Guarding the Princess

chapter 12



Her thick lashes fluttered and her eyes opened slowly.

“Brandt?” she murmured, confused. “Where...are we?” Her words were slurred. But she was lucid—that was the main thing. Brandt’s heart almost bottomed out of his chest with relief.

But she was not in the clear, not by far. Even moderate hypothermia could kill if left untreated. He needed to warm her core temperature stat.

Quickly he built up the fire, but the crackling flames weren’t radiating as much warmth through the building as earlier—the heat was being sucked up into the clear sky.

He pulled the hot bricks and small rocks away from the edge of the fire. Allowing them to cool partially, he filled the kettle with water. While he waited for the water to boil, Brandt rubbed her arms gently. Rough handling in this situation, he knew, could spark deadly heart rhythms.

“I’m making you some hot, sweet tea, okay? You want some tea, Dalilah?”

She murmured something, turned her head away.

“Dalilah, look at me, talk to me!”

“Cold,” she murmured. “So cold.”

The water was starting to boil. There was slightly more warmth in the room as flames continued to grow and steam rose. Brandt tossed more logs onto the fire. Moving as fast as he could, he ripped off his shirt. Bracing against the chill, he quickly wrapped one of the warm bricks in the fabric. Unlacing his boots, he removed them and took off his socks. Into each sock he stuffed a heated rock, then he emptied his pockets and unhooked his knife, GPS and other paraphernalia from his belt. Undoing his belt, he dropped his pants, cursing his habit of not wearing underwear. It wasn’t unusual—many safari guides went commando, a practice born of convenience, and comfort. It kept one cool and dry in often-terrible humid heat. But there was no time to even think about that. He wrapped another warm brick in his shorts. Needing more insulation, Brandt scanned their supplies. The sarong! The kettle started to boil as he removed the sarong from under her head and rolled it around the other warm brick.

Brandt unzipped Dalilah’s sleeping bag, untied the sling he’d replaced after their shower, then quickly opened her shirt and placed the heated stones in high heat-loss areas—under her armpits, groin, next to her neck. He wrapped her up, zipped the bag closed, made sweet tea, then knelt beside her and held her head up.

“Drink,” he urged.

She started sipping, but still no color returned to her skin, no warmth. Tongues of panic licked deeper. Brandt set the mug down and took her face in his hands, looking directly into her eyes. “Dalilah, listen to me. You’ve got moderate hypothermia. If it gets any worse, we’re in serious trouble, and we have no way of getting medical help out here. I’m getting into that sleeping bag with you.” He unzipped the bag again as he spoke, moving fast to snuggle in beside her so as not to allow any more heat to escape.

Ensuring the hot rocks and bricks were in position, he zipped them both up inside the bag and slid his arms into her shirt, pulling her body close against his naked one, wrapping himself around her.

“I know it’s not comfortable,” he whispered. “But it’s a hell of a lot better than freezing to death.” He wriggled in closer, hooking his leg over her, drawing her tightly against him as he found the best and snuggest fit against the curves and dips of her body. He drew part of the sleeping bag up over her head.

Brandt had always had a high metabolism, had always given off tons of heat. Unfettered by clothes, it came off him in waves now. Insulated in this high-end, and thankfully large sleeping bag, along with the heat radiating from the hot rocks, he started to cook. And finally he could feel her body warming.

Emotion burned into his eyes. He held her tighter, rubbing her arms gently, wrapping himself around her, enveloping, protecting. And as he lay there with Dalilah in his arms, as the fear began to slowly abate inside him, something raw and powerful and long dead awakened in its place. Protective instinct. It stirred now inside Brandt with the quiet ferocity of a sleeping dragon being roused from hibernation. And it came with a powerful desire to nurture, to hold. And to be held in return. It was raw, and it made him vulnerable.

It made him want something he hadn’t wanted in years. A partner. A lover. Commitment. A sense of future shared.

Brandt closed his eyes, aching with the pain of the sensation, and with remorse—for almost failing Dalilah. For failing Carla. For having lost his faith in love all those years ago because of his ex-wife, Yolanda, and his brother.

He kept rubbing her arms gently, and when he felt the shivering stop, her body softening against his, sweet emotion blossomed through his chest.

Brandt placed his fingers against her neck, feeling for her carotid. Her pulse was strong again, steady.

“Warmer?” he whispered against her ear.

“Hmm,” she murmured. “Tired. Very tired.”

“Sleep, Princess,” he whispered tenderly against her ear.

