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“Leave,” he grumbled to his guards.
“Sayyidi—”
“Leave!” Khalid’s temples pounded as the word reverberated down the halls.
The guards glanced at one another before bowing and taking their leave.
Jalal remained against the wall in somber watchfulness.
“That was rather childish,” he chastised, once the soldiers had turned the corner.
“You are free to leave, as well.” Khalid resumed his trek toward his chamber.
Jalal cut in front of Khalid. “You look terrible.” His eyes were bright, and his forehead was lined with worry.
Khalid stared back at him, calm and aloof. “I suppose you expect me to confide in you, following your honest assessment of a rather obvious condition. Forgive me, but I’ve had a trying evening, Captain al-Khoury.”
“I’m truly concerned.”
Khalid feigned bemusement. “Don’t be.”
“If you refuse to talk about what happened tonight, I must continue to press the matter.”
“And you will be met with disappointment at every turn.”
“No. I won’t.” Jalal folded his arms across his chest. “You are a disaster. You flinch at the slightest noise, and you nearly ripped that poor boy’s head off for dropping his sword.”
“The boy was stumbling about, wielding an unsheathed blade. I find it fortunate he didn’t trip and impale himself on the cold steel of his own stupidity.”
“Your sarcasm gets more brutal with age. And with arrogance. It’s not nearly as entertaining now.”
Khalid glowered at his cousin. The blood pulsed along his neck and thrummed in his temples. Each beat blurred the lines of his vision.
He shoved past Jalal.
“What were you doing tonight, sayyidi?” Jalal called after him. “Do you realize you put our entire kingdom at risk when you discarded your weapon at that hired dog’s behest. He could have killed you, and you would have left Khorasan without a ruler. You would have allowed Salim’s mercenaries to leave us leaderless, on the brink of potential war with Parthia.” He paused pointedly. “All for the sake of a girl—one of so many.”
At that, the frayed strands of Khalid’s composure tore apart, and he turned the full force of his fury onto Jalal, whirling around and freeing his shamshir from its scabbard in a single, fluid motion. He raised the curved edge of the blade until it was positioned a hairsbreadth from Jalal’s heart.
Jalal stood still, his serenity at odds with the situation. “You must love her a great deal, Khalid-jan.”
After a beat, Khalid lowered his sword, his brow marred by pain and consternation. “Love is—a shade of what I feel.”
Jalal gri
“I’m aware of that.” Khalid sheathed his sword.
“I’m not so certain you are. If you plan on behaving is such a heedless fashion, I think it’s time to tell Shahrzad the truth.”
“I disagree; therefore, this discussion is over.” Khalid strode down the corridor once more, and Jalal walked at his side.
“She’s family now. If you are willing to die for her, then it’s time we entrust her with our secret,” Jalal pressed in a quiet voice.
“No.”
He reached for Khalid’s shoulder. “Tell her, Khalid-jan. She has a right to know.”
“And how would you react to such news?” Khalid shoved his hand aside. “To the knowledge your life hovers on a precipice, bound by a mutable curse?”
“My life is at risk every day. As is yours. Something tells me Shazi does not live in a world that denies this fact.”
Khalid’s eyebrows flattened. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not ready to tell her.”
“And you never will be. Because you love her, and we fight to protect those we love.” Jalal halted by the corridor leading to Khalid’s chamber, and Khalid advanced down the marble and stone without a glance in his direction.
“Sayyidi?” Jalal continued from behind him. “Make sure you summon the faqir tonight. You are a bowstring ready to snap.”
Khalid shoved past the first set of doors into the antechamber and moved toward the entrance of his room. He paused before nodding to one of the guards, who twisted one of the bronze handles and pushed open the polished wood.
Upon crossing the threshold, Khalid found the room completely silent. Utterly still. The only things amiss were the bloodied strips of linen and the pitcher of water beside the raised platform—
And the girl asleep in his bed.
Shahrzad lay on her side. Her dark hair was splayed across dull silk, and her knees were tucked against the lone cushion on Khalid’s bed. A fringe of black lashes curved against the skin beneath her eyes, and her proud, pointed chin was tucked into a gathering of silk beside her palm.
Khalid sat down with care and refrained from looking at her for too long. Touching her was not an option.
She was a dangerous, dangerous girl. A plague. A Mountain of Adamant who tore the iron from ships, sinking them to their watery graves without a second thought. With a mere smile and a wrinkle of her nose.
But even knowing this, he surrendered to her pull. Succumbed to the simple need to be by her side. With a slow exhalation of breath, Khalid placed his shamshir on the floor and eased his body next to hers. He stared up at the ceiling, at the single flame in the golden lamp above his head. Even the dim light shining from its depths pained his eyes. He shuttered his gaze, trying to push past the weariness and the ever-present torment of the chained beast roaring inside his head.
Shahrzad shifted in her sleep and turned toward Khalid, as though drawn by her own inexplicable compulsion. Her hand fell to his chest, and she settled her brow beside his shoulder with a muted sigh.
Against his better judgment, Khalid opened his burning eyes to look at her one more time.
This dangerous girl. This captivating beauty.
This destroyer of worlds and creator of wonder.
The urge to touch her now past logic, Khalid’s arm moved to encircle her in an embrace. He buried his nose in her hair, in the same scent of lilacs that taunted him from outside his window. The small, graceful hand on his chest drifted higher, beside his heart.
Whatever torment he had to endure. Whatever evil he had to face.
There was nothing that mattered more.
Then he heard a noise in the far corner of the room.
He blinked hard, trying to refocus. His muscles tensed with heightened awareness when a flash of movement blurred across his vision. Khalid squeezed his eyes shut, fighting to clear the lines, fighting to see through the layers of fog and shadow. The pain between his brows grew as his pulse rose to meet the unforeseen challenge.
Another blur of motion flitted across the room, this time in the opposite corner.
Khalid removed his arm from around Shahrzad and reached for the pitcher of water by the platform.
When a new flash of movement caught his attention beside his desk, Khalid heaved the pitcher in its direction and shot to his feet, his shamshir in hand.
The sound of the pitcher shattering against the ebony woke Shahrzad, and she sat up with a startled cry.
“Khalid? What’s wrong?”
Khalid said nothing as he regarded the stillness around his desk. He blinked again. Hard. His eyes blazed with the fire of a thousand suns. He pressed a palm between his brows and gritted his teeth.
Shahrzad rose from the bed and strode to his side. “Are you—hurt?”
“No. Go back to sleep.” It sounded needlessly cruel, even to him.
“You’re lying to me.” She reached up and wrapped soft fingers around his wrist. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Again, his pain lanced through the word, making his response more abrupt than he intended.