The Last Prince of Dahaar

CHAPTER TWELVE


AYAAN WALKED INTO the suite assigned to him in the Siyaadi palace and stared at Zohra’s sleeping form in his bed. Familiar desire and something else—a fierce longing—wound through him at the sight of her.

He should have known he would find her here waiting for him, refusing to let him avoid her, refusing to let him hide.

But then, he still couldn’t get used to the fact that she shared her body, her mind, her life with him willingly.


Restlessness that was becoming second skin scoured through him. He paced the perimeter of the bed, his gaze constantly straying toward her.

He had been fighting the cloud of awareness that had been coming at him for the week he had spent here in Siyaad. But this time, he was not enough to stop it, he could not hide from what he became, what he was changing into because of Zohra.

Because of the woman who deserved the best any man could give.

He had understood, been fascinated by, Zohra’s strength from the moment she had stormed into his suite and stood by him through his nightmare. But this past week she had become something truly magnificent, she had become a princess. And she hadn’t needed anything from him.

She had been a lioness when defending her brother and sister from the manipulative clutches of her extended family, a clever, quick study in her understanding of the immediate state affairs that needed to be organized, a formidable opponent to anyone who had dared question her role in King Salim’s affairs.

She had been a sight to behold when she had addressed the nation of Siyaad after her father’s funeral.

Ayaan had finally understood why King Salim had pushed for this marriage. He had thought marriage to the crown prince of Dahaar would achieve for Zohra her rightful place in the world, remove the stigma of her birth.

And yet, in just a week, Zohra had proved how wrong her father had been. She had needed neither the weight of the Dahaaran crown behind her nor Ayaan’s support—either as her husband, or even as a man who could validate her place in Siyaad, in the way their archaic culture dictated.

But the primitive instinct in him that had somehow been nurtured by his madness of five years had risen to the forefront again. Why else would he feel things an educated man, a man supposed to lead his nation on a path of progress should be ashamed to even think?

Her strength in the week following her father’s death, her confidence in taking on any number of challenges without quaking, the conviction of her own beliefs—Ayaan had been alternately amazed and weighed down by it, the worst of his fears crystallizing into undeniable truth.

Resentment was an acrid taste in his mouth, followed by utter shame at the level he could sink to.

He was a worse man than he had ever thought that he had indulged, even if for a few seconds, the idea of Zohra being a weak woman, of Zohra needing his help, of Zohra leaning on him for strength.

Even growing up with archaic customs that elevated a man while downplaying a woman’s role, he still had never looked down on a woman. How could he when he had grown up surrounded by his mother’s quiet strength, Amira’s cutting wit and incredible confidence?

And yet Zohra’s strength had only brought out his inadequacy, the bone-deep chill that said she deserved so much more than he gave her.

After knowing the resentment and sheer indifference Zohra had faced for so long, after hearing the echo of that pain still reverberating in her words, this conflicting whiplash of his own emotions, the wave of his intense desire and the crest of his self-condemnations, this was what he had to give her?

Caught up in his own personal pain, he had retreated from her, instead of standing by her. Of course, he had been by her side for all the public ceremonies and state functions. But he had not once inquired after her as a husband, had not offered a moment’s comfort as a lover, had not even extended the minimum courtesy of meeting her eyes.

Because he had been terrified that she would see the truth in his eyes.

And still she came to his bed, she still sought him out, she still wanted to share his nightmares.

She would forever try to save him while he would damn her.

Even that realization was not enough to keep him from her. The greed inside him to be near her, to touch her, to feel her hunger for him, had no bounds or rules.

Pulling the long tunic he wore over his head, he climbed onto the bed. He turned on the bedside lamp, and lay on his side, content to watch her. He pushed strands of her silky hair back from her face.

Leaning on his elbow, he rubbed the pads of his thumb over her mouth, the familiar ache in him building with the velocity of an approaching storm. He sucked in a deep breath.

He had accepted long ago that it was always going to be like this with her. Nothing had changed. The pleasure he found with her was intense, binding him to her. He rode the wave at night, until nothing but self-loathing remained during the cold light of the day.

This fierce princess had become his salvation and his purgatory.

* * *

Zohra came awake the instant she felt Ayaan’s hard body thrashing next to her. Sleep melted away as his soft whimper traveled over her skin. She turned the bedside lamp on just as his arm shot out. She held it hard between her hands, the chill of his skin a shock to her. Hot tears rose to her eyes. Turning to face him, she held his shoulders, the drumbeat of her heart thudding in her ears.