She fell into a deep sleep, her curves pressed into his, her breathing going deep and rhythmic. Brandt felt tears pooling in his eyes, and he let them wet his cheeks as he breathed in deep, snuggling closer, breathing in her scent—a fragrance of flowers from the shampoo she had used under the waterfall.

And for a moment he was suddenly vaulted way back to his youth, when he met the first woman he’d ever loved. A woman he knew he would marry from the instant he laid eyes on her. When she did accept his proposal he was king of the world. Everything was possible, right was right and wrong was wrong and the future was as open and infinite as the Botswana sky above him.

Dalilah stirred in his arms, moving closer, and the firm, soft, rounded warmth of her breasts pressed against his chest. Her lips were so close to his, parted.

Brandt glanced down at her mouth, imagined kissing her again. Heat pooled, low and dangerous, in his groin, and arousal stirred.

Here he was, naked and holding in his arms a woman he wanted, physically, but couldn’t have. A woman he dared believe he could actually come to love, but one he had to deliver safely for marriage to another man. He moved his hand down her splint to touch the ice-hard stone on her finger. The diamond that bound her to another.

He needed to remember this.

She’d made her choice. She was a princess, he a washed-up merc scarred by too many battles.

But deep down in his gut, Brandt now knew that saving Dalilah—someone he now cared about—could actually be his salvation. If he could protect Dalilah, where he hadn’t been able to protect Carla, maybe it would free him from the loop of his past.

If he could feel love for this woman, yet keep focus and his hands off her, Brandt knew suddenly, instinctively, this would be the gift she gave him. Freedom from his crime of the past. But in order to get there, he did have to give himself permission to feel again. He had to be vulnerable.

And it scared him.

Brandt chose to embrace this. In the dark night, with Dalilah soft in his arms, his finger on her ring, he promised himself he wouldn’t stop caring, and he’d see her through. Saving her would save him.

This conscious decision, this sudden sharp conviction, cracked something free in Brandt’s heart. He felt the night breeze on his face, and his muscles relaxed.

For the first time in ten years—and more—Brandt was finally seeking a way to mend, to heal. He was ready to face the pain of his past head-on, instead of seeking relief in the bottom of that damn bottle.

* * *

Brandt checked his watch—4:00 a.m. He eased out of the sleeping bag and stoked the fire, flames warm against his naked body. Making sure his gun, panga and knife were all within reach, he eased back into the sleeping bag and zipped himself in. She turned around, murmuring as he embraced her.

High above in the indigo vault of sky, stars moved. Dew began to settle and temperatures dropped a little further. But in his arms Dalilah was warm. Brandt eased himself into a new position, not wanting to wake her, and he closed his eyes, allowing himself to drift down to a light level of rest, something for which he’d been trained, a state where he’d remain conscious of ambient sound, movement. He’d wake in an instant should anything shift in the atmosphere, even in the most subtle way.

* * *

Brandt woke sharply, pulse quickening, senses acute. He listened to the night, trying to discern what had changed. He realized it was a difference in the rhythm of Dalilah’s breathing. Fear laced through him. He looked at her face. She was flushed and she moaned softly.

Brandt checked her pulse. It had quickened. She moaned again, suddenly stirring restlessly in his arms. Then with a sharp start he felt the tightness of aroused nipples against his chest. She murmured again, moving her hips. His heart began to slam so hard he thought it would burst out of his chest. She arched her lower back, pressing her pelvis against his naked groin, as she hooked her leg over his. The warm rock between her thighs slid to the side.

Brandt lay dead still. But she moved again, her shirt opening, the other rocks sliding out from the crooks of her arms. He felt the sharp angles of the jewel in her navel pressing against his abdomen.

Sweet heaven, he couldn’t breathe. She rubbed her pelvis against his, her leg caressing his, and he felt her pulse fluttering fast as her breathing quickened. She was coming on to him in her sleep, dreaming of sex.

His vision narrowed. His groin heated, his body hardening, quivering with need.

Her arm draped over his bare torso, and she stirred again, edging even closer. Brandt glared at the stars, willing himself to hold still. It was just a dream.

Her leg moved higher, the inside of her thigh chafing him to the sharp, painful exquisite peak of arousal. His erection began to throb. Brandt tried to breathe—he should get out of the bag, now. While he still could.

Yet he couldn’t. His need was growing so fierce, Brandt feared that if he moved so much as a millimeter in any direction right now, he might just come.

Her hand, soft, warm, moved up his waist, and she murmured words in Arabic—smooth, guttural, impossibly seductive. He groaned. She’d stop any minute, he told himself. Just hold on for another minute.

