AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Anya almost felt sympathy for him, in retrospect. But back then, as a little girl awash in grief, all she’d known was that she didn’t want to cause her father more pain. She’d wanted him to love her. She’d wanted him to gather her up in his lap, tell her stories, and make her feel better. Dance with her in the yard while the summer night stretched out above them, warm and soft. But he didn’t.
He never did.
So she’d made herself cold instead, to please him.
But she was not cold, no matter how hard she tried. And maybe, Anya thought, as she waited for a panic attack to hit her when surely it should—poised to walk down an aisle to marry a king in the full view of the better part of the planet—the panic attacks had been her actual, real feelings trying to get out all along.
The doors opened before her, then. And then it was happening.
She was walking toward Tarek. She could see him there, waiting for her at the end of the aisle, magnificent in every way.
But best of all, looking straight at her. Into her.
As if this thing between them was fate and they’d been meant for each other all along.
When she finally reached him, he took her hands and they began to speak old words. Ancient vows. Sharing who they were and becoming something else.
Husband and wife. King and Queen.
And so much more.
But inside, Anya made a different vow, there before the assembled throng. That she would not be cold another day in her life. That she would never again be buried in stone or locked away behind iron. That she would not allow herself to feel dead while she was alive.
Not with him. Not with this man who had freed her from a cell first, and then from the life she’d never really wanted.
So she married him, and then she lived.
She danced at the reception. She smiled until her cheeks hurt. And when Tarek finally stole her away, bundling her into a helicopter that raced across the desert, suspended between the shifting, undulating sands beneath and the heavens above, she loved him so much that she thought it might burst out of her like a comet. Another bomb, and a better one this time.
Anya didn’t know how she kept it inside.
The helicopter dropped them in an oasis straight out of a fairy tale. The water in the many pools was an indigo silk, lapping gently against the sand as the breeze hit it. Palm trees rustled all around, while waterfalls tumbled over rocks like a song.
And a glorious, sprawling tent blazed with welcoming light, beckoning them in.
“Welcome, my Queen,” Tarek said when the helicopter rose back into the air and the sound of its rotors faded away. He had led her into the vast living area of the tent, outfitted with a thousand pillows and low tables, like a desert fantasy. Now he smiled down at her. “This is the royal oasis. Some claim the water is sacred. Some believe it heals. We will have to test it, you and I.”
Anya was sure that all the things she felt must be emblazoned on her face. But that wasn’t enough. Nothing could beenough.
She reached up, placed her palms on either side of his beautiful face, and sighed a little as his strong arms came around her. She thought,this is home.
She was finally home.
“Tarek,” she breathed, with her whole heart. With everything she had and everything she was. With all the bright hope inside her after this magical, beautiful day. “I love you.”
And watched as his face turned to stone.
CHAPTER TEN
“YOUMUSTBETIRED,” Tarek said, taking each of Anya’s hands in his. He pulled them away from his face, as if that would erase the words she’d said.
The words that seemed to fill the tent and more, roll out over the desert like a storm, blanketing everything.
Burying him alive.
“Not particularly,” she replied, that frown he liked too much appearing between her brows. “On the contrary, I’ve never felt more alive. And in love, Tarek.”
In case he’d missed that the first time.