Sweat beaded on his forehead, the tendons in his neck stretched out tight.

Just as she had done that night so many weeks ago, she whispered to him, ran her hand over his forehead and tried to calm him. She had no idea how much time had passed before the tremors that racked through him stilled, the shadows of pain on his face retreated. She brought his palm to her cheek, forcing back her tears. She kissed every ridge and mound on his palm, breathing his name into it, feeling every inch of his pain as if it was her own.

His gaze fell open and landed on her.

And she braced herself for his wrath. He looked at her, his expression inscrutable, his mouth a straight line that gave no hint of what he was thinking.

But he didn’t speak. Instead he pulled her down to him, his breathing still uneven from the physical energy he spent during the nightmare. When he pulled her into the embrace of his body, Zohra melted into it, joy bursting out from her heart. It was more than enough for her that he understood that she wanted to be here, that he didn’t question her right.

She tucked herself in as close as she could get to him. His arm was a heavy weight over her waist, their breaths slowly finding a matching rhythm. Her bones felt like they were molten, a strange mixture of lethargy and well-being turning her blood sluggish.

His hand moved over her arm, over the indent at her waist, up and down, again and again. His face was buried in her hair, his breath fanned over her nape. Just the fact that he was holding on to her, drawing comfort and strength from her presence filled her with an incredible, quiet joy. It was an intimacy that tugged at the deepest part of her, that burrowed itself into her skin.

She needed no words from him, she wanted no declaration of love. She only wanted to be by his side for the rest of their lives, to be there whether or not he needed her, to learn from him what honor and duty truly meant, to help her brother become an honorable, strong man like him.

She pulled the hand that rested under her torso and buried her face in it, tried to choke back the tears that somehow had gained a foothold in her tonight.

She had no idea how long they stayed like that and she didn’t care. His breathing evened out, his touch offering comfort to her. She was scared to even breathe for the fear of fracturing the moment, for the fear of reality intruding on it.

Until suddenly his touch changed, his breathing raced.

His palm still moved over her bare arm, over the dip of her waist covered by her silk pajamas. But now his fingers pressed into her, demanded her skin react to his touch, remember every line and ridge of his palm. His other hand became seeking as it stole under her arm. The moment his long fingers covered her breast, Zohra moaned and shamelessly arched into it.

She had no idea how he disposed of her pajamas, or when he pulled her top over her head. Except suddenly, his body was a furnace of desire behind her. His chest rasped against her back, his erection a delicious, heavy weight against her buttocks. His leg covered hers, moved over hers creating a delicious friction that she wanted to feel everywhere.

His fingers pulled at her nipple, and she sank deeper into the mindless pleasure he incited. His erection lengthened and hardened against her. The image of the rigid length tucked against her bottom sent sparks of pleasure exploding over her skin. As sweat beaded her forehead, a relentless ache built in her groin and she moaned.

“Zohra?”

A whisper, a question, a command—her name on his lips reverberated around her.

Did he doubt her compliance? Did he not realize yet that her mind, her body, her soul—they were all his to command?

“Ayaan,” she replied simply, knowing that he would understand.

Languorous heat uncurled inside her at the friction of his palm over her inner thighs.

The other hand continued playing havoc with her nipple, pulling, tugging, bursts of sensation arrowed down straight to her sex.

She moved restlessly, needing his touch at her core, her skin too frayed to contain her. He instantly understood. His fingers delved through her curls, opened her for his touch and stroked the quivering bundle of nerves. And then he thrust two fingers inside her.

Her release was so close that Zohra closed her eyes, clasped his wrist tight as if afraid he would stop. He kissed her temple as though understanding her need, whispered scandalous words that drove her another inch closer. Her entire body was poised over the edge, desperate to soar, when he rubbed his thumb over her *oris.

Again and again, with a sure rhythm that toppled her over the edge. Her orgasm exploded inside her, turning her body into a million sparkling lights.


Her muscles were still quaking with the force of her release, her lungs struggling to catch a breath when he said, “Lift your leg, Princess.”

His tone was nothing but raw command. Not that Zohra wouldn’t have done anything he asked of her. She lifted her leg and he entered her.

This time, there was nothing but carnal intent, nothing but desperate desire in the way he thrust inside her.

The force of his passion, the wild abandon with which he took her, did not scare her. She followed where he went, trusted him with her body, splintered again when he wrenched another orgasm from her oversensitized body but underneath his desperate caresses, underneath his uncontrollable hunger, Zohra could sense a black cloud building.