But she turned her face to his and pressed her lips against his mouth. She began to kiss him, suddenly aggressive, hungry, predatory. And Brandt snapped. He yanked her hard against his body, kissing her back, sliding his tongue into her mouth as he moved his hand down her body, cupping her buttocks.

Dalilah groaned, moving her leg higher. Brandt was blind now, incapable of thought, conscious only of delirious sexual contact. Her tongue twisted with his and he moved his hand around, slipping it into the front of her pants, cupping her groin.

She made a soft noise, opening her legs as his fingers met smooth, damp, hot flesh. She widened access, her body going hot, her pelvis suddenly thrusting. Brandt slid his finger up inside her and his vision swirled into a kaleidoscope of scarlet and red. She was tight—impossibly tight. It made him wild. He slipped another finger inside.

She went dead still.

Her eyes flared open.

Breathing fast, she stared at him, eyes widening in what looked like sheer horror. Brandt pulled back.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. Then she exploded up from the sleeping bag, frantically trying to free herself from its confines. “Oh, no, no, no!”

Confusion raced through Brandt. “Dalilah?”

She scrambled to pull her shirt closed over her chest, to get out of the sleeping bag, panic in her features, her hair a wild tangle.

“Dalilah, stop! Wait.” She must be delirious, he thought, not thinking right. He placed his hand firmly on her shoulders. “Steady. Stay in the bag, stay warm, wait while I stoke up the fire, make you some tea.”

He extracted himself from the bag and her eyes slid down his naked body, his arousal a testament to what had been going on in the sleeping bag. Her hand went to her mouth, a look of utter confusion and fear on her face.

“Dalilah, I’m sorry. You were... You had hypothermia. I was warming you up.”

Her gaze lowered to his erection.

“Brandt—” She sounded mortified.

He felt just as stunned.

“Dalilah, look, I don’t wear underwear, okay? I stripped down to keep you warm. And...” How could he say this? You came on to me in your sleep?

Omair would kill him if he found out.

Haroun might kill her.

He spun away, grabbed his shorts, pulled them on, fed logs onto the fire. He stared at the flames, brain racing. Dawn was already bleeding pale light into the sky, the sound of birds rising as the bushveldt woke. They had to move. Now. There wasn’t time for all this.

“I’m so sorry, Brandt.” Her voice came out, soft, rough. Shock rustled through him. He turned slowly.

And his heart squeezed at the look on her face. She pushed a thick tangle of hair back from her face. “I...” She was as lost for words as he was. “I didn’t mean it. I was dreaming...I...” Emotion choked her voice and tears spilled from her eyes.

He crouched beside her, took her shoulders in his hands. “Dalilah, it’s okay—that was not supposed to happen. I should not have let it ha—”

“It was my fault. I was with you in my dream. I...” Another tear leaked down her cheek. She brushed it away, blushing.

His chest squeezed so tight he couldn’t breathe—Dalilah had been making love to him.

“Hey,” he said softly, “it happens to everyone. I should have stepped away. I’m so sorry, so very sorry. I—” He inhaled deeply, hesitated, struggling for words. “Look, Princess. It’s no secret. I want you. You saw in that waterfall what you’re doing to me—you’re killing me—but let’s just leave it all right here, okay? No one—not Omair, not Haroun—nobody needs to know this. It’s between you and me, our secret.”

Another tear fell. She looked away.

Anxiety, self-recrimination twisted through Brandt. “Dalilah, please, look at me.”

She wouldn’t. “You think I’m breaking a promise, Brandt. You think I’m being unfaithful, but I’m—”

“Hey—” he cupped her chin, turned her face back to his “—it’s in the past. Like I said, no looking back—keep moving forward. In a few days, this will all be history.”

She sat silent. Watching him. Something powerful was going on inside her head. “It won’t be over,” she said softly.

“What do you mean?”

“It won’t be history. Not for me.” Then a sharp brightness flashed through her eyes—the old Dalilah was back, the passionate one. She shoved the sleeping bag off her body, grabbed her boots, thrust her foot into one.

“I don’t feel like I’ve broken any damn promise,” she snapped, grabbing the other boot, yanking it on, too.

“It wasn’t even mine—I never made it.” She seemed to catch herself. Then she grew quiet.

Brandt sat back. “I don’t understand.”

She struggled with the laces of one boot, unable to tie them with one hand, frustration biting at her movements. “It’s a political contract, between my deceased father and Haroun’s dying father.”

He stared. “What is?

“My marriage was arranged when I was five.”

He was speechless.

