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She stiffened almost imperceptibly, and those marvelous bittersweet eyes of hers narrowed. “Are you asking me if I’ve suffered a head injury?”
He’d kept himself from smiling by sheer force of will, and it was much harder than it should have been. Much harder than he could recall it ever having been before. “I am asking if I can expect you to topple off the side of a horse while you are meant to be riding it.”
“Not on purpose,” she’d retorted, and it had only occurred to him then that they weren’t in private any longer. That his men stood around him, closely watching this exchange with the scandalous woman who had evaded him for months—whom he had clearly not yet subdued. “Do you plan to ride me out into the desert, throw me to the sand dunes and then claim I fell off?”
They had been speaking in English, which was lucky as very few of his men understood a word of it. The fact that he’d been nearly smiling at her in obvious indulgence, however, was less lucky. Any softness, any hint of a crack in his armor, would be exploited as a weakness by his enemies. Kavian knew that all too well.
He couldn’t have said why he cared so much less in that moment than he should have.
He’d given the order then. It had taken only a few moments for the small party to mount up, and when he’d looked back down at Amaya she’d been standing there, doing an admirable job of keeping herself from frowning at him. He’d seen the effort she expended in the way her dark eyes crinkled in the corners.
“Did you ask me all those questions for your own amusement?”
“Yes,” he’d replied dryly. “I am a hilarious king. Ask anyone.”
And then he’d simply reached down from the back of his horse, clamped an arm around her middle and hauled her up before him.
He’d felt more than heard the tiny noise she made, somewhere between a gulp and a squeak, and he knew that had he found her pulse with his mouth, it would be going wild. Yet she only gripped the arm he’d banded around her abdomen and said nothing.
“Courage, azizty,” he’d murmured, his voice low and for her ears only. “Today you must prove you are the queen my people deserve.”
“But—”
“Whether you wish it or do not. This is about Daar Talaas, Amaya, not you or me.”
He’d felt the breath she’d sucked in and he’d thought she’d planned to argue further, but she hadn’t. She’d been quiet. Perhaps too quiet, but there’d been nothing he could do about it then—or would have done if he could, if he was honest with himself. A test could hardly matter if it was without some peril. So instead, he’d given the next order and they’d ridden out into the desert, deep into the far reaches of the desolate northern territories.
It was not an easy ride by any means, but Amaya did not complain, which pleased Kavian greatly. She did not squirm against him, nor divert his attention any more than the simple fact of her there between his legs, her pert bottom snug against the hardest part of him as they rode, distracted him.
He found it impossible not to notice that she fit him perfectly.
They reached the encampment by midafternoon, after hours spent galloping across the shifting sands, racing against the sun itself at this time of year. Fierce men on bold horses met them some distance away and led them the rest of the way in, shouting ahead in their colorful local dialect. The collection of tents that waited for them had the look of a makeshift traveling camp instead of a permanent settlement, despite the goats and children who roamed in and around the grounds and told a different tale. Kavian knew that it was all a deliberate, canny bit of sleight of hand. The truth was in the quality of the horseflesh, the presence of so many complacent and well-fed camels, the fine, sturdy fabric of the tents themselves.
It could have been a scene from any small village out here in the desert, unchanged in centuries, and there was a part of Kavian that would always long for the simplicity of this life. No palace, no intrigue. No political necessities, no alliances and no greater enemy than the harsh environment. Just the thick heat of the desert sun above, the vastness and the quiet all around and a tent to call his home.
Though he knew that was not the truth of this place, either.
“What are we doing here?” Amaya asked as they rode into camp, and he wondered what she saw. The dirt, the dust. The sand in everything. The rich, dark scent in the air that announced the presence of the tribe’s livestock, horses and camels. The suspicious frowns from the people who could see at a glance that she was not one of them. The lack of anything even resembling an amenity.
