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‘Wait!’ Raif grasped his brother’s arm, fury rising again to disguise his confusion. ‘You can’t leave Kasia here, it is not safe for her, she needs to return with you to the Golden Palace.’ Perhaps she would refuse to return to Cambridge, but at least she would be well cared for at the palace.
Zane covered Raif’s fingers with his and eased his grip, the look he sent him almost pitying.
‘That’s not my choice, brother, or yours. It’s your wife’s.’ He glanced past Raif to the woman standing beside him and nodded. The silent communication between the two of them had the anger rising into Raif’s throat even further. ‘She’s a grown woman, and your princess,’ his brother added. ‘She makes her own choices. And for some reason, the person she wants to be with is you.’ Speaking to Kasia, he added, ‘Kasia, I will wait at the overnight camp for a day. Send a rider if you would like me to return for you.’
He watched Kasia nod and thank his brother. He remained silent, so furious and confused now he could not speak. Then Zane bade them both farewell and mounted Pegasus. He waved once, then shouted to his men, urging the stallion into a gallop as he led the party back over the ridge.
‘Raif, we must talk,’ Kasia said, her voice quivering with emotion. But the unwavering gaze and the defiant tilt of her chin told a different story.
He scooped her up and began marching towards his tent, set apart from the others at the back of the camp.
‘We will talk,’ he said, struggling to contain his temper at this turn of events, and all the emotions that had been churning in his gut for days now, maybe even weeks. ‘And then I will escort you back to Zafari and the Golden Palace myself.’
She could not stay here. Already his hunger for her was all but overwhelming him. He wanted her so much, but more than that he needed her.
He could not give in to that need. Because he could not risk destroying her, too, as he had once destroyed his mother.
‘Raif, put me down, I can walk,’ Kasia said, trying to sound firm and coherent.
Not easy when her emotions were in turmoil and had been from the moment she’d spotted him, standing strong and proud, his bare chest glistening with sweat, staring at her as if she were an apparition. She’d expected surprise, maybe shock, possibly irritation that she had defied his orders and come to the desert anyway, but what she had not been prepared for was the explosion of violence—and the raw emotions she had seen in his eyes. So much more than shock.
She’d seen the anguish in his face when he’d hit Zane and knew that there was much more going on here than she had realised.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I will not put you down.’ She clung to her husband’s neck as he marched through the encampment, his people turning to stare at them both.
‘Please, Raif.’ She was squirming—his bare chest, the captivating scent of his sweat, the rough tattoo glistening on his skin, the scars she had become so accustomed to making her ache.
‘Stop wriggling,’ he said as he carried her into a large tent at the edge of a water hole. He shouted something in Kholadi to the older woman who was busy arranging his clothing. Kasia had been studying the language for over a week and followed the gist of it—there had been a mention of a doctor.
‘Stop,’ she said in Kholadi as the woman rushed to leave the tent and obey his orders, then formed a basic sentence, telling her the doctor was not needed.
‘You speak Kholadi?’ he said as the woman left and he finally placed her on her feet.
‘I’ve been studying the language.’
He nodded, obviously surprised by this development, and she felt a prickle of annoyance. What had he expected? That she wouldn’t bother to learn the language of his people? But before she could question his assumptions, the furrow on his forehead deepened. ‘You must see the doctor,’ he s
aid. ‘Then you must return to the Golden Palace.’
‘I don’t need to see a doctor. I’m perfectly fine. During the last week since I’ve seen you the nausea has started to ease, just as Ms Siddiqui said it probably would.’
‘You have been riding all day in the desert heat, how can you possibly be fine?’ His voice rose to match the fury she could see he was having great difficulty containing. But rather than be cowed by his temper, she felt strangely empowered by it. ‘You should not have come here,’ he added. ‘Why did you risk everything?’
Kasia drew a ragged breath at the raw tone, the deep anguish in his words.
She’d travelled thousands of miles to have this confrontation. But this was not at all what she had expected. She had assumed Raif would be cold towards her, unemotional, dismissive. She had been prepared for the worst, that he would tell her he didn’t love her, could never love her and then he would discard her—as her mother once had.
But he wasn’t cold, or unemotional. His dark eyes flashed with more than temper.
It was something she had never seen in his eyes before, something she had not believed he was even capable of feeling. After all, he was so strong, so indomitable, so commanding, what could he have to fear?
The heat in her core flared and sparked as she took in his broad chest, the dark pants hanging loosely on his hips. He looked once again like the man she had first met, the Desert Prince, but now she knew that while this man could be wild and untamed, primitive in the best sense of the word, beneath that tough outer shell was a man who had cares and needs just as she did—who could be tender and gentle and kind.
Gathering the courage she had worked so hard to nurture all her life, she forced herself to tell him the truth she should have told him weeks ago.
‘I came because I am your wife and I love you. And I want this to be a real marriage. If we are to be a couple, I want to share every part of your life with you, which includes living with you here in the desert, as well as living with you in Cambridge or New York or London, or anywhere else we need to be.’
He stepped back, the shock on his face as raw as the emotion. ‘No, you cannot love me. I am not…’ His voice drifted into silence.
