Heir to a Desert Legacy

chapter THREE



IF THE PLANE WAS LIKE another world, the Attari palace was something beyond that. On the outskirts of a city that was a collision between the old world and the new, was the seat of the royal family’s power. Gleaming stone, jade, jasper and obsidian, inlaid in intricate patterns over the walls and floors, the edges gilded, catching fire in the dry, harsh sun that painted the air with waves of heat.

The only green was in the palace gardens, the lush plants an extravagant example of wealth. A surplus of water in a dry place. The fountains spoke of the same excess, statues carved of young women, endlessly pouring water into the pools below.

The palace itself was shielded from the heat, the thick stone walls providing cover and insulation.

Her entire apartment could fit in the entryway of the palace, pillars wrapped in gold supporting ceilings inlaid with precious stones.

For the fist time, Chloe was ashamed that she’d asked her sister into her apartment. Tamara had never said anything about the shabby little one bedroom, but...but this was what her sister had been accustomed to. And Chloe hadn’t had a clue. She’d known her sister had lived in a palace, but her mind, so dedicated to number and fact, could never have imagined it was this grand.

The suite of rooms they were installed in had been set up for Aden and the nanny. Her room was expansive, a high ceiling with a star pattern arching over the opulent bed, white pillars, carved with scenes of camels wandering the desert, stationed throughout as support.

Chloe wandered in, placing her hand over one of the camels. Amber, she realized, set into a golden background, representing the Attari sand. One pillar would easily pay for a year of her college tuition, a sobering realization indeed.

She followed the flow of the room into Aden’s, which was connected to hers. The bed that had been prepared for him the focal point of the room. Blue with swaths of fabric draped from the ceiling that covered the little crib, making it look like a throne fit for a very tiny prince.

Which he was really.

“An improvement, isn’t it?” She placed him gently into the bed, her fingertips lingering on his round belly.

The sight of him, so small, in the plush bed made her throat tighten. This room had been prepared by Tamara. Prepared for a son she had never gotten the chance to hold. Hadn’t even been able to carry in her womb.

Chloe had done that, and she had hated it. Had been miserable through the whole pregnancy while her sister, who would never even know her child, had longed to carry the baby and hadn’t been able to.

Tears stung her eyes. She wanted to rail at the world. At the injustice of it. Nothing made sense in the world. Nothing. There was no reason. And she, she most especially, seemed to have no way of controlling it. She’d tried. She’d planned. And everything had fallen apart.

Anguish threatened to overwhelm her, to wrap bony fingers around her throat and squeeze her tight, cutting off her air.

“Is everything to your liking?”

She turned and saw Sayid standing in the opening to Aden’s room, his shoulders military straight, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression hard. In that moment, she envied him. He saw things clearly, in black and white. There was no confusion for him. No anger. No grief. He was simply doing what had to be done, and for him, that seemed to be enough.

Nothing she did felt like enough. Nothing felt right.

Not even this, and it was the only thing she could think to do.

“It’s beautiful, but I imagine you know that.”

His shoulders broke rank long enough to shrug. “The palace is done in the traditional Attari style. It is not so unusual here.”

“Ah yes, well, I can see how a castle made of semiprecious stones would get tiresome after a while,” she said drily.

“I find most anything preferable to an enemy prison, in that regard the palace does nicely. It is nicer to look at than a prison cell at the very least.”

“Is that all that makes it better?” she asked, laughing, a nervous shaky sound.

“In some ways,” he said slowly, “it is shockingly similar to prison.” His statement begged a question but he pressed on too quickly. “Your schooling has been worked out. The classes will be broadcasted onto a website you can log in to. That way you can view the lectures in addition to having your reading material on hand.”

“Labs? I mainly work in the realm of the theoretical, which means more mathematics than actual physical experiments, but there is some lab work to be done.”

“It will likely have to be deferred, but that’s fine, as well. You’re a well-liked student.”

“Most everyone at this level is. If you’re pursuing physics this far, it’s a passion.”

“And you are...passionate about it?”

The way he said “passionate” made her stomach curl in slightly, and she wasn’t sure why. “Yes.”

“What about it do you find so fascinating?”

She looked down at Aden. “I like to know why. The why of everything.” She looked back at Sayid. “Though, I’ve discovered there are things in life that simply aren’t explainable. I know about the building blocks of life, but I haven’t exactly figured out how to make everything make sense yet.”

