if this was real or if she’d stepped into some terrible nightmare.
‘I said go.’
No, this was real, all right. Zahir was advancing towards her now, bearing down on her with the look of a man who would not be disobeyed. Anna felt herself back away until she could feel the wall behind her.
‘Wh...what has happened?’ She tried to peer around Zahir’s advancing body to look at Rashid, who had wrapped his arms around his knees and was still rocking back and forth.
‘I’m dealing with this, Annalina.’
Zahir was right in front of her now, trying to control her with eyes that shone wild and black. She could see the thick corded veins throbbing in his neck, smell the sweat on him, sense the fight in him that he was struggling to control.
‘And I am telling you to go.’ Grabbing hold of her upper arms, his forceful grip biting into her soft flesh, he started to turn her in the direction she had come from. ‘You are to go back to my chambers and wait for me.’ When she finally nodded, he let out a breath. ‘And lock the door behind you.’
She nodded again, her knees starting to shake now as Zahir herded her towards the door. Looking over her shoulder, she took in the scene of devastation once more, the thought of the demons that must be possessing Rashid to bring about such violence, to cause such destruction, striking fear into her heart. Because Rashid had done this. She had no doubt about that.
Suddenly Rashid threw back his head. Their eyes met and there was that stare again, only this time it was far more chilling, far more deranged. She watched as he stealthily rose to his feet, hunching his shoulders and clenching his fists by his sides. Now he was starting to step silently towards them but, intent on getting Anna out of the room, Zahir hadn’t seen him. With her brain refusing to process what she was seeing, it was a second before Anna let out the cry that spun him around. A second too late. Because Rashid had leapt between them, knocking her to the ground and clasping his hands around her throat. She caught the bulging madness in his eyes as the pressure increased, heard Zahir’s roar echo round the room, and then the weight of a tangle of bodies on top of her followed by silence. And then nothing but darkness.
* * *
Zahir stared down at Anna’s sleeping face, so pale in the glow of light from the single bedside lamp. Her hair was spread across the pillow like spun gold, like the stuff of fairy tales. Beauty and the Beast. Suddenly he remembered how that creature Henrik had referred to them and now he wondered if he had been right. Because Zahir had never felt more of a beast than he did now.
Seeing Rashid attack Anna had all but crucified him, the shock of it still firing through his veins. That he had let it happen, failed to protect someone dear to him yet again, filled him with such self-loathing that he thought he might vomit from the strength of it. And the fact that this terrible attack had made him face up to his feelings only added to his torment. Because Annalina was dear to him. Dangerously, alarmingly dear. And that meant he had to take drastic action.
Somehow he had managed to control the surge of violence towards Rashid. It had been strong enough to slay him on the spot, or at the very least punch him to the ground, the way he had with Henrik. Because that was his answer to everything, wasn’t it? Violence. The only language he understood. But with Annalina still in danger he had driven that thought from his mind. Prising his brother’s fingers from around her neck, he had shoved him to one side, taking the punishment of his increasingly feeble blows to his back and his head as he’d bent over Annalina, gathering her against his chest and shielding her with his body as he’d crossed the debris-strewn room and locked the door behind him. Leaving Rashid and his terrible madness inside.
Out in the corridor a doctor was already hurrying towards them. Zahir had called him earlier to attend to Rashid, before foolishly trying to go and reason with him himself. But right now Rashid would have to wait. Right now nothing mattered except Annalina. Ordering the doctor to follow him, he pounded along the corridors with Annalina in his arms, bursting into the nearest bedroom and laying her down on the bed like the most precious thing in the world. Because suddenly he realised that she was.
Her eyes were already fluttering open when the doctor bent to examine her—his verdict that the marks on her neck were only superficial, that she had most probably fainted from the shock, a massive relief before it had given way to the feelings of utter disgust towards himself.
With the doctor insisting that the only treatment Annalina needed was rest, Zahir had reluctantly left her in the care of the servants to be put to bed for what was left of the night. Annalina was already insisting that she was fine, that she was sorry for having been such a drama queen, that he should go to Rashid to see how he was.
But Zahir returned to his chambers, having no desire to see any more of his brother tonight. He didn’t trust himself—his emotions were still running far too high. And, besides, the doctor would have sedated Rashid by now. He would be blissfully unconscious. Zahir could only yearn for the same oblivion. There was no way he would sleep tonight.
So instead he took a shower, feeling a masochistic pleasure in the sting of the water as it pounded over the cuts and scratches inflicted by his brother, towelling himself dry with excessive roughness over the clawed wounds on his chest, staring at the blood on the towel, as if looking for absolution, before tossing it to the ground. Because there was no absolution to be had. Quite the reverse.
The thought that Annalina could so easily have ended up married to Rashid tore at his soul. Because the betrothal had been all his idea, his appalling lack of judgement. He had convinced himself that marriage and a family would be beneficial for Rashid, then had bullied him into agreeing to his plan.
He had told himself that his brother was getting better, that his problems would soon be solved with a bit more time and the right medication. Not because it was the truth—dear God, this evening had shown how desperately far from the truth it was—but because that was what he had wanted to believe. And not even for Rashid’s sake, but for his own. To ease the weight of guilt. If it hadn’t been for Annalina’s courage, her bravery that night on the bridge in Paris, she would have found herself married to a dangerously unstable man. A man who clearly meant to do her harm. And that was something else Zahir could add to the growing list of things he would never forgive himself for.
The confines of his rooms felt increasingly claustrophobic as he paced around, the silence he had thought he craved so badly resonating like a death knell in his ears. And coming across Annalina’s dress lying on his bedroom floor only intensified his suffering. Picking it up, he laid it across the bed, the sight of the crumpled sheets sending a bolt of twisted torment through him.
For sex with Annalina had been unlike any sexual experience Zahir had ever had before—so powerful in its intensity that it had obliterated all reason, all doubts. And, even more astonishing, afterwards he had fallen asleep, drugged by a curious contentment totally unknown to him. For Zahir had never, ever slept in a woman’s arms. The only sex he had ever known had been perfunctory, used solely as a means of release, leaving him feeling vaguely soiled, as if debased by his own physical needs. In short, once the deed had been done, he had been out of there. But with Annalina it had been different. He had felt stronger for having made love to her, calmer, more complete. Somehow made whole. But then with Anna everything was different.
But his euphoric peace had been short-lived, shattered first by howls and then sounds of destruction that he instantly knew had to be his brother. In his haste to go to him he had abandoned Annalina, not thinking that she would follow him, that she was the one who was in danger. That she would end up being attacked.
A surge of impotent energy saw him retracing his steps back up to the bedroom where she was sleeping, startling the young servant, Lana, who for some reason had taken it upon herself to keep a bedside vigil. Curtly dismissing her, he had taken her place, the realisation of what he had to do growing with every minute that passed as he gazed down at Anna’s peaceful face. He had been wrong to marry her, to bring her here. No good would ever come of it. If he wanted to protect her, he knew what he had to do. He had to set her free.
* * *
Anna opened