Olivia Gates - Midnight on the Sands

The demand that it be altered was on the tip of his tongue and yet he could not bring himself to issue it. To do so would be to admit defeat. No one had asked him to do more than what he had been doing for the past five years. Everyone had been content to leave the Beast of Hajar in his cave, to wallow in his misery.

So long as the economy kept moving, nobody cared. And they didn’t have to face the shame of a damaged ruler. Half of the people imagined him blessed by God. The others imagined him to be a demon. Most days he imagined the latter half was closer to the truth.

No one had challenged him … except for Katharine. She’d walked in challenging him and hadn’t stopped since. His pride wouldn’t allow him to turn her down. His pride also wouldn’t allow him to go before a crowd of people and … lose himself like that.

The flashbacks were like waking nightmares. His subconscious taking control and forcing him to watch what he’d already experienced. He was still there, but the pictures in his mind … the memories … they made him feel what he’d felt that day. The acrid taste of panic on his tongue, the knowledge that he was powerless. The horrible, debilitating helplessness.

It took him right back to the worst moments of his life and forced him to not simply remember them, but to relive them.

The simplest thing had been to avoid anything and everything that might trigger the flashbacks. They had been hard to predict at first. A noise that was too loud, the scent of sulfur from a lit match, could all send him back down into hell. So it had been better if he simply stayed in the palace.

Even now that they had grown so few and far between, they weren’t triggered by the obvious.

“It’s the crowd,” he said. He hated talking about it, liked explaining it even less, but it was preferable to her thinking he was crazy. “It’s the last thing I truly remember of that day. We were driving through the city. It was a parade, a national celebration. So many people were there.

“And I noticed there was a crowd around the car … I thought they were just citizens but … there’s always a barricade. By the time I realized it … “

He had to stop there. Had to. Because if he went too far into what had happened next, if he forced himself to remember, he would have to relive it. It was the way it worked.

“You couldn’t have done anything different.”

Such a tired refrain. One he had heard from every doctor, every visitor. He believed it no more from her than from any of them. “I could have died instead. Malik could have lived. It would have been better.”

KATHARINE let Zahir retreat to his quarters. Not that anyone really let Zahir do anything. He did what he pleased and he didn’t seem to care what anyone thought. Least of all her.

Except for when it came to the flashbacks.

Her heart squeezed when she remembered that moment when he’d looked so frightened, so lost. How he had protected her, his instinct to save her, even through that fear. He had placed himself between her and the world, and it had been instinct.

I could have died instead .

He hadn’t spoken those words like a man looking for sympathy, or one out to shock. It had been steady, matter-of-fact. And that’s what had made it truly frightening. Because it was obvious he had thought them before. Obvious that he believed them.

Things had moved on in her life. Austrich had changed, she had taken on new projects, found different ways she could serve. But in Hajar, time seemed to have stood still.

And Zahir with it.

No, maybe that wasn’t true. He had changed. He had grown so dark, so bitter. Lost in his own personal hell, and no one had come to retrieve him from it.

A sharp twinge of anger stabbed her in the chest. She couldn’t fathom how his fiancée could leave him like she had. She would have stayed with Malik, and she hadn’t even loved him. Because she’d made a promise. And promises mattered, commitment and honor mattered. At least to her they did.

What would have happened if Amarah had stayed? Well, Zahir might not have Amarah, but he had her. And she had given her word to him now that she would be his wife. And even if she was a temporary wife, she would do whatever it took to be there for him. To build a strong union. They needed it for their countries.

Katharine made her way toward Zahir’s quarters, her footsteps too loud in the empty corridor. It was late, and the staff was gone, which added to the cavernous feeling the palace possessed. It didn’t escape her that she was always the one looking for him. That he had only come to her room once, and that was to tell her to leave.

But the distance between them didn’t seem right. Not when they were supposed to be working together. It especially didn’t seem right after today.

She pushed open the door and found the gym area vacant, which she’d expected. She walked through, brushing her fingers along one of the exercise machines as she did. His body was strong, he worked at it, intensely. To show no weakness.

She’d forced him to show weakness twice in the same week.

The thought made her feel sick.

There was a short corridor in between the gym and Zahir’s room. His room was empty too, not just of him, but of almost anything. There was a bed in the corner, a large armoire and very little else.

There was a chin-up bar in the doorway that led outside into the courtyard. Something else physical for him to do. He seemed to need the outlet.

She looked at the bed, pillows pushed to the side, the bedspread and sheets tangled. He had been here. And he hadn’t been able to sleep. He’d said he couldn’t sleep. She felt the twinge in her chest again.

She walked across the room and bent over the bed, tugging the bedding into place and arranging the pillows again. It was an idle thing to do, something to keep her hands busy while she decided what to do next. But it was her way of trying to put something in his life back together. Since she’d come in guns blazing and torn it apart.

It was torn apart already. You did what you had to do. And anyway, it isn’t as though you forced him .

No. He’d agreed. Because it was the right thing to do. Because duty was important, honor. It mattered. It had to, otherwise her whole life had been geared toward … nothing. It was the only thing she knew how to do. The only thing that gave her purpose.

“What are you doing?”

Katharine turned sharply and saw Zahir standing in the doorway that led outside, his chest bare and glistening with a light sheen of sweat in the pale moonlight.

“I just came to … “

“You cannot leave me alone, can you, Katharine?” The words were torn from him, a desperation laced through them that shocked and frightened her.

“How can I? After what you said?” she asked, her pulse pounding in her temples, making her feel dizzy.

“Easily. Leave me be as everyone else has done for the past five years. I agreed to a marriage on paper only because I wanted to ignore you as much as humanly possible.” He growled the words, rough sounding and feral, the rage behind them barely leashed.

“Why did you agree to it at all?”

“Because it is best for my people. I may not be able to go out in a crowd of them, but that doesn’t lessen my responsibility here.”

“I … I’m sorry about today.”

He moved into the room, his body taking up an amazing amount of space in the cavernous surroundings. “You’re sorry about today, sorry about the table. Is that what you’re here for? To show me just how sorry you are?”

He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. He leaned in, his lips skimming the curve of her neck. Katharine felt her legs start to shake, not from fear, from something else. From the attraction that had assaulted her off and on from the moment she’d seen him in his office.