“Not everything can be explained,” he said.

“But it’s my great quest to see if it can be.”

He shook his head. “I can tell you right now, there is too much in this world that does not make sense and never will. Greed makes men do terrible things, desire for power. The desire for control.”

“Survival of the fittest,” she said.

“Sure. But I’ve seen it. I’ve seen what people are willing to do. It does not make sense, trust me.”

She did. His voice rang with a depth of understanding that echoed inside of her. Images of violence flashed behind her eyes.

Sometimes there really was no reason.

“To the best of my ability,” she said, trying to shake off the memories, “I try to make sense of it all. To find the absolutes, the things that can’t be argued or denied. Theoretically, it should make my life feel more ordered. More in control.”

“How is that working out?”

“Like hell, actually.”

He nodded slowly. “Yes, that has been my experience, as well. In particular, in regards to recent events.”

“Common ground,” she said. “Unexpected.”

“Perhaps not quite so unexpected,” he said. “I see things in much the same way you do. Black or white. Yes or no.”

She looked at Aden, love, pain, filling her. “I used to see things that way. More than I do now.”

Sayid looked away from her, his dark eyes scanning the room. The moment of connection was broken. “There will be two other nannies in my employ while you are here. One to work in the night, the other to help handle him while you study.”

“And I’m the...wet nurse. Part of the prince’s team?”

He looked back at her and for a moment, she thought she saw a teasing light in his eyes. “A prince needs a team. Calling you another nanny would do, though, no need to be dramatic. Or medieval.”

She looked back down at Aden and the enormity of what he would face filled her, overwhelmed her. It was unfair, she knew, because even if his parents had lived, his future would be the same. He was, as Sayid had pointed out, born to rule.

But right then it didn’t seem fair. Didn’t seem fair that the expectations of a nation should rest on the shoulders of this tiny baby.

“Why can’t you just do it?” she whispered. “You were going to rule. Can’t you take it from him?”

She chanced a glance at him. His eyes were trained on the wall, distance. Dark. “I would do what had to be done, but I am not the man to lead this country.”

“But you’re doing it until Aden is old enough to—”

“I will do what must be done.”

“Nothing more?” she asked, not bothering to keep the bitterness from her tone.

He looked at her then, and she studied the hard lines of his face, the light that filtered through the windows deepening the grooves by his mouth, making the line between his brows appear deeper. It revealed his cares, his pain, the marks, the age, the world had left on him.

“Attar needs hope. A future filled with endless possibilities. With me, they will not get that. Death follows me, Chloe James. I will not bring that on my people, but on their enemies.”

He turned and walked back out of the room, and Chloe just watched, tension releasing from her slowly with each step he took away from her, until she was left feeling like wrung-out jelly. She hadn’t been conscious of just how tense she’d been until it had started to ease.

She let out a breath and clenched her hands into fists, trying to stop her fingers from shaking. His words echoed in her head, so dark, so certain.

She shook her head, focusing her mind back on Aden. There was too much going on for her to adopt Sayid’s issues, as well. And anyway, she imagined he would say he didn’t have any. She wandered back into her room, sitting down at the laptop that had already been set up at a corner desk for her. She could at least do some course work, study for her tests. She pushed the on button and waited for it to boot up, scanning the room, the view of the gardens from the double doors.

Today, everything had changed. Again.

* * *

“Sheikh Sayid,” Sayid’s advisor, Malik, walked into the dining room, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him. It was not the person he’d been expecting. He’d been expecting Chloe, spitting hellfire and brimstone about him taking over her schedule and demanding she have dinner with him. He was not so lucky. “We need to discuss the matter of the press conference that is planned for tomorrow.”

“What is there to discuss?” Sayid asked, annoyance coursing through him. He didn’t want to talk about the press conference. Didn’t want to do anything but eat dinner and treat himself to a punishing workout. Something that would numb him and leave him utterly exhausted. After a day locked inside of an office, trapped behind a desk, he felt it was deserved. Necessary.

It was like prison. Even if it was a more comfortable cell. It was also too opulent, too busy. He longed for the simplicity of a desert tent, or at the very least, the whitewashed walls of the seaside palace he had spent time in as a child.

