Guarding the Princess

chapter 10



“It feels as if it has a presence,” Dalilah said, looking up at the wall. “Like it’s got eyes.”

“The Batswana call it Solomon’s Wall,” Brandt said. “Sangomas—the local witch doctors—claim it’s a place where old spirits live and watch over the plains to the Tsholo.”

“Must be about seventy yards high,” she whispered.

“Around sixty meters of columnar basalt straight up, higher in other places. The wall runs for maybe forty or fifty kilometers—a rift caused by volcanic upheaval thousands of years ago.”

She studied the big blocks of rock—cubes of various sizes stacked one atop the other almost as if by a giant human hand, an ancient ruined city wall now being pried and twisted apart by the gnarled roots of crooked trees and sparse shrubs that had found sustenance in crevices.

Again the hot breeze, an almost imperceptible sensation, rustled over her skin, as if the wall itself was softly exhaling. A prickle ran over her skin.

“It feels like it doesn’t want to let us through, or over.”

“This land has a way of doing that, like something primitive whispering just beneath the veil of the surface, reflecting back your own emotions.”

She looked at him oddly, something shifting in her. Brandt handed her water. She met his eyes as she drank. He still didn’t take any, but he felt thirsty now.

“You going to be okay?” he said.

She forced a wry smile and cast another glance up the cliff face. “I’m scared of heights.”

“Because you’re afraid of falling and dying?”

She bit the corner of her lip. “I suppose that’s what it boils down to.”

“You could look at this two ways—if we stay down here, you probably will die at Amal’s hands. Or you could let me help you climb, and only stand a faint chance of dying at your own hand.”

“Oh, great. You sure have a way of making someone feel like they have some nice options—stay down here and get my head cut off, or go up there and get smashed.”

He crouched in front of her and looked up into her face, examining her, weighing how much mettle she had left, how far he could push her. “Dalilah, you can do this. You’ve shown me that you’ve got more grit than most men. You’re a survivor. You have everything it takes and then some.”

She turned her face away.

“No, look at me.” He took her hand in his. “I’m going to help you over this. Once step, one rock at a time. We’ll take it at an angle instead of straight up. It’ll be easier that way. And near the top, there’s water.” He pointed. “That dark stain on the rock? Waterfall. We’ll rest on that ledge up there by the water, then go the last short haul. We can be up on the plateau and in shelter before dark. I’ll build you a fire, we’ll eat. You can sleep. Then tomorrow, we start fresh. We’re a team, okay—got that? No man left behind. Ever.”

She gave a half laugh and her eyes flicked briefly to her finger with the ring. “After everything I’ve been through so far, this suddenly feels like the biggest, insurmountable hurdle of all.”

Brandt had a sense she wasn’t talking just about the wall, but about the argument they’d had over her marriage versus independence. He felt there was something much deeper and darker at play there, but he was not going to judge, or dig further. Right now he had to keep her focused on moving forward and up, on the positive.

“Listen here, Dalilah, I’ll make you a harness, and you’ll be tied to me with rope. I won’t let you fall. You’ve just got to keep looking up, never down, never backward.” He got to his feet, his body casting her in shadow. “Tomorrow we’ll make for a small village where we might even find transport. From there, smooth sailing and we’re home.”

“Home,” she said softly as she studied the wall. She rubbed her brow. “I’m not sure I know where that is anymore,” she muttered.

She was talking about moving to Sa’ud, the upcoming marriage, Brandt was certain of it. But he didn’t want to go there, not now. He removed the coil of rope from his pack that he’d cut from the jeep canopy. “I’m going to use this to fashion a harness around your chest, and I’m going to remove your sling for now, just in case you need balance from that other hand, but go easy on it.”

He began to loop knots as he spoke. “The idea is for me to climb up a boulder or two, find a secure perch, then haul you up. You’ll help by using your good arm to pull and your legs to climb and leverage against my resistance. We go this way rock by rock, step by step. When you’re tired, tell me, and we rest. Then when your mind is clear and focused again, then—and only then—we take another step.” He paused, assessing the rock face. “And from the top, we’ll see right across this plain. We’ll see if Amal is coming.”

