Plus, Asim was going to be a father soon.Sahar gave Rima, Asim’s pregnant wife, a reassuring smile, and thenwatched as Asim gave his beloved a tender, lingering kiss beforestanding to join his sister.Sahar turned wistful.Her brother andhis wife had found their true loves, as had her parents, her AuntLyrra and Uncle Nasim, and, it seemed, Halah and Munir.She sighedand looked up and across the courtyard to find Aleksandr watchingher, his head cocked to one side.He grinned and cocked his head tothe other side, and with a flick of her skirts, she turned on herheels and headed for the changing room where her maid servant,Safa, waited with Sahar’s clothes and blades.The last thing shemeant to do was encourage the man, no matter how charming andboyish he looked with that cursed shock of sun-kissed hair fallingonto his forehead.
Aleksi’s grin widened at the sassy sway ofSahar’s skirts as she sashayed from the courtyard.Did the womannever simply walk?A young man who had been sitting next to theking and who was no doubt her twin brother, Prince Asim, stood andfollowed her.Tall, broad shouldered and lean hipped, his hair alighter brown than Aleksi’s, Asim had the same tawny skin, sharplyangled face and round eyes as his sister, though Aleksi could nottell their color from where he sat.The prince was married to Rima,the eldest daughter of the Oryx, King of the City of Hills, and hisone and only wife, the Willow.By the sweet kiss Asim had givenRima, she was likely to be his one and only wife as well.
For now.
Aleksi knew only too well how quicklycircumstances could change.She might give her husband nothing butdaughters and he could marry another, or others, to assure a maleheir to the throne.Then what would become of their love and theirmarriage?It was better to marry for practical purposes.A strongbody for bearing children and life’s hardships, and an easy temperto bear it all with a smile, that was what Aleksi was lookingfor.
The sound of clapping brought his attentionback to the stage where the queen and her sister were taking theirbows.It was obvious where the princess got her looks from.She wasa perfect blend of her father’s dark features and her mother’sgraceful build.Her family’s physical beauty had not beenexaggerated, nor likely their pride.Aleksi had pricked Sahar’sthis afternoon.He grinned, recalling the fire in her eyes and theheat of her voice as she had threatened to geld him for his brazenboldness, and his grin widened as she strode back into thecourtyard dressed in a sleeveless short tunic and leather leggingsthe color of plum wine, causing a surge of heat to pulse in hisgroin where she had pointedly menaced him with her blade.
Her tight-fitting tunic clung to breasts asround and firm as autumn apples and nipped down to a slim waistencircled with a leather belt embedded with gems of emerald andruby and amber and onyx, from which hung not one but three jeweledsheaths, a bone-hilted blade strapped into each.Her leggingshugged every league of her long, lissome legs, which moved in timewith her sleekly muscled arms.She wore boots the same tawny hue ofher skin, and her mass of dark hair was plaited into one thickbraid that hung down her shapely back to the womanly swell of herhips.An armband of gold graced her left upper arm, and etchedleather cuffs protected both of her wrists.
She stood in the middle of the stage, chinup, shoulders back, and eyes blazing as her brother, who wasdressed as she was, walked up to stand beside her.The pulse inAleksi’s cock hammered.By the stifled groans coming from the tableof men, his was not the only one.
Two men set stools at the edge of the stageand sat, a small drum in each of their laps.Sahar and Asim bowedto their parents and then to each other.The men began to beat thedrums, slowly at first, softly, and Sahar and Asim began to circleeach other, a blade in each hand.The drums beat faster, harder,and brother and sister crouched and doubled their pace.
Asim lunged forward and jabbed with his righthand and Sahar jumped back with the ease of a cat, landing in aloose crouch, and then she lunged forward and jabbed with her righthand and Asim jumped back.Asim repeated his lunge and jab with hisleft hand and Sahar jumped back again before lunging and jabbingwith her left.They continued in this fashion, moving in a circlearound the stage, their blades stopping a hair’s width from flesh.The gathering clapped in time with the drum beat, and Aleksi satforward on his seat.Asim was strong and quick and agile, butSahar, Sahar moved like smoke.Silent, sinuous, and stealthy,striking with the swift, sure precision of an assassin and thenslipping away, a mesmerizing spirit dancing beyond her assailant’sreach.
Aleksi could not take his eyes off her.
Their circle complete, Asim and Sahar stoodface to face and dipped their heads to each other, sucking in deepbreaths and blowing them out slowly.Then Asim turned a half circleto his right as Sahar turned a half circle to her left, theirblades clashing before they returned to face each other andrepeating the movement to their opposite sides.They repeated themoves three times, their blades meeting with a clang before theywhirled around again on one foot, the other barely touching groundbefore pushing off, and then they twirled completely around andbegan to circle each other, legs bent and arms outstretched.