His aide kept on avoiding his eyes. “You know that the people are...they are restless.”

“They do not like me,” Sayid said. “That is the crux of the issue.”

“You are not...personable.”

Sayid laughed, the sound void of humor, his body void of humor. “Am I not?”

“It has been said, Sheikh.”

“Not by you, certainly,” he said, eyeing the man who had served Rashid so faithfully.

He did meet his eyes this time. “Certainly not.”

“It is of no consequence. I am not the permanent ruler of this country. Soon enough, my nephew shall take over and I will go back to my more palatable position outside of the public eye.”

“In sixteen years. That is a reality you cannot ignore.”

It was the truth. It wasn’t like submitting to physical torture. As a ruler he had to lay open pieces of himself, show personality. Be nice. At least when his hands were bound, when he was being whipped, burned, he could shut down the pain, allow it to rest on his skin like armor, recede inside of himself and simply endure. Survive.

But that was not what was required of a ruler. And he knew nothing else.

“Are you questioning my competence?” he asked.

“Not in the least, Sheikh.”

“Be sure you do not. You are dismissed.”

Malik nodded and turned away from him, walking out the door. Panic, momentary but intense, shivered over Sayid’s skin. He would have to face a people who distrusted him tomorrow, would have to find words to speak to them. Words of comfort. Diplomacy.

It simply wasn’t what Sayid had been trained for. And trained was precisely the word that should be used. From the time he’d gone into Kalid’s care, he’d been conditioned to see life in a certain way.

And at sixteen, it had been cemented. He had been broken, remade. A man who could, physically, endure all.

But he was no diplomat, no compassionate ruler.

All of the civility, the grace and manners, had been bred into Rashid. Sayid had gotten none of it. Sayid was a weapon, a living, breathing weapon. It was all he knew. It was all he’d ever done.

Control was necessary. A drop in control could lead to unspeakable horror. A girl forced into marriage, her child torn from her body against her will. Soldiers captured and killed. Tortured.

His weakness had caused those unspeakable horrors. Cracks in his armor leading others to ruin.

Leading, ruling, would require him to deal with people. Not simply enemies and soldiers. It would require the kind of openness, caring that would create a breach he couldn’t afford. One he could already feel deep within his soul. A soul he had not been aware of until recently.

“I don’t appreciate you...scheduling my evening without talking to me.”

Later than expected, Chloe walked in, her curves encased in a simple black dress. There was nothing particularly sexy about the dress. Nothing modern or interesting in the cut. But the way it flowed over her curves, molded to her breasts, made it spectacular.

She looked very much like a woman who had only just given birth, her figure plumped, exaggerated, and yet he found he liked the look.

“I would apologize, but I’m not at all sorry. Have a seat.” Breathing felt easier than it had a moment ago. He could only attribute it to Malik’s exit.

She walked in slowly, blue eyes narrowed, glittering. “If you wanted to have dinner with me, all you had to do was tell me earlier.”

“I don’t want to have dinner with you, I need to discuss something with you,” he said. “I thought it might be convenient to do it over dinner.”

She blinked. “Oh. Well.” She sat in a chair farther down the table and across from his.

“Come closer.”

She scooted one chair over.

“Across from me,” he said.

She rolled her eyes and stood, making her way down the table and taking the seat opposite him. “What exactly do we need to discuss?”

“We need to make sure there is paperwork that backs up our story. I would like to put you on payroll.”

“I don’t want money from you.”

“Because you already got money?” He didn’t bother to soften the words.

“I...that’s...”

“Don’t pretend you don’t need it, you do. You admitted it was part of the reason you agreed to carry Aden in the first place.”

“Yes. But I wanted to come here to care for him. I need to. I’m not going to accept money for...”

“While you are here, you can obviously have no other form of employment. In my mind that means you should be paid for your services.”

She recoiled slightly, blue eyes wide. He didn’t understand the woman. She had never once claimed she felt like she was Aden’s mother, and it stood to reason, as she was not. Yet she seemed unable to part with him, and now unable to accept compensation for caring for him.

“I am going to set up an account in your name and I will deposit money into it as I see fit, no matter whether you agree to this or not.” He needed her to take the money. Needed to put her in a neat, easily understood position, not simply for appearances, but for himself.

“Are you always like this?”

