,” she whispered softly to Samira. “It’s the king. He’s here to help us.”

Nikki bought a few moments to compose herself by
carefully squeezing out the cloth, saving the precious water droplets in a clay bowl. She stood, wiped her hands on her skirts and approached him. His stillness was unsettling.

He’d resumed his regal stance. Gone was the man she’d glimpsed alone in the mountains.

Zakir stepped back and out the door as Nikki came near, and she followed him into the sunlight. She looked up at his face and was startled by the intensity in his gaze. And again, studying him closely, she saw that the pupil in his left eye was not reacting to the rays of the sun setting behind the peaks.

“I wanted to thank you for being my envoy, Nikki. I misread you. The Berber shepherd has told me how you saved him and brought him back to the village.”

Nikki heard admiration in his voice. Emotion punched so powerfully through her that she had to tighten her jaw, her fists, to hold it all in. “Thank you, Zakir,” she whispered.

For respecting me. For admiring me.

She’d felt like a pariah for so long, been so filled with self-loathing over the way she’d handled her grief, that to earn this man’s respect was almost overwhelming.

“You didn’t expect this?”

She shook her head, laughed—an exhalation of relief. Then she inhaled shakily, pressing her hand against her sternum. “You keep surprising me. I guess I misjudged you, too.”

“Is that young girl in the hut the one who is pregnant?”

Nikki nodded. “Samira.”

“How is she?”

“Not good, I’m afraid. The baby is not due for another eight weeks, but Samira’s been having contractions, bleeding. She’s very dehydrated, and she has a fever. The baby is also in transverse lie—”

“Which means?”

“The fetus is lying sideways in the uterus. Sometimes you can get it to change position before labor starts by doing what
is called an external version where you manually try and shift the baby.”

“And if you can’t?”

Nikki wiped her brow with the back of her sleeve, suddenly feeling exhausted. “Then it could become stuck during labor, and without surgical intervention the mother will die. If I can’t turn the baby soon, Zakir, Samira will need to be in a hospital before she enters labor. And I’m worried about the contractions she is having now. Premature labor could be induced by a long journey to Tenerife. She really shouldn’t travel.” She sighed. “I’m not sure what to do.”

Apart from performing an emergency C-section in primitive medical conditions.
Nikki prayed it wouldn’t come to that.

Zakir’s eyes narrowed as he studied her, and something shifted in his dark, rugged features. Nikki thought again about how she’d felt under his body with his mouth a breath away from hers, the way she had stirred to life deep inside.

She flushed, swallowed. “I…I should get back to her.”

He gave a curt nod, as if irritated with himself. Then he wavered, as if not wanting to let her go yet. “How are the other children?” he said, voice crisp.

“Much better. The hydrolytes helped with dehydration and the antibiotics with the stomach infections. They’ll get strong again with…” Tears overwhelmed her as she spoke, and she angrily swiped them away with the base of her thumb. “Sorry. I’m tired, Zakir. I’m just so relieved to be with them again, to have brought them this far.”

He placed his hand on her shoulder. Heavy. Warm. Such a calming strength transferring from his touch through her body. It was a gesture as potent as it was subtle, a message of affection, kinship, a sign that she should not feel so alone.

“And your wound—it’s okay?”

She nodded. “I’m fine.”

“Go,” he said softly, rich, low. Authoritative. “Tend to your
children. I will be meeting with the clan sheik and his tribal council later tonight. Other chiefs are coming from villages in the surrounding mountains. This has been made possible through your diplomacy, Nikki. I thank you for this. I will come and see the other children later—tonight.” Almost reflexively, he gently, very briefly cupped the side of her face.

Heat rippled through Nikki, pooling low in her belly.

Then he was gone, striding away, his long gait eating up the distance to the main huts of the clan council.

She swallowed, composing herself before ducking back into the dark cool of the hut.

“Was that really the king?” Samira whispered in French.