Seconds ticked by. “An arranged marriage?” he said, trying to wrap his head around it. “When you were five years old?”

“Yes. A political alliance between the two kingdoms.”

He dragged his hand over his hair. “But...you do love him, right?”

She swallowed, looked up and met his eyes. “Brandt, I barely know him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Five times—I’ve been with Haroun only five times in my entire life.”

“You’ve slept with him five times?”

“No! I’ve been in his company five times. Each time with a chaperone. I haven’t even kissed him. I feel nothing physical at all for him, so there you have it now. Happy?”

Brandt’s mind reeled, his entire paradigm tilting drunkenly on edge. And pieces of the puzzle that had been niggling at him suddenly began clicking into place—her sad look when he pressed her on her engagement. The quiet desperation in her eyes when he’d asked her if giving up her job and charity work was worth marriage to a king. Her attraction to him.

A mad excitement, anticipation, hope, rushed through him all at once, as if floodgates had been abruptly flung open in his brain. Birds grew loud outside and baboons screeched. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the sky growing lighter. But he was riveted to the floor by this news, unable to move.

“I know that doesn’t excuse what happened here,” she said quietly, “but I wanted you to know because—” Her voice hitched and moisture pooled in her dark eyes. “I care that you think well of me, Brandt.”

“Do you want to marry him?” Blunt. Simple. Top question on his mind.

“I must.”

“Must?”

“It’s a binding contract. Two kings, two kingdoms. A political accord. Everyone expects it. My brother, King Zakir, needs it. His ruling King’s Council needs it. It will bring a lucrative oil partnership, defense contracts, an economic alliance—”

“And you’re the pawn on the chessboard? The chattel to be exchanged. Whatever happened to women’s emancipation?”

Her mouth tightened, eyes narrowing, a flicker of defiance shooting through her features. “Haroun is as much ‘chattel’ as I, if that’s what you want to call it—this is not a female thing. He has to uphold his end, too.”

“And you’re going to do it, uphold this contract?” He waved his hand between them.

“It’s my duty to uphold it, Brandt. It’s been my obligation as a royal since I was five years old. I’ve grown up with the knowledge. I’ve accepted I was born a royal, and with that comes obligations other people don’t have.” She hesitated, holding his gaze. “Or sometimes can’t understand.”

He spun around, dragged both hands over his hair, then ricocheted back to face her.

“Jesus, Dalilah, how can you marry a guy you don’t even know, let alone love? Do feel anything for him? Like...”

“Like I feel for you?”

He went dead still. Swallowed. Throat dry, muscles shaking. She’d said it. Out loud. She felt for him. And he’d told her what she was doing to him. What was patently obvious to both had now been made vocal, and that admission cracked Brandt’s world open like the shell of an egg, and he didn’t know what to do with the mess spilling out.

Rays of light bled into sky, savage slashes of pink, orange, yellow. Amal would be on the move and a voice in the back of Brandt’s mind was saying, Hurry, hurry. Move—now! Yet a different voice was urging him to deal with the moment properly, not to let something—someone—so precious slip through his fingers forever.

“No, Brandt,” she said softly. “I don’t feel anything for Haroun other than civility. He’s is a nice-looking, smart man, and he seems kind, and—” She looked as if she was going to cry suddenly, then steeled, her chin rising in defiance. And in that brief second Brandt could see the two women inside Dalilah doing battle. One the exotic, determined, flamboyant powerhouse, a proud princess committed to her country and diplomatic function. The other a gorgeous, vulnerable and compassionate woman who needed love in her life.

Dalilah Al Arif had one stiletto planted in an ancient desert world, the other firmly in a new one.

Her cheeks heated and she cursed suddenly, softly, in Arabic. “I wish you’d put some more clothes on.”

Brandt jolted back, grabbed his shirt. “You’re sacrificing your freedom, that’s what you’re doing,” he said coolly as he pulled on his shirt and cinched his belt buckle. “You’re giving up everything you are, who you’ve fought to become, for your kingdom, for your brothers?”

Anger was creeping into his voice now, and he couldn’t help it. “You can’t do this, Dalilah.” He rammed the GPS back into his belt, grabbed his sheathed knife.

“Why not?”

“It makes you unhappy. You don’t have to be a shrink to see that.” He waved his hand at the crumpled sleeping bag. “Your kiss, your body, your eyes, everything tells me you want more than a cold marriage, that you don’t want to give up the niche you’ve carved for yourself in the world. You just told me that your whole life you’ve been fighting to get out from under your brothers’ shadows. Now this?”