“Always. It is one of my more effective personality traits.”

“It’s one of your more impossible personality traits. Actually, I’ve only glimpsed this one personality trait in you. Do you have any more?”

“Not that I’m aware of. I get the job done, Chloe, that’s who I am. I make sure everything works. That my people, my family, are safe and provided for. It’s why you are here, for Aden’s well-being.”

“Fine. Set up an account.”

“You aren’t planning on taking anything out of it, are you?”

“I despise men like you,” she said, her voice a low hiss. “You think you can just...control me. Take absolute.... You just think that you can buy someone. That you can own a woman simply because you have power and status and bigger muscles. It’s not impressive. I see you exactly for what you are.” She stood up, her frame trembling. He had no idea what had set her off, but he had a feeling it went deeper than a simple dinner invitation and a demand she take his money.

“A man making an attempt at protecting his family legacy?”

“A man who needs to...demonstrate his testosterone by posturing like an...animal,” she spat.

Anger spiked through him, unreasonable, completely unusual. He should simply let her words slide off. But for some reason, they stuck into him like barbs, tore at his pride. Perhaps it was because he knew how wrong she was. That to be an animal, he would have to act with gut emotion. Intuition borne of feeling. And he possessed neither. The realization made him frighteningly, acutely aware of the void in him. The pit that seemed as though it could never be filled.

He felt poised on the brink of it. As if the tendrils of darkness reaching up for him might wrap themselves around him. Might drag him down into the abyss.

He stood, pushing his chair backward. “An animal? Is that what you think I am?”

“You’ve dragged me back to your lair.”

“I brought you here,” he growled, circling the long table slowly, his fingertips brushing the top of each chair he passed, “at your request.”

All of the emotion, the intensity from the past few weeks, threatened to overwhelm Chloe. She was past the point of reason now. She was nothing more than a burning ball of kinetic energy, the forward motion unstoppable. She’d held it in for too long, let it build as she sat in her apartment, numbed by shock.

But the shock was gone now, and the trajectory of her emotions set. “Because I couldn’t just let you take him!”

“I was hardly going to tear him from your arms.” But he would have. They both knew it.

“But you were going to take him. As soon as possible.”

“It’s what needed to be done. It has nothing to do with you. None of this has anything to do with you,” he said, his voice hard, simmering with barely contained anger. “You were the vessel. Nothing more.”

She’d only ever felt the desire to hurt one other human being physically. Had only ever had to fight the urge to stop herself from attacking one other man. She’d never followed through on the feral, savage desire to hurt her father because she’d seen exactly what he could do with his fists. Had seen that he wouldn’t hesitate to hit a woman. Not just once, but until she could no longer get back up.

But she didn’t care about the consequences now. She wanted to hit Sayid, with everything in her. Inflict pain on him for hurting her with his words. For telling the truth.

For saying that Aden was nothing more than her nephew, even though she’d carried him in her body. Given birth to him. In the big picture, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t hers and she had no claim on him. But spoken from that arrogant mouth, with such harshness, it was more than she could stand. The truth of it so raw and evident, so unwanted.

She stepped toward him without thinking, just as he rounded to her side of the table, her fist pulled back. He caught her arm, stopping her, tugging her up against him.

“You think you could hurt me?” he asked, his hand fitted securely around her arm without causing her any pain. His strength was so great, he didn’t seem to be exuding any force. It only made her angrier. And now that the dam had burst on her control, she couldn’t stop it all from pouring out.

“I might have been able to break your nose. It doesn’t matter how much muscle you have, that’s still a susceptible spot.”

“If you think a broken nose would hurt me...you have a limited understanding of what I am capable of. Of what I have endured.”

He lowered his head, dark eyes boring into hers. Heat bloomed in her stomach, her muscles quivering. He smelled like sandalwood, and clean skin, and there was no reason for her to notice something like that. No reason at all.

It wasn’t the smell she usually associated with men. Her father was alcohol, sweat and tobacco. Occasionally, blood.

And as an adult, the only time she’d gotten close enough to a man to smell him was if they were sharing a microscope. And then he usually smelled like chemicals.

“If I release you, will you promise to put your claws back in?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Only if you watch what you say.”

“Then we’re at an impasse because I don’t have to watch what I say.”

“You’re right,” she said. “You do suck at diplomacy.”