He removed her sling and looped the rope around her back, and under her arms above her breasts, securing it with knots. But when the side of his hand brushed against her breast, her eyes ticked up to his, and the memory of their kiss suddenly hung briefly in the heat between them.

“There.” He cleared his throat and stepped back, smiling as encouragingly as he could. “Ready?”

She inhaled deeply, nodded.

But exactly what she was ready for, Dalilah wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she had to take the first step, get up over that first rock—and she was going to have to place her full trust in Brandt.

She believed he would not let her fall, that he’d help her up over this hurdle. But the other hurdles that would come after?

Once she got “home” she was on her own. And for a brief insane instant, she didn’t want to scale this cliff. She wasn’t ready to go home.

* * *

Amal stared over the wide, roiling Tsholo at the Botswana bank on the other side. Rage as violent as the floodwaters seethed inside him.

It was already afternoon, and jeep tracks showed his quarry had crossed the river right here. Before the waters had come down. Who was this bastard that had taken the princess? How had this person known that he was coming for her?

When Amal found him, he was going to disembowel the bastard, hang him from a tree for the jackals to tear at his innards while he was still alive. He’d make him watch what he was going to do to the Al Arif woman.

“There’s a bridge,” the old tracker was saying quietly at his side.

Amal spun to glare at him. “How far?”

“North, maybe half a day or more in the jeeps. But sometimes the first flood of the wet season washes parts of the bridge out. And there’s border control there, on the Botswana side.”

Amal glowered at the old man. He hated Jacob’s eyes, the way they seemed to harbour a quiet, secret knowledge. Amal didn’t trust him, but he needed him. Once he sighted his quarry, he’d kill the old man and that dog in a flash.

“Screw border patrol,” he snapped. “It’ll be sundown soon. We drive through the night, fast.” He marched over to Mbogo.

“Mark that spot over the river on the GPS,” he said, pointing to the high bank on the Botswana side. “If we make good speed we can be there by dawn tomorrow. We’ll pick up their tracks there. They won’t get away.”

* * *

Halfway up, Dalilah looked down. Mistake. Far below, the plain stretched—brown and gold, grasses, acacia scrub, stunted Mopani. Dizziness swirled, heat and dehydration taking their toll. Her muscles began to shake and sweat dripped from under her hat.

She slipped, rope digging into her skin as she jerked out and crashed back into rock, breath slamming out of her chest. Above her, Brandt braced, taking the brunt of her drop with the rope. He held still for a moment as she hung there, small stones skittering out from under his boot heel as it began to slip. A shower of stones clattered down on top of her.

“Grab that branch near your face!” he yelled. “Dig your toes into that crevice above your knees—just feel your way. And don’t look down!”

She groped for a piece of twisted old root. Grasping it, she found purchase with her boots, dug her toes in, and took some of the weight off Brandt. He hauled her up as she helped by pulling on bits of bush and roots. Once over the ledge of the rock, Brandt grabbed her and held her body tightly against his. Dalilah’s heart jackhammered. She could feel his heart, too, pounding against his ribs. Their bodies were drenched with perspiration.

“I got you,” he whispered, his breath hot in her ear. “Take it easy, okay? Calm down. Just relax. If anything kills a person out here it’s panic, got that? You’re in control of your own mind.”

She nodded, mouth tight, trying to tamp down the wild fear rampaging through her, blinding her focus, narrowing her vision. She didn’t know how much more of this she could take.

“Did I mention,” she whispered against his neck, “that I really do hate heights?”

“And did I mention,” he whispered in return, his breath feathering her cheek, “that you never cease to surprise me, Princess?”

“I hope you mean that in a good way.”

She felt him smile. It made her feel better. Calmer. As if she had a partner.

“We’re a team, remember? No man left behind.”