“You’re just saying this because you want to sleep with me.”

He reeled, then looked carefully into her features. She was testing, pushing him, he could see that. Maybe to test her own resolve, hell knew.

“No,” he said quietly. “I have no right to even try to fight for a woman like you, Dalilah. I could never win, anyway. Besides—” his gaze went to her ring “—if I slept with you, it could get you killed. Trust me—I know.”

He resheathed his panga, grabbed his gun. He slung the rifle across his chest and pulled the camera out of the pack.

“I need to go see if there’s any sign of Amal. It’s getting late.” His tone was brusque. But as he was about to step over the coals, he paused as something hit him like a mallet—she’d been engaged all her adult life.

I’ve never even kissed him...

He spun round. “Dalilah, have you ever dated anyone else?”

Her face flushed. She got slowly to her feet. “No,” she said. “The contract stipulates I come to the marriage...pure.”

Something akin to violent protectiveness surged through his chest. Brandt felt his neck go wire taut.

“You’re a virgin,” he said very softly.

She swallowed, the color in her cheeks going high.

His jaw dropped. Princess Dalilah Al Arif, foreign-investment consultant, global activist, one of the most stunning women he’d ever met in his life...

“You’ve never been with a man? Never even kissed anyone?”

Her eyes began to water.

He stared at her, his brain spinning like a top. He’d kissed her, caressed her—this woman who’d been a mere girl when her father had signed a document stipulating she go to another man’s bed untouched. To live in a gilded cage of a castle, fenced behind tradition and diplomatic protocol.

And suddenly it sliced him—a hot, vehement rage. This was not supposed to be his business, but by hell it now was. He’d crossed a line. His actions alone in that sleeping bag could cost her life if anyone ever found out. And on the back of the rage rode a raw and basic urge to protect her—from herself, from a future decided by someone else. From her brothers and her own kingdom.

Yet here he was being paid to deliver her to that very fate.

His hands started to shake.

“Dalilah,” he said, his voice coming out low, dark, dangerous. “Tell me one thing, and tell me honestly. Do you want to do this? Is it your choice?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s my choice to uphold my duty.”

Brandt spun around and hurdled out the window. He stalked over the veldt toward the cliff edge, conflict torquing inside him. Thrown into the bloody mess was guilt, for touching her like that, for kissing her.

A virgin.

Bloody hell.

Way to go, Stryker, you imbecile.

At the cliff edge, he climbed a rock and put the camera to his eye. Zooming in, he panned the landscape. Already sunlight was rippling gold over the grasses. Carefully, he studied the distant line of trees fringing the Tsholo, then he moved the camera to the north.

He stilled. A fine line of rising dust was catching the first full rays of sun. He zoomed in as close as he could. He could make out what looked like two jeeps, four horses, moving south. And fast.

Adrenaline slammed through his body. He leaped down from his rock and ran back to the building.

“Dalilah!” he called as he neared. “They’re coming! Get the stuff together!”

He reached the door, began kicking out the coals, throwing sand over the remains of the fire.

She was on her knees struggling to roll up the sleeping bag with one hand. He grabbed it from her.

“They’re over the river,” he said, breathing hard as he rolled the bag. He stuffed the rest of their gear into the pack. “Give me your feet.”

Quickly he trussed up her laces, then he tied the sleeping-bag roll to the pack. “They’re heading south, cutting back along the river. When they hit our camp, they’ll track back to our jeep. Once they find that, they’ll come fast toward the cliff following our prints. Looks like they have two vehicles and horses.”

He hefted the pack onto his shoulders.

“Our only consolation is that when they do hit the cliff wall they’ll be forced to drive about forty kilometers farther north through some tricky terrain if they want to get up on the plateau. If we move away directly perpendicular to the rift, they won’t cut across our tracks, which means they’ll have to drive that forty kilometers all the way back to this point before they find our sign again.”

He started out the door.

“Brandt.”

He stopped, met her gaze.

“I’m scared.”

He hesitated. “I know.” He grasped her hand. “Come, I’ve got you.” He paused. “And know this, I will die before I let anyone touch a hair on your head.”

Her eyes filled with tears “Brandt—I could love you.”

Emotion sucker punched him so hard his eyes pricked with tears. He swallowed, controlling himself. He wanted to say so much, and couldn’t. “We need to go,” he whispered. “You ready?”

She nodded.

They left the small customs building at a fast trot, fueled by the knowledge Amal was right on their tracks. The sun burst suddenly over the plateau—fierce and fiery orange—rays of heat instant. The air was dry.

It was going to be a killer day.