The Wrath and the Dawn(84)

Joonam. He’d called her that before. My everything.

As on the night she’d told the tale of Tala and Mehrdad, why did it have such a ring of truth to it?

“I—” She bit her lower lip in an effort to keep it still. To stop the fount of words longing to spring forth.

Longing to confess the yearnings of a capricious heart.

“Forgive me, a thousand times over, for wounding you.” He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.

I’m lost to him. I can’t ignore it any longer.

Shahrzad closed her eyes in defeat and slid her palms to his chest. Then she reached behind him in an embrace of sandalwood and sun. Khalid wrapped both his arms around Shahrzad, and they stood together under the dome of the Grand Portico, with the indecipherable art of love poems giving silent testament.

? ? ?


The hollow in his chest was nothing now.

He would gladly go back to that, if it meant never having to witness this sight again.

When Tariq first entered the vestibule leading into the Grand Portico, he thought he was in the wrong place. It was so quiet. There was no way Shahrzad could be here.

Then, when he rounded the corner, he saw the reason for the silence.

It stopped him like a dagger hurled through the air.

The boy-king was holding Shahrzad in his arms. Placing a gentle kiss on her brow.

And Shahrzad was leaning into his embrace.

Tariq watched as she shifted her slender fingers to the boy-king’s back and drew him closer, resting her cheek against his chest as a weary traveler to the bole of a tree.

The worst part of it all—the part that took the very breath from Tariq’s body—was the unguarded look of peace on her face.

As though this was right. As though she wanted nothing more.

Shahrzad was in love with Shiva’s murderer.

The guard behind him deliberately made noise. Apparently, he did not care to learn the consequences of eavesdropping on the Caliph of Khorasan.

From the distant shadows to Tariq’s right, Shahrzad’s mammoth bodyguard twisted into view, flashing a silver blade and a guise of punishing promise.

But the thing that truly gave Tariq pause was the reaction of the boy-king.

The supposed aging camel.

At the first hint of an unforeseen threat, he pulled Shahrzad behind him. He shielded her in a menacing stance augmented by the metallic rasp of his shamshir, which he held steady in his right hand, with the blade pointed to the floor— Poised to attack.

The boy-king’s usually expressionless face was drawn and tight, with signs of barely leashed fury rippling along his jaw. His eyes blazed like molten rock, livid and single-minded in their purpose.

Shahrzad grabbed the boy-king’s shoulder.

“Khalid!” she cried. “What are you doing?”

He did not waver.

Now Tariq understood Shahrzad’s plea from last night.

This was not a bored, dispassionate king who sent his wife to fight his battles.

This was definitely something more.

Something Tariq needed time to consider.

And time . . . to rip out his heart, in kind.

Tariq grinned, running his fingers through his hair.

“Are we not meeting here for the hunt?” he asked.

? ? ?


Khalid regarded Nasir al-Ziyad’s son with mounting irritation.

The boy’s explanation for his intrusion into the Grand Portico was absurd. His stupidity had nearly cost him his life.

Under normal circumstances, Khalid would not have reacted in such a manner, but Salim Ali el-Sharif was in Rey. Just this morning, he had stood in the open-air gallery of Khalid’s palace and made veiled threats against Shahrzad. Khalid had expected as much, but it did not affect him any less to bear witness to it.

Ignoring any threat from the Sultan of Parthia, no matter how inconsequential, had always proved to be unwise.

Khalid did not know who this foolish boy was or where his allegiances might lie. Yesterday, such matters were not of pressing import. Yesterday, the boy was but a mild nuisance. The only reason he had sparked Khalid’s interest at all was because of the way he’d looked at Shahrzad today. It was not in the manner most men appreciate a beautiful woman. Most men appreciated beauty with an emphasis on form.

The vast majority of Khalid’s guests were mindful of such behavior. The ones who didn’t were of note, but they had reputations to match—morally reprehensible men with lascivious eyes that latched on to anything in their general vicinity.