“Yes, it was.” Nikki placed the damp cloth on Samira’s forehead, her heart squeezing at the smile crossing the child’s thin face, the sudden glimmer of light in her huge dark eyes.

“We will be all right, then, Miss Nikki, with a king’s help.”

I hope so.

“Yes, we will—I know it in my heart, Samira,” she lied. “And you must believe it, too. You and your baby will be just fine.” As she spoke, memories of her own toddlers sifted into her mind. Pain stabbed through Nikki, her eyes growing moist again.

She clenched her teeth. Nikki needed to do this—she
had
to save Samira and her unborn baby. It might give some reason to why her own two precious little souls were stolen from her.

“He’s very handsome,” whispered Samira.

A breath of laughter burst through Nikki’s tears, and she wiped her eyes. “You think so? How could you even see his face in this light?”

“I saw. I saw that he likes you.”

Nikki stilled.

Her pulse quickened, along with something else, a little trill through her stomach. But she said nothing. Because she knew Samira was right—and it frightened her.

Later that night Nikki crept quietly up to a hut and pressed herself against the clay wall still warm from the sun. From this vantage point she could remain hidden while she tried to catch snatches of the tribal council debate around a fire that had been lit at the center of the village. The flames crackled, shooting hot orange sparks into the cool, dark sky.

Headmen from neighboring clans had traveled to join the Rahm sheik’s council, and he and his men were passing a hookah around the fire as they listened to Zakir. The rich scent of tobacco reached Nikki as a young male attendant placed fresh charcoal in the clay water pipe.

The discourse was growing animated. Suddenly, Zakir leaned forward, his eyes locking with those of the clan sheik.

The men fell silent. Nikki tensed.

Even sitting on the ground, Zakir exuded a larger-than-life commanding presence. Tonight he wore his flowing black cloak against the mountain chill, and his hair fell loose and shiny to his shoulders. The flames caught the angles of his regal features, and his black eyes flashed as they reflected firelight—eyes that were failing him. Nikki’s heart compressed involuntarily at the thought.

Blindness was going to be a real challenge for a man who liked to control everything.

Zakir broke the tension around the fire with an abrupt movement of his arm as he uttered something to the sheik, his voice resonating with the bass and guttural tones of the rough Rahm dialect. The sound rippled over Nikki’s skin, warming her stomach. She could not take her eyes off him. She was
mesmerized by this fireside vignette of what was possibly a historic political discussion.

The Berber sheik replied, his tone low, earnest, and the rest of the men leaned forward in interest. Zakir spoke again, saying something about representation at key government levels, and heads nodded in agreement. Nikki noticed that every now and then, almost as if subconsciously, Zakir’s hand went to rest on the head of Ghorab who was lying with the two female salukis—Khaya and Tala—in the sand at his side. She leaned against the wall and just watched him for a while, enjoying the residual warmth from the clay spreading through her body.

Enjoying the look of him.

It was a guilty pleasure she hadn’t allowed herself in years, just appraising a good-looking male. It also made her uncomfortable, reminding Nikki of who she used to be and of all the things she used to want—family, children of her own. The love of a good man.

But even as she was being inexorably pulled toward the king, attracted by his shimmering power and charisma, she feared his control over her emotions, her body. Because deep down, these were the same reasons she’d fallen for Sam.

Nikki had been a powerful and influential professional in her own right—an accomplished and feted surgeon who’d been drawn toward the intoxicating sensuality of a powerful, good-looking and sharply intelligent man. Sam had represented a challenge to her, and a promise of something incredible—in bed and in life. And look what had happened.

Sam had tired of her, started having affairs…

Against her will, memories whispered again, the desert night enveloping her with cold images of that tragic, snowy Christmas Eve. Nikki glanced up at the cliff silhouetted against the light of a pale moon. And she told herself she really had nothing to fear. Her children were healing, and
Zakir had infused her with hope that they’d all make it to the Canary Islands soon.

Once she was away from him she could forget her past self again. She could stop the ugly memories of Sam again, stop worrying about her fraudulent identity being exposed.

