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With that, he turned on his heel and stormed from the room, throwing the great doors open with a bang and leaving with sharp, angry steps. His mother lingered for a while still, her expression still one of upset, but quickly morphing. Her lips pulled together into a tight, thin line. She stepped up to her son.
“Mother, I—”
He tried to explain, but before he could say more than that, she reached up and slapped him harshly across the face.
“How can you be so inconsiderate?”
Then, like her husband, she turned and left the room. Her shoulders straight and her chin high, but it was obvious that she was anything but calm. Finally, Ahmed was left alone in the room, wondering what was left for him now.
Chapter Three
Keisha was half asleep when she heard the sound. It was a ruffling of heavy fabric, but too noticeable to be the heavy winds or the rustle of the sand outside. No, it came with movement. Human movement.
As soon as the thought went through him mind, she knew it was true. She sat up in an instant, her eyes wide as they tried desperately to adjust to the darkness of her small home. It took too long, but her ears were sharp. She could hear breathing and the soft shuffling of footsteps that were trying too hard to be silent.
She let out a shaky, terrified breath and reached out her hand. She searched blindly for something, anything to defend herself with.
My baby, she thought, her terror ramping up yet another notch. If she were attacked, what would come of her baby?
Finally, her hand came to a stick leaned up against the wall, once she picked for walking on long, hot days and she thought she might use more often when she became heavier with child. She closed her fingers tightly around it, and slid her legs over the side of the bed. Breathing shallowly, trying to be quiet, she gave her eyes a moment longer to adjust, then brought herself to a standing position at the exact moment that she swung the stick around towards her attacker.
“Ow!” came the deep, male voice. One that was instantly familiar.
Keisha dropped the stick and clamped her hand over her mouth to stifle a cry. Her voice came out mumbled as a result. “Oh! Ahmed?”
Her heart raced as she watched him rub his head, little more than a deep, full shadow in the darkness, but now that her eyes had adjusted some and she had realized who it was she could tell obviously that it was Ahmed. The shape of his head, the strength of his shoulders and the slimming of his waist.
“I’m so sorry, I hadn’t realized!” she apologized, reaching for him.
His hands took hers immediately, pulling her to him harshly until she slammed against his chest. He enveloped her then in his arms and held her tightly to him. For a long while, he did not speak. He did not say a single word and it had her worried.
This was about the baby, she knew it, she could sense it. This was about the baby and how he could not marry her. How she was about to be an unwed, pregnant beggar woman with no prospects and no future. And no Ahmed. The whole lot of that sounded awful, but in the end it was that final part that would truly break her.
Life without Ahmed was not worth much to Keisha anymore. Not now that she had had him even for a little bit.
Tears pricked at her eyes as she waited impatiently for him to finally speak. For him to tell her that this was all—had always been—nothing but a pipe dream, a silly fantasy to be dreamt up by children. Or worse still, a waste of his royal time.
Finally, when he still hadn’t spoken, Keisha could not take it anymore. Scrunching her eyes tightly against the tears which threatened to spill down her cheeks in a torrent, she spoke, “Ahmed, please, just tell me what’s happening.”
He exhaled a long, shaking breath. She could feel him nod his head, then he spoke. “If you are still certain of what you want, then it must be tonight. I am afraid I cannot give you a real wedding, the one you deserve, but we must—”
She pulled back, shock sweeping her body. She had to pull back though so that she could look him in the eyes and see if what he was saying was true. There was a slightly confused, earnest expression on his face, the features just barely visible in the intense darkness. His eyes, dark as they were, seemed to glimmer with both fear and the faintest of hopes.
“Wedding?” Keisha repeated in a scratched, hoarse voice that did not even sound like hers, it was so flooded with emotion. “You… you intend to marry me?”
She could just barely see him frown in the night. He came to her again and she allowed him to pull her against his chest once more. “Of course! That has always been my intention. No, it won’t be easy, and I have often wondered if perhaps your life would not be so much easier if I were not in it—”
“No!” Keisha nearly shouted immediately in response. Her eyes were wide, panic momentarily clouding them as she realized that his heart was so close and he all but wished it away from her. “No, it would not be. Nothing would be better without you.”
He smiled down at her sweetly, just barely. “Then come away with me tonight, my love, before anyone has the chance to stop us. We shall be wed before morning and then my mother and father will have no say. Our lives will be entwined forever.”
Heart swelling with promise, with love and adoration, and the settling sense that everything was going to be okay, Keisha nodded.
They packed nothing. They disappeared into the night and were married beneath a blanket of stars with scant but a few discreet witnesses who hardly realized they were watching the marriage of a monarch.
And that night, Ahmed was determined to make love to Keisha the right way, as his wife not his lover and it would make the baby slowly beginning to grow within her womb right and perfect.
They stayed at an Inn rather than return to either of their lodgings—to his for obvious reasons and hers he deemed too small for such a special occasion—and he carried her into the room, smiling as though he were the luckiest man in the world.
