The Sheik Retold(64)

I suffered a restless night with brief snatches of sleep interposed with night terrors. I was bound to a medieval whipping post with my back laid bare for the lash of a cat o’ nine tails. Ahmed, in his black burnous, held the whip. Ahmed the Punisher had cold rage in his eyes and a cruel smile on his lips, but as he raised the whip for the first strike, another Ahmed stayed his hand. This one wore a white burnous. His expression was equally harsh but somehow different. I knew him at once as Ahmed the Protector. He cut me free, tore off his thawb, and wrapped his arms about the post in my place. I watched in horror as the whip tore into his flesh, shredding the skin and sinew before my eyes. It was on the tenth lash that I suddenly awoke to the smell of Gaston's coffee.

I didn't move for the longest time, but lay still in my bed with racing heart and sweat-dampened brow. The dream had presented a vivid picture of the man with two faces, the punisher and the protector, the Janus that was my sheik.

I had never understood him until that very moment, but it was now crystal clear to me that he was half devil and half avenging angel. He would never be all of one or all of the other, for his essential makeup was comprised of these two opposing forces that made the whole man.

Ahmed the Punisher was bound by unfailing duty and fierce loyalty to do whatever was necessary for the good of his people, yet Ahmed the Protector had wanted to spare me in whatever way might be achieved. The whipping proxy was his unique solution to meet both of these contradictory needs. He had given me the night to consider this, and I knew he would expect an immediate answer from me. Yet even as the horrible dream lingered, I still could not bear the idea of anyone taking my place.

Marshaling all of my courage, I rose and padded to the outer room. He had not gone out to ride as expected, or perhaps he had already gone out and come back, because he sat on the divan sipping his coffee and waiting for me. His eyes slid slowly and deliberately over me when I entered. I had not dressed for the day but wore only a wrap of thin silk that hid little from his gaze. The flare of sexual interest was strong, but he made no move toward me.

"Café, madam?" Gaston asked.

"Thank you, Gaston." I inclined my head and then sank slowly onto the divan as far from Ahmed as I could manage.

"You have decided?" Ahmed asked without preamble.

"I have," I replied.

He nodded. "It must be done swiftly then. I shall call Yusef." He made to rise.

I stopped him with a word. "No."

"No?" he repeated, his gaze widening in an atypical show of surprise that transitioned in a flash to a glower. "Think what you say, Diane! My mercy cannot extend to my hold on the whip. There will be twelve bloody lashes. Only blood may atone for blood."

"Then I must decline your mercy altogether." I gave a blithe shrug, as if it were nothing to me, but my show of bravado was absolutely false. The thought of the whip terrified me to the core, but it seemed time for such desperate measures. I had tried to escape, and he had risked his life to bring me back. He had professed love in his fit of delirium, but his attitude and all of his subsequent actions only bespoke antipathy and contempt. Now I would literally force his whip hand, but in doing so I meant to compel his acknowledgement of what was between us.

He closed his eyes and shook his head on a stream of murmured Arabic. I did not understand the words, but I knew he deeply resented what I was doing. He opened his eyes again and stared into mine. His expression and voice were both fierce, but I could see the flicker of pain behind his eyes. "Why must you persist in this accursed obstinacy?"

"Isn't this exactly what you want, Ahmed? Isn't it why you took me to begin with? To punish me for the accident of my birth? To make me suffer in the fulfillment of your curse?"

"Yes!" he snarled. "I indeed took you to satisfy the beast of vengeance in me."

"Do you truly despise me just for being English, Ahmed? Or should I say Lord Caryll?"

His pupils flared and mouth compressed in cold rage. "Damn that accused name and damn your entire race! That traitorous dog Raoul had no right to speak of it!"

"He is your friend and only wanted me to see you as he does. He wanted me to understand the hatred you harbor, the loathing that I could not comprehend. He showed me the compassion that you refuse."

He caught my shoulders and jerked me against him with bruising strength. I felt like a fragile reed in his strong grasp, a reed he could crush without an effort, and yet for months I had fought him, matching his determination with a courage that I knew had won his admiration even as it enraged him.

"While Raoul was here, I was a model of self-restraint, but he is no longer here, and you are pushing me too far." His fiery gaze scorched me even as his fingertips bored into my flesh. "I have offered you compassion," he spat the word, "only to have you throw it in my face."

"What can you do to me that you have not already done? What are a few lashes to my body in comparison to everything else?"

He glowered down at me with the face of a devil. "By Allah! You are wrong if you think I will not do it."

"I know you will, and this opportunity should delight you beyond measure."

"You know it brings me no delight!" he growled. "I swore only days ago in a jealous rage to make you suffer, but now the thought gives me little pleasure."

"Doesn't it? But it seems the only form of torture you've withheld. You have killed my pride, humbled and humiliated me by varying degrees. You have even made me love you when weeks ago I only wished you dead. What is left but to beat me?"