“I never claimed otherwise,” he said, his tone rough.

“I don’t have to like what you say. And I don’t. Not at all.”

“I’m not trying to hurt you,” he said, his voice low. “But I am telling you the truth. I’m not going to wrap the situation up as something else and try to make it more palatable. It is an ugly situation. Nothing about it is simple.” He released his hold on her and stepped back. “But we will survive it. As will Aden. If we do it right, he will thrive. This is about him. Not about us.”

Her heart was thundering in her temples, her head spinning. She put her hand over the place where his fingers had been. Her skin was hot, not to the touch, but beneath the flesh. Inside of her. She’d never felt anything like it before. Didn’t understand how it was possible.

“On that we can agree,” she said, aware, painfully, that she sounded breathless. That she was breathless.

“Then perhaps we can put a halt on the dramatics?”

“When you put a halt to your douche-baggery.”

Dark brows locked together. “What is this word?”

“It means you’re being a jerk. But more than a jerk even,” she said. “Worse.”

“No one talks to me like this,” he said, his tone firm, not imperious. He was simply stating a fact, and she wasn’t all that surprised by it. She didn’t know why she felt empowered to speak to him like that. Maybe it wasn’t empowerment so much as a need to push him away. Anger was safer than the pull she felt toward him. Much safer.

“No one who has any idea of how to act in polite company talks to people the way you do,” she said.

“I spend a lot of time outside of polite company.”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Clearly.”

“Our discussion is through.”

“What about dinner?”

“Suddenly, I am thinking I might take it in my room. Or an enemy prison. Either is preferable.”

“You... You...”

“I will set up an account in your name. You will be paid a generous salary. I will be meeting with the press tomorrow.” A sudden rigidity came over him, his body tensing, his jaw tightening. “Aden will not be brought outside, but he will be in the smaller meeting room with the members of the media who possess special passes. You will hold him for the duration of the interview, but you will not speak.”

“I will not speak?” she repeated, incredulous.

“No one will be asking questions about string theory which means it will not be necessary for you to do so. Now, you are dismissed.”

“I am dismissed?”

“You keep repeating me. It wastes time.”

“I’m...I can’t believe you’re...dismissing me.”

“You didn’t want to come and eat with me in the first place and now you’re complaining that you don’t have to?”

“Unbelievable.”

“I concur.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Not on the same thing, I don’t think.”

“Very likely not.”

“Do I at least get dinner in my room?”

The look he gave her was almost comical in its seriousness. “No. It’s bread and water for you, or nothing. Same as the rest of my staff. Didn’t you know we’re barbarians out here in the desert?”

“Be serious.”

“I am. Be careful or you might wake up to find yourself leg-shackled to my bed.”

It was as if a conduit had powered up between them, sparking to life and sending heat and energy on an invisible path between them. It held her in its thrall, forcing her to look into his eyes, dark, fathomless and magnetic. Completely and utterly compelling. And then it was as though the electricity had found a way beneath her skin, traveling along her veins, wrapping itself around each fiber in her body.

She couldn’t look away, even though she wanted to—needed to.

And then the image he’d evoked suddenly hit her, clear as day. Her, tied to the bed, with his large, muscular body looking over her. Absolute strength. Absolute power. With her completely helpless, at the mercy of a man who possessed no tenderness.

A surge of fear overrode the strange electricity in her blood, snapped her out of her trance.

“You are...despicable,” she spat.

“Perhaps I am,” he said, dark eyes unchanging, unflinching. “I have been called a great many things, it’s not inconceivable that some of them are true. It’s very likely most of them are.”

“It doesn’t bother you?”

“Why should I care what anyone thinks? I was created to get results, no matter the consequence. I was not designed to win public favor, but to keep my people safe. By any means necessary. The grit to do that does not come from a beautiful place. Damn my image. It is worth nothing.”

“But you...you’re the leader now. Your job isn’t the same as it was.”

Black eyes turned to ice. “I am only the stop gap. I’m only here until Aden can step into his position. Not a moment longer.”

“And what about Aden? You’ll be his closest family. Will you...will you at least try to be decent for his sake?”

A shadow passed over Sayid’s face, his expression horribly flat now. Dead. “The best thing for Aden would be if I stayed well away from him. And that is what I plan to do.”