She nodded, and it felt good to know that this guy had her back—the kind of guy who could be hard on her when she needed to push herself, but tender when she needed a soft touch. A man who’d push her to follow her passion and be the best woman she could be.

And as Dalilah held on to this scarred lion of a man, she realized that’s what she wanted out of a marriage. And it sunk like a cold knife deep into her chest—she’d never get that with Haroun.

I’m not seeing a clear picture here...

Neither was she. Not anymore.

He held her steady until her heart rate lowered, until she could focus and think properly again. Then he cupped the side of her face and made her look up into his eyes.

“Remember,” he said firmly, “looking backward serves zero purpose, understand? Only think of the future.”

“Is that what you do, Brandt?” she whispered. “Never look back?”

Surprise flickered through his eyes. Then his lips twisted into a slow, wry smile. “Touché, Princess. But let’s keep this about the cliff, all right? We’ll save my past for later.”

She held his gaze, his lips so close, his arms so strong. A team suspended between sky and earth, and for an upside-down moment Dalilah was oddly grateful to be here right now, with him, to have been afforded this tiny window of reprieve, even under these circumstances. A chance to rethink her future before she made a terrible mistake from which she could never turn back.

* * *

An hour later, wet through and caked with red clay, muscles screaming with exertion, Brandt reached down his hand and hauled Dalilah over a big slab and onto a wide ledge of rock that ran almost fifty yards along the cliff face. Dalilah caught her breath as she heard water and felt a waft of cooler air kissing her cheeks. They were almost at the top of the cliff, and through a crevice above, cascading into a pool carved by time and pressure into rock, was a fall of gloriously clear water. Thirst rose fierce and sharp. She shot a look at Brandt. A grin split his rugged face, his teeth stark white against skin that had turned an even darker bronze from a full day under the baking sun. The dancing light in his eyes reminded her of a summer swimming pool with its surface recently broken by a swimmer—sunlight refracting off the surface. Cool, welcoming.

And she’d never seen anything more beautiful.

“You should do it more often,” she said.

“Climb cliffs with you?”

She laughed as she pushed past him and dropped to her knees, dipping her hand in the clear, coppery-colored water.

“No, silly. Smile. I like your smile.”

His smile faded, his gaze darkening, becoming unreadable.

She cupped water in her hands—it was the color of clear Ceylon tea. “It’s cool, Brandt!” Dalilah took off her hat and bent forward, splashing it over her face, feeling like a child. Laughing.

“God, this is heaven.” She shot him a look over her shoulder. “Is it okay to drink, do you think?”

He was staring at her, and she felt suddenly aware, self-conscious, then that gorgeous broad grin crept over his face again, splitting it into facets and crinkles, making his blue-sky eyes dance again like a summer pool in sunlight. Then he braced his hands on his hips and laughed. “And what’s so funny?”

“You! You look like a female warrior with war paint out to do battle—and you’re still all trussed up in the harness and trailing rope.”

She peered into the surface of the water. In the rippling reflection she could see her face was now streaked with dark mud. She grinned. “I really must look a prize.”

“A hell of a lot cuter than you did in that cocktail outfit when—” He caught himself.

“When what?”

“It’s nothing.” Brandt came forward, untied the rope around her and swung off his pack. He dropped it to the slab with a thud, kettle clunking against rock. Crouching, he moved the rifle strapped across his torso to one side, then cupped his hands, tasted the water. “No cleaner in the world—just colored by minerals.”

“Still could have parasites, bacteria—”

“I’ll take that chance. This rock pool has been baked dry and clean by the sun all winter—it’s only flowing again now since the fresh rains.”

“Animal feces could be upstream.”

“Spoken like someone who understands water risks in Africa,” he said, pooling more water in his hands and drinking deeply, regardless. It was the first time Dalilah had seen him drink anything since the whiskey this morning. He’d saved their supply for her, and now he was slaking what was clearly a deep and desperate thirst.