His body convulsed behind her, his climax going on and on but even his hard kiss on her mouth couldn’t shake her fear that something was terribly wrong.

Her muscles were weightless, her skin clammy with sweat. She made no sound as he picked her up and walked to the attached bath. Something was coming, she knew it in her bones, something wrong. But this time, she had no courage to face it head-on, no energy to fight. So she stayed silent, let him wash her in the huge sunken tub.

When he tugged her to him in the tub, she went willingly. When he pulled her onto him until she was straddling him, she hid her face in his shoulder. When he kissed her softly, slowly, as though she was the most precious thing in the world, she melted. When he suckled at her breast in deep, long pulls, she thought she would burst out of her skin. When he ran his hands all over her body, masterful, exacting, inciting, she gave in to the pleasure riding her again. When he buried his face in her neck and thrust upward into her, she let the tears fall.

He didn’t ask her why there were tears and she didn’t tell him. She didn’t ask him what drove him tonight and he didn’t tell her.

His hunger for her was insatiable, his every touch, stroke and kiss increasingly desperate and less controlled. And Zohra’s need for him was no less powerful. Every caress, every sensuous assault of his mouth, of his fingers, she took everything with a relish and returned it back.

At some point, when she knew not, her mind simply shut down and Zohra sighed in bliss. She only wanted to feel right then. He carried her back to the bed. She thought he would find his own bed. But he didn’t leave her.

He pulled the quilt to cover them both, kissed her temple and Zohra gave into sleep.

* * *

This time when Zohra woke, she was instantly aware of the exquisite soreness between her thighs. Every muscle quaked, her blood ran sluggish in her veins. She looked toward the huge windows and realized dawn was almost there. At some point during the night, she had lost count of how many times she had woken up to Ayaan kissing her, stroking her, tasting her, loving her, as if he couldn’t talk himself off the ledge, as if his thirst for her knew no beginning, no end.

And every time, she had been right there with him, shocked at how much pleasure her body was capable of feeling, of how addictive and exhilarating it could be every single time.

Realizing that the bed was empty, she stood on shaking legs. Even tugging her thick hair back and binding it into a ponytail taxed her arms.

She slowly pulled on her pajamas and a silk robe, sensing his presence close.

She found him in the sitting area. His hands on his thighs, his upper body slanted forward, his very posture radiated tension.

For a few minutes, Zohra hung back by the sheer curtains that fluttered in the predawn breeze.

It had been two weeks since she had left him in the desert encampment for Siyaad, two weeks in which she had mourned her father’s death, helped Saira and Wasim deal with their own grief, and somehow also found the strength to step in front of her family and face them down. Even though Ayaan had arrived only a few days after her, and had been present at all the important events.

He had not, however, said even a word to her since his arrival.

Lost in her own grief, she hadn’t minded. His silent presence had been enough for her. She had borrowed strength from it, knowing that he would catch her if she fell, even if he didn’t put it in so many words.

She had been so grateful for his presence that she hadn’t realized when something began to fester between them, something she couldn’t identify even as she racked her brain. She could feel the connection they had found slipping from her fingers like sand, could feel him retreating but had no way to stop him.

So she had come to his bed, despite the fact that he had forbidden her to be near him at night. And just hours ago, she had been ecstatic that he had slept next to her, hadn’t asked her to leave.

But now, the same silence stretched taut around them, deepening the chasm between them, dragging him further and further away from her. She must have made a sound because he looked up. And sprang to his feet as if she were an explosive that could detonate any second.

Even in the meager light of the table lamp, she could see the dark color that rode those sharp cheekbones. “Zohra, you are...I...I lost all control.”

Heat pumped to her own cheeks now. She struggled to hide the questions that shot at her from all sides. “I am fine.” She shoved the fear that was clawing at her and smiled. “Everything you did, I wanted, Ayaan. Was I not vocal enough?”

His gaze burned brighter, hotter, the sharp angles of his face reflecting the tightly reined in emotion within him. “Ya Allah, I behaved like an animal. I...”

She covered the distance between them and practically fell into his arms. She couldn’t bear it if he became a stranger again. “I am definitely sore, though.”

His curse should have turned the air blue. His hands stayed on her shoulders, his entire body stilling in that way of his.

She kept her arms around his waist, and found comfort in the fact that he hadn’t pushed her away.

