Maisey Yates - Midnight on the Sands - Hajar's Hidden Legacy / To Touch a Sheikh / Her Sheikh Protector

“You could walk away, you know.” His dark eyes were intent on hers, and for a moment, she wanted to take him up on that. To take his hand and walk out. Walk away.

“I’m not doing this for him. I’m doing it for Alexander. For my people. But I’m not going to worry about proving myself by doing it. Not anymore.” She bit her lip and shook her head. “I wanted him to see that I was … that I could be just as important. But he never will.”

“It’s different with the heirs. They need confidence. They need to understand the weight of their duties. They need to be prepared to lead. The spares like us … we are incidentals.”

“Were you?”

He looked behind her. “My parents were good to me. When I saw them. Malik was my father’s priority, and that is understandable in a sense.”

“But you’re the one ruling Hajar.”

He swallowed. “Yes. And you’re the one saving Austrich.”

She smiled at him, the motion a near impossibility. “When I have children, I won’t rank them like that. I refuse to do it.”

“I’ll never have children, so that isn’t an issue.”

“Never?”

“They would cry at the sight of me.”

“They would love you.”

The light in his eyes changed, a strange, deep sort of longing opening up behind it. It reached into her soul, tugged at her heart. In an instant, it was gone, his control returned. “I would not know how to love them.”

The bleak pain in his eyes nearly broke her. “You could, Zahir. You would.”

“You don’t know what it’s like in here.” He tapped his chest. “Empty. Thank God.”

“Because feeling hurts too much?”

“There’s hurt, and then there’s the feeling that your insides are being ripped into pieces and scattered throughout your body. Left to bleed, stay raw and blindingly painful forever. At some point … you become dead to it. And to everything else. Good and bad. But anything is better than that kind of pain.”

Her heart felt like it was tearing, mirroring what he had described. She put her hand on her chest. “But you still have pain. It finds you still. I’ve seen it. Why deny yourself good things, Zahir?”

“How can I accept all the things in life, my family, our guards, the innocent bystanders who were simply caught in the crossfire, will never have a chance to have.” His eyes were flat again, the connection lost.

He turned like he was going to leave, and she blurted out a question to keep him there. “So, what did my father say when you told him off?”

“Nothing. He is, perhaps, still in there choking on his ire. But he will not push. He needs me, remember?”

“He’s really not bad, Zahir. He has old, set ideas and tunnel vision ambition. He’s done wonderful things for the country. As a ruler, he’s a man of great compassion. As a father … not quite so much. But I respect all that he’s done here, and I support him in that wholly.”

“And I’m still going to help ensure that Austrich is protected.”

She couldn’t help but realize that he’d only named her country, and not his. That his priorities seemed to have shifted. People and not trade, right and not money.

But she suspected that truly, that had been in him from the beginning. He simply hadn’t been willing to reach in and find it.

Now he had.

THE snow relented for the day of the wedding, the sun shining down on the glistening blanket of white that covered the entire grounds of the castle.

Katharine adjusted her grip on her bouquet of pale, pink roses and closed her eyes, banishing the butterflies that were swirling around in her stomach.

It had been a long, hectic couple of weeks with Zahir and her father hashing out details, and Alexander sitting in on the meetings, trying to understand his place in a man’s world when he was little more than a boy.

She knew sixteen wasn’t really a child, and that a hundred years ago, he would have been placed straight on the throne. But he seemed so young. Much too young. It made her grateful for Zahir all over again.

The wedding, though, still terrified her.

She hadn’t seen Zahir in twenty-four hours and she didn’t know how he was feeling about it. About standing before a massive crowd of people. If his muscles were bound up by tension, as she’d witnessed on drives into town. If he would get lost in another flashback.

Suzette, her one bridesmaid, lifted the train of her dress and dropped it gently, letting the air catch hold of it so that it fanned over the ground, the sun shining through the window of the cathedral catching the delicate lace, the rays shining through the gossamer fabric.

“Totally gorgeous, Kat,” she said.

Katharine sighed.

It was perfect. Perfect on the surface, at least.

And that’s all that matters .

She turned to Suzette, the only person she could really count as a close friend. The American heiress had gone to the same boarding school Katharine had and they’d forged a bond. It was a bond that had loosened since adulthood, but if she ever needed anything, the chipper blonde was always willing to drop whatever she was doing and make sure she was there for her. And Katharine had always done the same for her.

“Suzette, is Zahir in there?” she asked, gesturing to the sanctuary, hoping the other woman had seen him at some point.

“I don’t see why he wouldn’t be,” she said, straightening the top on her pale green gown.

Katharine sighed. “You’re right. Of course. Prebridal nerves.”

Suzette’s eyes widened. “Not wedding night nerves, I hope. Because if so … we need to have a talk after the ceremony.”

Katharine huffed a laugh, her face heating as she recalled her night with Zahir. The way he’d made her feel, the decadent things he’d done. Yes, she was still a virgin on technicality, but from the cold comments she’d heard some women make about sex and past lovers, she had a feeling she had a better grasp on what was meant to pass between a man and a woman than some with ten times her experience.

“Not that,” Katharine said. “Not in the least.” Although, now that Suzette mentioned it, she wondered if it being their wedding night would mean anything to Zahir. If he would want …

No. Likely not. He’d basically said he had no desire to sleep with her, a statement she didn’t believe. But there was something behind it, she couldn’t deny that.

“Just, actual vow-taking nerves,” Katharine said. And nerves about whether or not her groom would do well beneath the pressure, with all those people crowded near him.

She pictured him, walking tall out of the palace of Hajar, going to meet the reporters at the gate. He was strong, her Zahir.

My Zahir? Yes. He sort of did feel like hers. Like a part of her. She couldn’t explain it, and she didn’t really want to. She didn’t really want it to be true, either. Because that part of herself would have to be surgically removed when they parted in a few years’ time. And if it was this bad now …

So much for calming her nerves.

“Just a sec.” Suzette walked in front of her and opened the heavy wooden door that led into the sanctuary, just enough to see in. She turned to face her and offered a wide smile and a thumbs-up.

Katharine offered a weak smile back, her stomach dropping into her toes when the music suddenly changed. It was showtime.

Zahir’s fingertips felt cold, and he knew it wasn’t due to the snow outside. The slow onset of panic was distinct. His heart rate increased, his muscles tightened, his stomach clamping down like a steel trap. And his fingers always grew numb. He didn’t know why. He only knew it was far too familiar a feeling for his liking.