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She wanted to tell him to put her down, but she was quivering from head to toe, and grief splintered through her, tearing her apart. “I don’t believe it.”
“I understand,” he said, the words loaded with his own sadness. “Nor did I, at first.”
“It can’t be…”
“I have seen his body,” he said, and she realized she was being held by the only person on earth who could understand the emptiness of her heart. That Addan’s death bonded them in an awful, horrifying way.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, looking up at him, seeing the pain, the raw despair in his stony features and sobbing suddenly. “What happened?” She asked again.
“The helicopter he was flying; the blades stalled.”
“Don’t,” she shuddered, burying her face in Malik’s shirt, his masculine, musky fragrance lacing through her on a biological level. “Don’t tell me he took that damned thing…”
Addan had been restoring an old helicopter for years, tinkering with it, loving it for its rudimentary nature.
“It doesn’t matter now. Don’t you understand?” A muscle throbbed, low in his jaw, and he carried her to Addan’s desk chair, placing her down on it. But she didn’t want to sit there. She didn’t want to sit at all, but especially not where Addan had been so at home. She jerked out of it, her body still trembling, her mind slow and weak. “He’s gone. He’s gone.”
She sobbed, lifting her hands to her lips, the words so cold, so violent for their truth, and the reality they painted.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again.
“As am I. My brother was the best man I have ever known. The world is poorer for his loss. The country is poorer without him as its leader.”
Her eyes lifted to Malik’s face as the full reality of this situation wrapped around her. “You are King,” she said, sitting into Addan’s chair now, collapsing into it, taking in a shaking breath.
“Yes,” he crossed his arms over his chest, “I will inherit Addan’s throne, and all that entails.”
She swallowed, his promotion one she knew he didn’t wish for, one she knew he didn’t take any joy in.
“Your highness,” she said, deferentially, standing uneasily. She couldn’t work out how she wanted to be. “I’d like to be alone now.”
He didn’t answer, his eyes holding hers for a moment before she spun and moved to the door. But before she could open it, his voice arrested her.
“You are part of that, Sharafaha.”
She turned to face him. “Part of what?”
“When he died, I inherited all that was his. Including you.” He said the words with a hint of disgust. With coldness and disdain.
A frisson of alarm jolted her spine. “I don’t… understand.” Tears streamed down her cheeks and she dashed at them; more came to take their place.
“This palace, the title, the country, his duties. All of it. And also, your betrothal to Addan, on his death, passed to me.”
THE END
