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“An attack.”
“Obviously, but why? By whom?”
His scowl deepened. “So far as I know, there had been no indication anything like this was being planned.”
“How would you know?”
“Our security council monitors these things with a high level of care. I find it impossible to believe this attack happened without any indication.”
“Well, it did,” she said, tartly, then winced in apology.
“Yes.” He was concentrating on landing the helicopter though. A quick glance beneath showed that there was nowhere easy to put a helicopter down.
“We’re going to have to walk some of the way. Okay?”
Something inside of her lurched at the fact he was asking her that question. His kindness in that moment was almost her undoing. “Yes.” She turned away from him so that he wouldn’t see the sheen of moisture covering her eyes.
“Good.”
His approval was even harder to tolerate.
“Walk where?” She asked belatedly, as he brought the helicopter down over the sand. She scanned the mountain range a few hundred metres away, seeing only craggy, slate grey cliffs and tufty trees. It didn’t look particularly habitable.
“Come.”
Frustration zipped through her. Her head ached, she was scared, stranded in the middle of nowhere with a man she barely knew, and he wouldn’t answer a single damned question unless it suited him. She lurched between gratitude for his kindness to annoyance with his arrogant manner.
He unbuckled his own seatbelt then flicked hers, sliding it across her body so that she breathed him in, his scent bringing back memories of when things had seemed so much more normal.
His powerful body swung down from the helicopter easily. She watched as he strode around to her side, looking calm and in control, as though nothing out of the ordinary had taken place. He opened her door and held out a hand to her.
She was tempted to tell him she could manage but the truth was, her head was aching and at only five and a half feet tall, it was a considerable step down from the helicopter. She put her hand in his, sparks igniting her fingertips, so she lifted her eyes to his face in surprise, the rapid movement causing her head to throb. She winced in response.
“Okay?” His expression was solicitous when she looked at him next, no hint of the buzz that had burst through her anywhere on his face.
“I’m fine,” she murmured through the side of her lips, stepping down gingerly, the heat of the late afternoon sun hitting her in the face like a blowtorch.
She knew from experience that heat wouldn’t last long though. Once the sun had set, a strange sense of cool would blow across these sands, bringing relief to parched skin, and changing the landscape entirely.
“Where are we?”
“On the edge of Salim.” He referred to his own country. “My palace is about two hundred miles in that direction.”
She looked where he was pointing, squinting into the distance. “Why didn’t we go there?”
He turned away from her, reaching back into the helicopter and opening a compartment that had been at her feet. He pulled several things out of it as she watched. Ella began to feel woozy, but she refused to show it. While his back was turned, she surreptitiously lifted the long hem of her gown, using it to pat her face, wiping away the excess blood and attempting to ascertain the extent of her injury. Was it still bleeding? She couldn’t tell.
“It was a piece of glass,” he said, his voice deep and gruff. She startled to realise he’d finished whatever he was doing and was now regarding her intently. She dropped the hem with a guilty flush, aware that most of her legs must have been on display. Nonetheless, compared to what he – and the rest of the world – thought of her and her morals, that was nothing.
“How do you know?”
“A window right behind you shattered; your body absorbed most of the glass spray. I suspect you have injuries elsewhere, but if you are not in too much pain we should move now.”
“I’m fine,” she reiterated, as much a lie now as it had been a moment earlier. Her eyes flitted beyond him, looking up to the hill.
“Do you need water?”
She shook her head, knowing that the thing she needed most of all was to sit still, or maybe even sleep, and she couldn’t have either of those without getting to wherever he was insisting on taking her.