The drums beat faster and Asim slashed hisblade waist high as Sahar dove over the knife and somersaulted toher feet.Asim swung low and she jumped up and over his blade.Heswung high and she dropped to her knees and slid in a full circle,slashing at the back of his hamstrings, a fatal blow in a realfight, before jumping back up to her feet with a feral grin.
They flipped their blades full circle,catching them by the hilts, and then they closed the distancebetween them, striking their blades against each other’s in anintricate pattern that mimicked the rapid beat of the drums.Theystepped forward, backward, and sideways, maintaining their rhythmicpattern, and then they each whirled around in a full circle, theirblades meeting in the middle, and back around the oppositedirection, their blades meeting again.Leaping to opposite sides ofthe stage, they faced the gathering, their faces glowing with thefine sheen of their exertion.Flipping their blades full circleonce more, they caught them by the hilts, sheathed them, and bowedlow to the gathering.
Aleksi jumped up from his seat, whistling andclapping half a beat before the courtyard erupted into wildapplause.Sahar straightened and turned her smile on him, hercheeks several shades pinker than they had been.Aleksi’s chestswelled and he was grinning back at her like the village idiot, buthe neither cared nor tried to hide it.Yago the Wolf stepped outfrom behind his table and walked over to her and bowed low beforeher.He offered her his arm, which she took, her cheeks pinkerstill, and hand in arm they walked back to the royal table, whereshe resumed her seat, smiling shyly at Yago’s gallant bow before hereturned to his own seat.
Aleksi saw red.
Who did this Yago the Worm think he was,insinuating himself into her performance like that?She was notsome frail-bodied, faint-hearted, empty-headed doll who could notfind her own way back to her seat without his help.Why had theproud tigress accepted Yago’s arm and blushed so prettily at theoily snake?
Why did Aleksi care?She was not his.Shenever would be.She was a princess and he a bastard.He needed awife of humbler means and easy temper, a wife willing to work herfingers to the bone if need be, not some pampered princess, nomatter how fiery and beautiful.Aleksi shook his head and raked hishand through his hair.She was not for him.He did not need a womanlike her.
Trouble was, he wanted her.
He should not, but there was no denying theallure she held.If he closed his eyes, he could still see theemerald green of hers challenging him.He could hear her voice, lowand smoky, threatening to geld him.He could breathe in and smellher perfume, a tantalizing mix of musky woman and sweet, exoticflower.
The Wolf returned to the table, and Aleksiturned on his heel and left the courtyard.It was either that orentertain the gathering with a real knife fight.
Sahar and Halah lay shoulder to shoulder onSahar’s bed, bellies down, their feet in the air, legs swaying backand forth in time as they admired the hummingbird brooch Munir hadgiven Halah as a gift of betrothal.
“Oh, Lala.”Sahar held the brooch up, itsbody of verdigris copper and wings of inlaid abalone shiningiridescent in the rooms candle light.“It’s beautiful, likeyou.”
Halah blushed.“That is what Munir said.”
“He was only speaking the truth.”Sahartouched the side of her head to Halah’s.“I am so happy for youboth.”She caught her breath as a stabbing pain seared her through.“If only Ommar could see you so happy.”Shame filled her.“I am sosorry he is not here for you.”
“Hush, Sasa,” Halah insisted.“You were onlya little girl.It was not your fault that you were not strongenough to hold on.”
Sahar clamped her hand into a fist as Ommar’sghostly fingers slipped from hers.Not your fault.Not strongenough.Only a girl.Those were the words her entirefamily had spoken over and over, meant to assuage her pain, herguilt.The words she had sworn to prove wrong by not only competingin the races, but winning them.
She handed the brooch back to Halah and gaveher a smacking kiss on the cheek.“Munir is a lucky man,” she said.“I am glad you will still be living in the palace, though I willmiss having you in the room next door at my spoilt brat princessbeck and call,” she added in her best haughty tone.
“That Aleksandr should not have called youspoilt,” Halah said, rising, as always, to her cousin’sdefense.
“No,” Sahar agreed.“That was not politic.”She rolled over onto her back and stared up at the draperies ofgolden worm weave, the image of Aleksandr standing in defiance ofhis half-sister’s denouncement, shoulders squared and jaw juttingforward filling her mind’s eye.“But then I do not think he isoverly concerned with being so.Lucky bastard,” she said under herbreath.
But of course, Halah heard her.Like hermother, she could hear a pin drop a hundred paces away as clearlyas she could a false note sung or spoken.She eyed Sahar underraised brows.