Nikki started as she felt a warm little hand slipping into hers. She glanced down and smiled as Solomon’s eager eyes peered up at hers, glistening pools in the darkness. “Can you please sing us the bedtime story, Miss Nikki?”

She crouched down. “Of course, Solomon, I’ll be right there. You go on ahead.” She ruffled his head of tight dark curls. “Make sure the others are all lying down on their sleeping mats, okay?”

He ran off into the darkness. An owl hooted softly, and Nikki glanced once more at Zakir holding court. The king barked something angrily in Arabic, stabbing his jambiya forcibly into sand as he launched to his feet. She strained to hear, but the rough dialect eluded her. He stood, looming above the men, arms akimbo, his dark cloak lifting in the breeze, the bejeweled hilt of the scimitar at his hips catching firelight.

Dead silence descended over the men.

And then they suddenly broke out into knee-slapping laughter. Ghorab got up and yipped, followed by the excited barking of the two female salukis.

Relief rippled through Nikki.

For a moment she’d thought negotiations had turned sour. She had no idea what Zakir’s joke was, but she found herself smiling as she turned and made her way to the orphan’s hut. After all that the children had endured she was pleased to have been able to expose them to a community where jokes and laughter were a part of life, where the notions of family, respect and honor were sacrosanct.

Whatever diplomatic wizardry Sheik Zakir Al Arif was
busy weaving around those orange flames in the velvet desert night, Nikki knew instinctively it would be for the better—for both the Berber clans and Al Na’Jar.

Darkness was complete, the fire dying to red embers in the diplomatic circle. Above, in the inky vault of sky, stars were flung as if by supernatural hand. The wind had died, and all was still.

But tonight Zakir’s sight was not good, and he could not visually appreciate the beauty of a Sahara night sky.

Anger stung him. He hated from the depths of his heart that he could not win the war against this one physical weakness in himself.

A soft and magical sound rose into the air, distracting Zakir from his emotions. Singing—a woman’s voice, gentle, lyrical—came from the orphans’ adobe hut, where a candle glowed through a narrow window. Zakir reached for Ghorab’s collar and coaxed his dogs toward the blurry gold flickering in the dark.

As he neared, he realized with a surprising surge of pleasure that the voice was Nikki’s and that she was singing a story in French.

Zakir walked quietly toward the hut, not wanting to make any sound that might telegraph his presence, simply hungry to listen to her voice. A jackal yipped somewhere in the hills as it hunted, and Zakir abruptly silenced his dogs, signaling them to lie at his boots. He leaned his shoulder against the mud wall and listened for a while, his pleasure deepening as he realized that he recognized the words of her story.

It was an ancient desert fable from his own youth, one his mother, Nahla, used to sing to Zakir and his siblings. His mother had told them the story had been passed down from nomadic Bedouins who used to sing it to their children
while they traveled from the Western Sahara all the way to the Caspian Sea.

Bewitched by the threads of story and song, the king was inexorably pulled back to memories of the boy he once was.

The exact words of the tale varied across the Sahara, but essentially the story was the same—about a princess stolen by warriors and sold into slavery. She was bought at a North African market by emissaries of a strange and mysterious man who some said was a chimera who shifted between king and animal.

The princess was taken to this man’s desert castle, and while she never actually got to see him since he moved about his palace only by night, she was taught by staff to fear him. The orphan princess was also taught the dance of the veils.

“And then—” Nikki’s voice switched from song into a soft whisper “—when she was old enough, one night the princess was summoned to dance before this mysterious king. And she danced and danced, swirling in her veils, and then the king said to the slave girl, ‘Now you must sing for me.’ And the slave girl did.” Nikki’s own voice rose in song, and Zakir felt in himself a rush of anticipation and warmth as he recalled his mother’s voice singing these same words in Arabic while he, Da’ud, Tariq and Omair sat listening rapt at her feet, and tiny Dalilah, who was just an infant at the time, slept in his mother’s arms.