He filled the water canteen, capped it, then stuck his whole head into the cool pool, rinsing his face. He got up, flicked his head back and raked his hands through his short hair, biceps flexing, and Dalilah was struck by a thought—she could love this man.

It turned her mood suddenly dark and heavy.

“Drink, Dalilah. And wash off—we’ll rest here a bit. We have enough light to get to the top before sunset. He dropped to his haunches again and opened his pack, removing two small airplane-size bottles. “Shampoo and lotion,” he said with a flourish of his hand. “You could take a full shower under this waterfall. Nature’s spa.”

Dalilah stared at the bottles. Her eyes flashed to his. “You brought those?”

A wicked tilt lifted one side of his mouth. “Traveling with royalty, aren’t I? Gotta keep a princess in the style to which she’s accustomed.”

“And there I was thinking you were going out of your way to make me feel uncomfortable.”

“Well, just enough to keep you focused.”

“See, I was right.”

“The princess is intuitive.”

She touched his hand. “Brandt.”

His body went stone-still.

“Call me Princess one more time,” she whispered, close to his mouth, “and I swear I will use that panga of yours to kill you.”

Energy shimmered between them for a beat, then abruptly Brandt averted his eyes and unsmilingly yanked the sarong out of the pack.

“Get undressed, take a full bath. I’ll go over there, behind that jutting-out rock. Out of sight, but within earshot. You’ll be safe. Use this to dry off.” He thrust the sarong at her. “If you want to wash any clothes, lay them out on those hot rocks once you’re done. Stuff will dry in minutes. You can get that splint wet—I have more bandages and another splint if we need one.”

He hooked up his backpack, made for the jut of rock, went round it and disappeared from sight.

Dalilah stood there, sarong in hand, staring after him.

A few yards away, screened by the rock, Brandt settled back onto the hot ledge.

From his backpack he dug out the high-tech digital camera with zoom lens. One thing he hadn’t found in the jeep, or in the pack, was a pair of binoculars, so the camera zoom lens would have to suffice.

Using the powerful lens, he scanned the landscape below, but he was unable to cut thoughts of Dalilah from his mind. Somehow—he wasn’t exactly sure how or when—she’d gone from being a principal to someone he actually cared about, so help him God. Yeah, it was shades of Carla all over again, but Brandt couldn’t undo what had changed within him, so he was just going to have to soldier through this now.

He panned over to an area of thorny trees. A small herd of zebra rested in shade. Not far from them buffalo moved slowly in a group. He swept the camera slowly to the east, saw dust rising. His heart kicked. Zooming in closer, he realized the dust was being raised by elephants, not Amal’s jeeps.

In the sky, above the bushy area near the elephants, five vultures wheeled. One dropped suddenly, like a bomb into the long grass, then another. Probably after the remains of the dog kill, he thought. If it was a fresh lion kill the birds would drop only as far as the trees, fearing retaliation from the lions.

There was nothing else that caught his eye. No glint of metal or flash of glass, no other telltale line of dust rising into the air. Most of the animals were resting in the heat, waiting for the cool of night, when the real cycle of violence and activity would begin.

Brandt leaned back, rifle on his knee, camera in his hand, and rested his head against the rock, listening to sounds of the place—the clicking of insects, birdcall, rustling feathers as smaller raptors rode the cliff thermals above him in search of mice and other small prey, water splashing into the pool.

The sound of the waterfall changed as Dalilah presumably moved under it. Brandt’s pulse worked a little faster, his chest tightening as he thought of her buck naked in the pool. He heard another splash, and before he could stop himself, Brandt eased forward, copped a peek.

Everything in his body stilled.

Apart from her blue SAM splint, the princess was naked, standing under the waterfall, head back as she rinsed shampoo out of her hair, her eyes closed in pure, unaffected pleasure at the sensation of the cool water drumming over her body.

Her skin was dusky, nipples dark rose-brown, pointing straight out from the coldness of the water.