“I am sorry you didn’t get a chance to speak to him, Zohra,” he said, piercing the heavy silence, his embrace a safe haven of warmth.

The storm of regrets and grief she had kept at bay while shouldering her responsibilities for the first time in her life broke through at the tender concern in his words. He held her as she cried softly, for her, for her father and for her mother, for everything she had lost through sheer pigheadedness.

She met his gaze, and smiled through the tears. “He left me a sheaf of letters that told me everything I wanted to know.”

“Letters?”

She nodded. The truth had hurt, but it had also freed something inside her. “Letters from my mother to him, even after he had left us for Siyaad. With pictures of me. Letters she wrote him until the day she died.”

Ayaan frowned. “Are you saying she knew?”

Zohra nodded again, seeing the same confusion she had felt mirrored in his gaze. “She knew everything about him. She knew that there might come a day when he would have to leave her for Siyaad, to do his duty. And he did, just as they had known he would have to. He left us but they kept in touch. They argued, even in the letters. He asked to see me, and she refused, again and again. Said she didn’t want me to pay the price for the happiness she found with him, didn’t want me to be caught between them. I guess I was never supposed to know that he was alive. Except something happened that neither of them foresaw. She died. And....”

Her throat seized as Zohra realized once again what it must have cost her father to learn of her mother’s death and to bring her to Siyaad.

“I can’t believe King Salim could have been so selfish, so reckless,” Ayaan said, pulling her out of the pit of regrets.

Zohra frowned at the anger that simmered in his words. “I was angry when I read those letters, angry that neither of them told me the truth. Even after I was old enough to understand. But not anymore.

“They took a chance on love, Ayaan, they grabbed their happiness while they could, decided whatever short time they had was still worth it. Knowing that they had loved each other, knowing that my father had never deceived her, knowing that he loved me enough to bring me here—” Tears ran over her cheeks again. “—it fills me with joy. How can I hold the fact that they loved each other so much that they risked such unhappiness for the rest of their lives against them?”

Her body stilled as Zohra waited for his answer. Her heart pounded as his silence gave the answer his lips didn’t, and one she didn’t want to hear at that.

She ran her fingers over his jaw, over his cheekbones, traced the scar above his eye, as fear held a visceral grip inside her chest.

“You told me your mother never really smiled again after he was gone, that she wouldn’t even look at another man. That to the day she died, something in her was forever broken while he...he moved on with his life. Had a wife and started a family.”

Looking up at him, Zohra braced herself, knowing that the very ground that she was standing on was going to be pulled out from under her. “Weren’t you the one who understood the need to sacrifice your own child in the name of duty? My father did his duty but he also let himself love. He took a chance and found happiness even if it was for a limited time.”

“He damned the rest of her life in the name of love. He made you pay the price.”

“They both paid the price, Ayaan. It was a decision they made together.” She straightened herself, striving to fight the cold chill that was seeping into her. Every word felt like an effort. “You don’t agree with me?”


“No. But what I think does not matter, does it, Zohra? What matters is what you think.” His voice roughened in texture, as though he had to catch a breath to continue. His fingers caressed her face, desperate, fierce. “What matters is, apparently, you are exactly like your mother. You have the brightest spirit, the biggest heart I have ever seen.”

His words should have elevated her to a higher place, should have filled her with happiness, but they didn’t. The hard edge to his words only heightened her sense of something being very wrong.

“But I am not like King Salim. I will not damn you to a life filled with unhappiness.”

His words knocked the breath out of her, tilted the very axis of her life. And Zohra forced herself to ask the question that was quietly gouging a hole inside her. “What are you saying?”

Ayaan fisted his hands behind him.

She took another step in. “Answer my question.”

“You deserve a better man, Zohra. You need a man who will love you, who will cherish you, not use you at night and then expose you to his insecurities the next day.” It was the hardest words he had ever spoken. “I do nothing but take from you, I have nothing to give you.”

Her anger pulsed between them, just as sharp as the desire that suffused the very air around them. “Why do you not see what you have already given me? Honor, respect. You are my strength, Ayaan. I wasted thirteen years of a good life, lived it as if in a cloud, lived it with so much anger and hurt inside. I see you and I am ashamed of myself. I see your strength, your sense of duty, your honor, and I think this is what I want to be. You have not complained once at what you suffered. You push yourself every day to rise above yourself, physically and mentally.

“I do not care that you froze in a fight when you were barely a man. You have proven yourself to the world a thousand times over. Do these not count toward something?”

