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He would never let himself forget that.
But when he saw the men outside her apartment, the bullet holes in the door—-
He saw the king step out of the room, his face grim. “We were just about to call for you—-”
Tarif shoved past Khalil. “Tory?” He looked about him wildly. “Tory?”
“S-Sheikh?” It was Hyacinth, pale and trembling, seated at the edge of the sofa, the one and only person in this room whose love for Anisah was as great as his, and so she was the only one he would listen to.
“Where is she?” he asked hoarsely even though he already knew.
The unmistakable, metallic scent of blood that tainted the air –
The splash of red on the floor –
Ah, God, no –
Hyacinth came running to him, and his arms closed around hers.
“Tarif.” She was crying as she pulled away and looked up at him like a girl who wanted her older brother to tell her things would be fine. “They took her away,” she sobbed. “They took her away, sheikh, they took her away, they took her away.”
****
He didn’t believe me. He hurt me. He never loved me at all. Those were the words that had hammered her brain over and over as Sheikh Rayyan walked her back to her apartment. She had found herself consumed by pain and anger, a sense of bitterness so great that if God had chosen to grant her one wish at that moment, she would have asked that she never saw Tarif Al-Atassi again.
But life had a funny, powerful way of changing one’s perspective.
When those people had come into her room and it became evident that she was being abducted, possibly even killed, Anisah had found herself no longer caring for those words at all. It was amazing, really, how having one’s life suddenly hanging in the balance made everything so painfully clear.
The things that had made her heart ache...the things that had made her cry and bleed...
All of it had ceased to matter, and all she could think of was the times that she had smiled...the times she had laughed...the times she had loved.
She clung to those memories as her abductors led Anisah past the guards whose throats they had slit, and she found herself clinging to them even harder and with greater desperation when the abductors then forced her down a secret passageway that they should have not known about.
But they had, and now they were all going to die.
In her course of reading through annals of the royal family’s history, one of the things she had learned was about the palace’s emergency protocols. To prevent infiltrators from escaping, the secret tunnels would be filled with a deadly gas whose unique formula was concocted and known only by the kingdom’s royal chemists.
And only members of the royal family were immune to this gas.
Tears started to fall even as she took her captors by surprise by suddenly putting up a struggle. There was little she despised more than crying, but it seemed as if crying was the only thing she had done in the past 24 hours, and it was all thanks to the sheikh. She knew she should hate him for it, but it only made her laugh hysterically.
How her life had changed because of him, but even now – even after everything he had done – she could not make herself regret it.
She thought of Hyacinth as she finally managed to free herself and unsheathe her dagger. She thought of her sister and Sheikh Rayyan even as she swung her dagger threateningly towards her assailants while using her other hand to yank the strip of cloth used to gag her.
If I die today, I know you’ll be in safe hands with the sheikh, Cin. Be happy for me.
Anisah covered her mouth and nose with the strip of cloth as the people around her started to choke and fall on their knees.
It was starting now.
She curled herself into a ball and pressed the cloth harder to her face while she desperately spun a fictional world in her imagination, a world in which she still had the chance to speak to...him.
Where are you?
I’m on my way, my sweet.
