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But nothing else about him seemed familiar. And she was immediately struck by the thought that, if she had met him before, she would not have forgotten him.
He was huge, all hard, lean muscle, a brutal scar slashed down his left cheek creating a raised line through the stubble on his jaw. The fierce intensity as his gaze raked over her made the harsh planes and angles of his sun-weathered features look even more dramatic.
He wasn’t what she would call handsome, his dark, raw-boned face far too intimidating and defiantly masculine for that, but he was breath-taking.
And hot.
Liah stifled the idiotic thought as unhelpful heat joined the bubble of nausea in her belly.
‘You are not hurt?’ he asked, his rough, heavily accented voice echoing in her chest—and triggering the pulse of something rich and fluid in her sore abdomen.
The question jolted her out of her trance—and drop-kicked her back into reality.
She pushed against his controlling arm. ‘Of course I’m not hurt,’ she said, her voice coming out on an annoying squeak. She gathered another breath. ‘No thanks to you, you idiot. What on earth were you thinking, grabbing me like that? You could have broken both our necks.’
His dark brows lowered and anger sparked, turning the rich amber in his gaze to a flaming gold. ‘I saved your life, you ungrateful little fool,’ he snapped, his voice rigid with condescension.
Liah’s temper burned through the last of her shock and misplaced awe.
‘Are—are you deranged?’ she spluttered, barely able to contain her incredulity at the arrogant statement. ‘I was about to win.’
‘The horse was out of control,’ he said. ‘And you were too weak to manage it.’
Weak? Weak!
She heard it then, the note of masculine disdain she had been battling from some quarters all her life, despite the unstinting support of her parents and Narabia’s ruling council.
She swept the mane of unruly hair out of her eyes. ‘I get it, you decided to rescue me when I didn’t need rescuing because I’m a weak and feeble woman, right?’ She glared at him with enough force to immolate lead.
Unfortunately, it had no appreciable effect. He didn’t even have the decency to flinch before giving her an insulting once-over—which, infuriatingly, had that inappropriate shaft of heat returning.
‘You are a woman?’ He sneered, the rhetorical question dripping with sarcasm. ‘This is hard to tell when you are dressed like a boy. And behave like a spoilt brat.’
Her temper shot straight to boiling point without passing go. She sucked in an agonising breath of outrage, the urge to punch the contemptuous look off his face so strong she had to force herself to breathe through the fury.
She had never struck another human being in her entire life and she did not plan to start now. Especially as his rough-hewn jaw looked so solid, it would probably break all her fingers if she tried. But it was a major battle to keep her tightly balled fists by her sides.
She broke eye contact first, but then the brutal humiliation returned full force as she spotted her father striding towards them through the crowd. Her mother followed, looking concerned. As the crowd parted for their sheikh, it occurred to Liah the spectators—the people she was one day supposed to govern—had been listening to every word of her exchange with the man holding her on his lap.
Terrific. How on earth am I going to regain any semblance of respect after this?
‘Let me down,’ she insisted, pushing at his controlling arm. She did not want to face her father’s wrath while sitting on this man’s lap. Her pride had already taken a direct hit, thanks to him. But, instead of releasing her, the jerk’s muscular forearm tightened, keeping her in place with embarrassing ease.
Wrestling with him would only make it worse, so she was still stuck on his horse when her father reached them. She spotted the tight muscle in her father’s jaw ticking like a demented metronome—a sure sign she had gone too far and was in serious trouble. She only prayed he would not break his golden rule and chastise her in public.
Her mother touched her father’s arm and murmured something to him.
Liah felt the air in her lungs release as her father drew himself back from the edge—her mother had always been able to work miracles on her father’s temper. But his gaze flicked over her with enough derision to make her shudder before he addressed the man behind her.
‘Prince Kamal, my wife and I can only thank you for rescuing my daughter,’ he said, his voice clipped and curt.
Prince?This guy was a prince?Seriously?A prince of where? He looked—and had behaved—more like a bandit.
‘He didn’t rescue...’ she began, but her father simply lifted his hand.
‘Don’t,’ he said, the single word loaded with enough barely leashed fury to silence her instantly. ‘Go and change into your outfit for tonight’s reception, Kaliah,’ he said, his tone going from chilled to freezing. ‘And we can discuss this...’ he paused, the muscle ticking over time ‘...thissituationlater, once I have had a chance to thank the prince properly.’
Which was clearly code for,Get to the palace before I lose my cool once and for all.
