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Jamsheed’s nostrils flared and he cracked his knuckles after removing his hands from her shoulders. “I can break more than your nose, Abir. You won’t insult Brenda again, or you won’t live to regret it.”
She sighed. “As much as I’d love to see that happen, I don’t want to be the starting point in an all-out cousin civil war tonight. I just… am I staying in your room?”
Eyes the color of amber regarded her gently. “I wasn’t sure you were up for that to start.” He turned his attention to the assembled servants and beckoned with one hand toward a plump, middle aged woman with long hair in a braid the color of coal. “Jazmina will show you to your quarters, but if you need anything, just let her know and I’ll drop everything for you.”
She squeezed his hand. “I know you need to see your father first. I think if you spoke to him, just let him hear you, well, I’ve heard it’s supposed to do miracles for people in comas. I don’t think it could hurt, and I don’t need to delay that. Don’t worry,” she added, forcing a smile to her face even if her mouth felt like it tasted of ash. “I think Jazmina and I will hit it off fine.” Then Brenda blinked as a thought came to her. “Wait, she does speak English, right?”
The older woman laughed, a rich sound that would have made any alto proud. “I do, my dear. Now, please, you must be exhausted. Come with me.”
Brenda gladly took the woman’s offered arm and let her lead her to the far wing of the palace. Still, she couldn’t help but glare back to Abir who met her gaze with an ugly, sneering look of his own. Things weren’t adding up, not completely. Abir had power here and some legitimacy, and she had a suspicion that the struggle between the cousins was just getting started.
***
“Father,” Jamsheed said, his voice thick with emotion.
His whole life, his father had been larger than life. Even when Jamsheed had grown taller than the old man, he never felt as if he crowded over his father. It was just the sheer presence that Walheed Rahal projected. He was the sheikh, he was in charge, and he could set everything right. Whether that had been banishing nightmares for Jamsheed when he was just a child, or the way he navigated his country’s policy and kept Zomelia a peaceful nation while nearby countries crumbled, the old sheikh had been commanding and powerful. It was a legacy so large and demanding that Jamsheed wasn’t sure how any one human being lived up to it—let alone Jamsheed.
He could run a company, sure. He loved Zomelia with all his heart; that went without saying. But he was a playboy, a roustabout, and he had none of the skill his father had to fight wars or keep peace. Those were things that had to be forged from experience, and he never led more than a Fortune 500 company in his life.
Jamsheed set one hand over his father’s and was careful to not tangle it in the myriad of leads and tubes coming from the comatose man. “I wish there was anything I could do. I’m still flying in a specialist from UCLA and one from Hopkins to consult with the royal physician. You can’t die yet. You know that you can’t. Zomelia needs you. I need you. Hell, I may have found someone I can have an heir with. Why would you want to miss out on grandchildren now?”
There was no answer, of course, except for the wheeze of the air through the machines breathing for the old sheikh.
Jamsheed reclined back in his chair but didn’t stand. He was afraid to even take his hand from where it rested over his father’s, as if his father would fade from existence before his very eyes. “Please don’t do this. I can be ready. I can learn or try. You had to learn on the job too, at least some things. Everyone does. But I don’t want to do it without you. I don’t want to have children running these palace halls without their grandfather to chase them. Please, Father, I know you have life left in you.”
“How quaint,” Abir said, clapping theatrically before him as he entered into the hospital wing.
Jamsheed gritted his teeth. “You’re not welcome here.”
“He’s my uncle, too. I care about him. I visit him twice a day. Ask anyone. While it’s taken you three extra days to come home from the decadent West, I’ve been here making the arrangements on the ground. Don’t presume to tell me how I feel about Uncle Walheed, especially considering what a bastard my father was to me.”
“It runs in your side of the family,” Jamsheed said, reluctantly standing and moving away from his father’s bedside. “You’re all rotten to the core, and if you think I’ll let you just take the throne.”
“I will take the throne, and your scam to impregnate your maid before it’s time won’t work. I’ve come too hard and built my family and my reputation as COO of our company, to prove myself as a capable surrogate son to Uncle Walheed too,” Abir said, starting to pace. “You were the one running off everywhere, having fun with whatever flavor of the week woman you wanted. I held the front here home together.”
“You’re not the heir.”
“Well, until you have a child growing in that woman’s womb, then you’re not either. Jamsheed, I know you. Ms. Mckann will have to consent. I know that’s who you are and how you believe, all that Western sensibility coursing through you. Then you’ll need to explain to her smoothly that she was brought here to be a brood mare. I can tell from how confused she was earlier that you didn’t mention that hiccup in this desert adventure for her. Well, Cousin, you don’t have much time so speak fast, but know this.”
“Know what?” Jamsheed demanded, clenching his jaw tightly after he spoke. “You won’t have this. You’ve earned nothing. You would drag our country back to the old ways.”
“The ways that guided Zomelia well, kept us away from foreign influence until fifty years ago. Yes. But that will be good for us, to be purely Zomelia again and to no longer worry about globalization.”
“No, I won’t let you take us back to that, erase what Father started.”
“The you better work fast and convince Ms. Mckann or find yourself a new whore.”
For the second time that afternoon, Jamsheed felled his cousin with a single blow.