She turned, and Brandt caught sight of the dark delta of hair between her thighs, the glint of a green jewel in her belly button. She was exotic even unclothed—the princess of an oil-rich Saharan kingdom, as far removed from his lifestyle as a woman could get. And she was set to marry an Arabian prince who might well be one of the wealthiest men in the world when he became king.

Unattainable. Wrong side of the tracks.

Brandt told himself to look away, but he couldn’t. He was utterly mesmerized—she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen out in this dry, scrubby, hard country. Like a bird of paradise that didn’t belong. That he couldn’t have.

Yet...somehow, naked, stripped, out of her element, she did fit, at least for this moment standing under that water. Just him and her, the water, rocks, sky, bushveldt stretching out for miles below—it seemed the most natural and beautiful thing on this earth. And in this moment, Brandt wanted to possess her with every molecule in his body, with a deep, raw hunger that went beyond the physical. It was a longing, a craving that made him feel suddenly lonely in his life. And he realized Dalilah was awakening in him powerful things he’d long buried.

A desperation swelled fierce and hot in his chest, and almost involuntarily, Brandt slowly put the camera to his eye, adjusted the lens, focusing on how the sleek curves of her body echoed the smooth contours in the red rock. He clicked almost before he registered the action, capturing wet hair slicked over her shoulders, the aristocratic slant of her nose. The pleasure in her features as she closed her eyes.

On one level he knew he was stealing these images, that he shouldn’t be doing this. But Brandt also knew Dalilah’s presence in his life was rare and fleeting, that he could never have her in the way he suddenly wanted her, and he was desperate to hold on to a part of her, a memory he could return to once she was gone from his life. A touchstone.

Photography had saved Brandt before. Capturing images of things that moved him deeply in war zones had become an outlet for his conscience. Returning to those images taken over the years had kept him grounded, reminded him why he’d made the choices he had. Photography had become, in part, the reason he could no longer fight, or kill.

Right now, though, he wanted to capture this moment in its purity and beauty—to remember this bittersweet, poignant, painful sensation Dalilah was reawakening in him—for reasons he couldn’t begin to articulate to himself yet.

He zoomed in closer, focusing on the winking of the emerald jewel at her navel, the hollow at her throat, the valley between her rounded breasts as he clicked.

She flicked her wet hair back suddenly and droplets of water sparkled in a graceful arc like diamonds in the sunlight—natural jewels, flickering to life one second, then falling and melting into the pool the next. Yet he’d caught them. That was rarity, pure wealth. Not an ostentatious Argyle pink stone bought by dirty oil money.

Brandt lowered the camera, blood racing.

Dalilah reached for her bra and G-string on the rocks, and began washing her underwear in the pool using the shampoo, affording him a vision of her rounded buttocks.

Heat sliced through his brain, blinding him a moment, throbbing low in his belly. She came to the edge of the pool and bent over, breasts swinging forward as she laid out her clean underwear on the hot rock, steam rising instantly. Through the valley of her breasts, a gap of sunlight was visible between her thighs to the apex where her hair was wet and dark. Something dark and carnal overtook his thoughts and his mouth turned dry. He raised the camera again, but this time he couldn’t click the shutter. As desperate as he was to feed the hunger within him, to make love to her with his lens, something had shifted, and it suddenly felt wrong. His breathing grew lighter, faster, tension, conflict whipping through him.

She reached for the sarong, started wrapping it around her torso.

Brandt leaned back, barely able to breathe, heart thudding in his chest, his groin hot, hard, his brain thick as molasses. He willed himself to calm, willed the desire pulsing between his thighs to abate.

But she edged around the outcropping of rock, wrapped in the sarong, damp spots on her breasts, and his pulse spiked back into overdrive. Brandt quickly scrubbed his hands over his face, avoiding meeting her eyes. “Done?”

“Just waiting for my things to dry so I can change.” She hesitated. “You okay?

No.

