“Ha, ha,” her brother said, though he wasgrinning too.In truth, he hadn’t stopped grinning since Saharwalked into their chambers.
“Truly,” Sahar said to Asim and Rima, “he isthe most handsome baby I have ever seen.”
“He looks like his father,” Rima said fromher bed with a tired but happy smile while Asim gazed down at herwith an adoring expression.
Rima lay propped up with six pillows atleast, a tray of her favorite sweet breads on the table beside herand a pitcher of frothy beer to relax her strained body andencourage the flow of her breast milk.Many women of rank or wealthchose to use wet nurses, considering the toll pregnancy andchildbirth took on their bodies, but not the women of Sahar’sfamily.They chose to hold their infants close, to nourish themwith their bodies and nurture them with their mother’s love.
Cradling her nephew in her arms, smelling hisnew baby smell, she understood why.That understanding brought herclose to tears.
She handed the baby back to his mother,kissed Rima on the cheek, gave her brother a quick hug, andpractically ran out of their chambers.Her mother found her a shorttime later, pacing her rooms like a tigress in a cage.A cage ofher own lustful making.
Her mother sat on the edge of Sahar’s bed andpatted the space beside her.She stopped pacing and hung her headlow.She had no doubt that her mother knew she might be carryingAleksi’s child, and she could not face her, not yet.She’d enteredthe races to show that she was as capable as any man.She’d proudlyclaimed, out loud and often, that she didn’t need a man, that ifand when she was to marry it would be her choice.Now here shestood, having proved she was as trapped by nature and tradition asevery other woman.
She lifted her head and met her mother’sunwavering gaze.The love and understanding Sahar saw there burstthe dam of her tears.She got on the bed and laid her head in hermother’s lap and cried.She cried for the girl who had ridden offdetermined to win the race, certain that her winning would changethe ways of the world and the minds of men.She cried for the womanwho had returned, wiser in the ways of the world and men, of thehard truths and venal lies to be learned and dealt with, and of theselfishness and selflessness that warred within each and everyperson.She cried for the loss of her false pride, for Munir’sinjuries and Kedar’s death.She cried out the days and nights offear and hunger and depravation suffered under Yago’s short butcruel reign.Then she sobbed her heart out for the passion she haddiscovered with Aleksi, and might never know again.
The only thing she didn’t cry over was thechild she might be carrying.She held a fierce certainty she wouldlove that child no matter what happened between her and itsfather.
As her sobs subsided, she became aware of hermother’s soft, soothing voice crooning calming words and herfingers tenderly combing Sahar’s hair from her wet cheeks.The lastof her tears finally spent, she rolled over onto her back andstared up into her mother’s concerned face.
“Do you love him?”
There was no need to ask her mother who shemeant.“I don’t know,” she said.“Truly, I don’t.”She rolled overonto her side and curled into herself.“It doesn’t matter.We’llmarry if I’m with child, and if not, we’ll go our separate ways, aswe were always meant to do.”
She closed her eyes with a long, weary sigh,and when she woke, her mother was gone and the sun was low in thewestern sky.
Aleksi entered the great hall lit withtorches and candles, the savory scent of the coming feast teasinghis still half-starved body.He made his way past the rings oftables and the hearty welcomes mixed with backhanded whispers tothe royal family’s long table and took his seat of honor to Sahar’sright, who sat to the queen’s right.Beside the queen sat the king,and to his left were two empty seats for Prince Asim, his wife,Princess Rima, and their newborn son, the princeling Ammar, whosebirth they were celebrating along with the safe return of Sahar andAleksandr.
“Princess,” Aleksi dipped his head to Saharas he slid onto the bench beside her.The knot on her forehead wasno more than a raised bump, the bruises on her face no more than apale mottling barely visible beneath a light dusting of facepowder, and the raw welts on her wrists had faded to thin redlines.She was still too thin, but in the seven days since the kinghad found them and fed them, the hollows of her cheeks had fleshedout some and her skin had resumed its tawny glow.Skin he knew thetaste and feel of intimately, and his body craved even more thanthe sumptuous feast being set out before them.“You look muchrested.”
“As do you, Aleksandr.”
So, he was back to Aleksandr.No breathless,pantingmy stallionmoaned into his ear.No conversational,companionableAleksi.Not even a spitting, snarlingarrogant asshissed at him.Aleksandr.The formal name of astranger.
He rubbed his shaven jaw, and caught thefaint flicker of gold in her eyes.He gave her a purposely cockygrin, and her eyes flashed green fire.He laughed, short and quick.She was not indifferent to him, no matter how hard she tried toseem so in front of the watchful gazes and wagging tongues of theassembled.
A murmuring of those tongues grew louder asPrince Asim, carrying his newborn son in one arm, his wife holdingonto his other, walked slowly to the royal table.Both prince andprincess were beaming, their pride and joy in the bundled babe andeach other obvious.Aleksi glanced at Sahar, and saw the tearswelling in her eyes and her hand over her belly.He started toreach out, to place his hand over hers, and drew back.Aleksi’stouch she would’ve accepted, perhaps even welcomed, but notAleksandr’s.
Prince Asim helped his wife to her seat andtenderly set their son in her cradled arms before sitting.KingAsad leaned over and said something that only they could hear,which made his son laugh.The queen swiped a tear from her cheek,and Princess Rima placed a kiss on her son’s forehead.Aleksi wasmesmerized by the familial intimacy of the moment, something he hadnever known or seen, and he realized with a start that Sahar waswatching him, her gaze dark and fathomless.
“Welcome,” King Asad called out as he stood.“Welcome all to this feast celebrating the birth of the PrinceAmmar and the safe return of Princess Sahar and Aleksandr to ourfamily.”
Loud claps and whistles broke out in thegreat hall, and though Aleksi knew they were for Sahar and thebabe, still he felt a warmth in his chest at the inclusion of hisname with the word “family.”He tried to imagine how it would feelto become an actual part of this family, to be welcomed and honoredas Sahar’s husband.A stupid dream of an illicit lover, the bastardson of a king.The only way he’d be accepted into this royal familywas if his seed had taken root and was growing in Sahar’s womb.
Then his dilemma would be staying to beconsort to a princess, always less than his royal wife and herfamily, and never his own man, or dragging her back to hishomeland, bringing her down to his level, wife of a bastard horsetrader.
“To the Prince Ammar,” someone shouted, andAleksi realized it was Nasim, the Cheetah, brother and chiefcounsel to the king, and uncle to Asim.
“To the Prince Ammar,” the gatheringresponded, lifting their goblets high.
“To Princess Sahar,” Nasim said, lifting hisgoblet again.“The first woman to ever ride in the races.Who notonly rode, but won the first and placed in the second, and whosurvived the third, despite the Wolf’s treachery.”
“To Princess Sahar.”
“To Aleksandr.”He lifted his goblet andnodded to Aleksi.“Who saved the life of my future son-in law,Munir, and who brought my niece home safe to us.”
“To Aleksandr.”The chorus of voices waspraise Aleksi took pride in.
He glanced at Sahar, and she at him, hercheeks flushed and her eyes flaming.It took every shred ofself-will to keep from pulling her up beside him, to fold her inhis embrace and claim her in front of her family with a kiss asheated and passionate as her glare.