“It is not my strength or my lucidity that I doubt anymore, Zohra,” he said, once again struck aghast by how perceptive she was. He had pushed himself in so many ways with a raging need to prove his worth to himself. He had pushed himself to the breaking point, to the last frayed edge of his mental and physical strength.

And he had emerged the victor but the hollowness in his gut had not faded. In the face of Zohra’s strength, in the face of his own guilt and recriminations, they counted to nothing. “It is what I cannot give you, ya habibati.”

“You have no right to call me that.”

“The sounds you make when you come are still ringing inside my ears. I will call you whatever I please.”

She shook from head to toe, her fury a palpable thing. Her mouth curved into a sneer even as tears shone in her eyes. “Not if you break the vows you made to me, not if you banish me from your life. You will not touch me, you will not even utter my name on your lips, Ayaan. Are you ready for that?”

He could not bear to see her like this—hurting, breaking. “I do this for you, Zohra.”

“Don’t you dare tell yourself that. You do this for yourself, to satisfy the guilt beneath which you have decided to live. So what happens now?”

“You will stay in Siyaad for an indefinite time. Your family needs you, Siyaad needs you. No one will wonder at your absence in Dahaar. And when the right time comes, I will let it be known that we have separated, that it is I who is lacking as a husband.”

Her tears drew paths over her cheeks, bitter anger turning those beautiful brown eyes into molten rocks. “And the power to make that decision lies solely with you?”

“Something inside me is broken, Zohra. All I want to do is to lose myself in you, hear my name fall from your lips, again and again, but...” He gripped his nape, struggling to find the right words. “It will always be followed by this emptiness inside, by this self-loathing that I cannot fight. Before long, you will be stuck in that vicious cycle too and I will corrupt everything that is good and beautiful about you.”

Her arms around her waist, she swayed where she stood, the pain in her eyes shredding him. But he had to hold fast for her sake.

“You have conquered so many obstacles, overcome so much for so long to become the man you are today, to become the prince that Dahaar needs. Can you not fight this last demon, Ayaan, for the woman who loves you with every breath in her body, with every—”

Ayaan placed a finger across her lips, but not before her words blasted through him with the force of an explosion. His stomach tightened, his throat seized up. Time seemed to have frozen at that minute. Looking into her beautiful, giving eyes, he wondered how he could have been so blind.

The love and acceptance there knuckled him in the gut.

She pulled his hand off her mouth, her slender shoulders trembling. “Truth, remember? The truth doesn’t change because we don’t want to hear it. I am in love with you. And whatever you face, we will fight—”

“I cannot fight it, Zohra. It is stronger than me.”

She pummeled his chest, her slender shoulders shaking with the force of her anger. “It is not that you cannot fight it, Ayaan. It is that you don’t want to fight it.”

“You think I want to forever be a man haunted by his past—”

“Yes, you do.” Her words echoed around them, bounced off the walls, ringing with her belief. “You have judged yourself, found yourself guilty and you accepted this as your punishment. Not once in the time I have known you have you railed against it, not once have you resented it. You resent the fact that you cannot beat it but not the why of it. You cannot take a chance on us because God forbid you find happiness while your siblings are dead, right?

“And if you cannot see that, if you want to live the rest of your life stifled under that guilt, then you are right. You are not capable of loving me, nor do you deserve my love.”

Ayaan stood there, unmoving, unblinking as Zohra wiped her tears and left his suite, left his life. The same way as she had entered it—shifting the very foundation of everything he stood on.

She was in love with him.

That incredibly amazing, wonderfully strong woman loved him. Even with his heart splintering inside him, Ayaan felt the high of her words in a dizzying whirl.

Of everything she had said, he knew one thing was for sure.

He was already in love with Zohra.

He was not surprised by the realization, or shocked. He simply, irrevocably, undeniably was. Maybe if he hadn’t fallen in love with her, they could have had a life together. A life free of any emotional complications, a life free of passion, a life dictated by duty and mutual respect.

But it was the life-altering, heartbreaking love that flowed in his veins for her that made him question everything he was and he was not, that wished he was a better man for her.

He sank to the sofa behind him, his shaking knees refusing to hold him up. The scent of her was etched into him, it surrounded him, intensifying the hollow ache in his gut. He had thought he had known the worst in his life. But he had been wrong.

Nothing could be worse than the aching void in his gut. He would never look into Zohra’s eyes, never see her laugh, never feel her touch again.