“Yeah,” he said, voice clipped. He stood, his erection making him feel like that frustrated bull elephant—this was insane, the level of lust coursing like molten lead through his system. This woman was like a drug he’d tasted and couldn’t get enough of, messing with his body and mind.

“You going to have a go? It’s like heaven.”

Hell, yeah.

He grunted and stuffed the camera back into his pack. He needed more than a shower—he needed a bucket of bloody ice. Brandt handed her the gun, still not meeting her eyes. “Wait here. Keep an eye on the plain.”

Brandt edged past her, trying his damnedest not to make contact.

* * *

Dalilah fingered the weapon in her lap, her hair drying quickly into a mass of thick curls around her shoulders. She jumped as something touched her bare foot. Looking down, she was startled to see an oddly shaped mouse with a long nose like a trunk. She smiled—elephant mouse. More of the strange little creatures peeped out, scurrying suddenly over the ledge on which she sat. One started to drink from a tiny puddle of water that had dripped from her hair.

As she watched the mice, she noticed red ants attacking a writhing insect struggling to escape, while along a deep crevice in the rock more ants bustled back and forth in a straight line ferrying gelatinous white eggs.

It struck Dalilah that the bushveldt on the micro level was as violent and intense as on the macro level. Life. Sex. Birth. Death. A constant fight for survival.

Looking up, she saw vultures dropping from the sky in the distance, and she thought of the wild dogs ripping apart the impala, the baby elephant being dragged to muddy depths by the crocodile. The crazy bull elephant. The dead leopard and motherless cub. She was a part of it all, living in the moment.

Alive.

Vital.

More so than she’d ever felt in her entire life. More than she’d felt in New York.

She thought of Haroun and immediately her head began to hurt.

Dalilah leaned forward around the rock, checking to see if Brandt was almost finished. Her breath caught in her throat.

He was still under the waterfall, naked. And clearly physically aroused.

Her pulse began to race. Unable to tear her gaze away, Dalilah watched Brandt reaching for the shampoo. He squeezed some into his hand and worked up a soapy mass of bubbles with which he washed his hair, his biceps flexing his lion tattoo as he washed his hair and lathered the soap down his arms. Then his hands worked over his washboard abs, going lower to soap the dark blond hair between his legs. The size of his arousal was startling, his bare thighs deeply tanned, rock-solid.

A wild white heat seared into her belly and a desperate desire rose in Dalilah to straddle him, fill herself with him, press her breasts and belly against that solid, lean torso.

He stilled suddenly, as if he sensed he was being watched.

Slowly, his head turned, and he caught her eyes. Panic sliced through Dalilah. She couldn’t swallow, breathe. Couldn’t hear, could barely see as her vision narrowed onto him.

He held dead still, his eyes pale slits as he met her gaze for several long, slow beats. Then slowly he turned, continued washing.

She let out a whoosh of air and sat back against the rock, her cheeks flame-hot, her hands shaking. What had just happened here?

Embarrassment shot through her.

When he returned he was dressed. He held out his hand for the gun and said, “Your stuff is dry. Go change back there. Call me when you’re done and I’ll give you a dry splint.” His voice was hard, ice-cold. Emotionless.

She opened her mouth to speak, mortified by what had transpired between them. By the raw need awakened in her own body.

“Brandt, I...” Her voice came out hoarse, then caught in her own throat.

He turned away, hefting the pack up onto his shoulders before she could manage to finish her words.

“Sun goes off like a light switch around six-thirty—we’re running out of time.” He shrugged the pack onto his back, buckled it up tight. “We need to get up onto that plateau and find a place to hole up for the night before dark, or we won’t live till dawn.” Then he met her gaze, paused. “And you won’t live to see that wedding of yours.”

Dalilah swallowed. It was a harsh reminder, a snipe at her—or himself. She wasn’t sure, but it made her feel small and humiliated. And angry. She wasn’t the only one turned on here. And he had no idea what it felt to feel that kind of sexual attraction and to have never been able to act on it.