A Secret Birthright(48)
She drove her elbow into his gut with all her strength.
He gasped, staggered, but he tightened his hold on her neck. She choked, the world wavered and receded. She heard Fareed’s roar as if from a distance, saw his contorted face as he charged toward her and her captor, saw a gun pointing at him, from a hand beside her face. Dread for him swelled as she fought to sink her teeth into that hand…
“That’s enough!”
A roar reverberated in her bones, then she was snatched from the vise imprisoning her, and swept into the arms she’d thought she’d never feel again in this life. Fareed’s.
Her wavering gaze panned around. Emad was at the top of the stairs standing between Rose and Ryan and the men who’d gone after them, protecting them with his own body, like Fareed had done for her minutes ago. Fareed’s guards were cordoning the scene, four or five to each of Zayed’s men, pinning them at gunpoint.
“Took you long enough, Emad,” Fareed snarled as he took her deeper into his embrace, beckoned to Emad to get Rose and Ryan down and into his protection.
“My apologies, Somow’wak.” Emad led the shaken Rose who was clutching the bawling Ryan in a feverish embrace down the stairs, encompassing her by his side. Gwen bolted from Fareed’s arms, reaching out to Ryan who threw himself in her trembling ones.
Fareed’s footsteps almost overlapped hers, and the moment Ryan filled her arms, he took them both back into his own.
Ryan’s sobs subsided as soon as he found himself nestled between their bodies, his arms around her neck but his face buried into Fareed’s chest, recognizing him as their protector.
Emad went on. “I was on the road when I got your emergency signal. I had to investigate the situation and organize enough men and the plan to end this farce with minimum fuss.”
“With no further fuss.” Fareed turned his wrathful glance to Zayed. “Isn’t that right, Zayed?”
Zayed, still trying to recover from the vicious blow Fareed had dealt him, looked at him with grudging consent, acknowledging that he’d outmaneuvered him, had won. This round. He gestured for his men to stand down, retreat.
In minutes, all armed men, the king’s and Fareed’s, had left the mansion.
Rose was the first one to break the silence that expanded after their departure. “Holy James Bond! What was all that about? And what do they mean Ryan is some prince’s son?” Rose put her hand on Gwen’s arm. “Is this true?”
Gwen gave a difficult nod, unable to meet anyone’s eyes, hugging Ryan tighter, the fright still cascading through her in intensifying shudders.
Fareed tightened his arm around her, as if to absorb her chaos, squeezing the restless Ryan between them, crooning to him, “It’s over, ya sugheeri, you’re safe. I’m here and I’ll always be here. No one is ever coming near you again.”
A whimper caught in Gwen’s throat at the protectiveness and promise in Fareed’s voice, at the way Ryan responded. As if he understood and totally believed him, he transferred his arms from her neck to Fareed’s, burrowing deep into him, his whimpers silenced.
She almost snatched him back into her arms, cried to Fareed not to promise Ryan what he wouldn’t be able to deliver.
Before she could say anything, Fareed turned his eyes to her. “I’m sorry about what happened. My father will pay for this.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course, it does. And it’s partially my fault, our fault, my siblings’ and mine. We’ve long become too involved in our lives and projects, we’ve left his council to work unopposed. He’s always been old-school, and has grown more rigid with age. That had once proven effective in matters of state, but when his inflexibility started causing problems, we just fixed them, instead of fixing his views and policies. And we’ve been paying bigger prices for treating the symptoms instead of the disease. His last unforgivable action was what he’d done to Hesham. But today he’s gone too far.”
Her headshake was more despondent this time. “I meant it doesn’t matter what you, or I, do now. He’s found out about Ryan, and everything that Hesham feared has come to pass.”
Fareed frowned down at her, the intense pain that seemed to assail him when she mentioned Hesham gripping his face.
He turned to Emad, his frown deepening. “What I want to know is how my father found out about Ryan.” The accusation was there in Fareed’s voice. But when the confession surfaced with equal clarity on Emad’s face, it still seemed to shock Fareed to his core. “B’Ellahi, why?”