kept a number of women. When I got rid of him I sent those with children to the far reaches of the desert, as I could not allow them to remain under my roof. It makes me look weak in the eyes of many of my subjects. Soft in ways that could hurt me.” He shrugged. “As long as they dedicate themselves to living quiet lives free of political intrigue, they may do so safe from my interference.”
“You mean, as long as they don’t show signs of trying to wreak the sort of vengeance you did, you’ll let them live.”
He didn’t back down. “Yes.” He let his brows rise. “Does this offend you, Amaya? I have told you. Daar Talaas is not Canada. You may cringe from our brand of justice all you like, but that doesn’t make it any less effective.”
“I didn’t cringe.” She shifted. Swallowed again, as if against a lump in her throat. “But that doesn’t mean I necessarily support it, either.”
“Two of my predecessor’s concubines remained in the palace after I took it back,” Kavian told her. “But I never touched them. I merely allowed them to stay here after he was gone, as they had no families to take them in. It was widely considered an act of mercy.”
She stared at him for a long while. Kavian felt a muscle in his jaw clench tight. His entire body tensed, as if he was moments away from launching an attack. Or perhaps warding one off.
“And of the five other women you kept here?”
He shook his head. “I am a king, Amaya. Should I have dated instead? I hear it is fashionable to do so online these days. Perhaps that would have worked. I could have put up an ad, I am sure. Single sheikh seeks companion for sex on command, no possibility of marriage, yet many financial and residential perks.” His voice was like acid. “I’m certain the tabloids would have loved that. They are so fond of me already.”
Her gaze was hot and level at once. “And of the five—”
“I am not answering any further questions about the harem I disbanded when you asked me to do so. When I promised you I would, because of the two of us, I am the one who keeps promises.” He watched her flinch at that, but he couldn’t seem to modify his tone at all. “The harem I did without for six months while you led me on a merry chase across the planet. Do you truly wish to discuss this, Amaya?”
There was a glitter in her dark eyes he didn’t particularly like. She stood tall and inescapably regal there in the door. “We haven’t used birth control of any kind.”
“No.” He didn’t avert his gaze from hers. “We have not.”
“Is that how this works, Kavian? You think if you get me pregnant I’ll be forced to stay here?”
He heard something far more ragged in her voice then, could see the echo of it in that storm in her too-dark eyes.
“Have I made my intentions unclear?” He studied her face then, wondering at that raw thing inside him. It seemed to grow larger by the moment. “Have I deceived you in some way? Is this what your mother came here to tell you?”
“Don’t blame her. She’s supposed to look out for me.”
“Can you truly claim that was her goal?” He was incredulous.
But Amaya stared at him, openly defiant. “You took advantage—”
“Of your inexperience? Are we acknowledging that now? And I had grown so accustomed to the Whore of Montreal.”
“You knew I was inexperienced. You knew I wasn’t paying attention to the things I should have been. You used that against me.” Her voice didn’t shake. Her hands weren’t in visible fists. And yet there was a certain sheen to her dark gaze that suggested both. “You want to keep me here against my will, no matter what it takes. Sex around the clock until I can’t see straight. Barefoot and pregnant for the next ten years. Whatever works.”
“Please remind me, Amaya, of any moment in all the time that you have known me when I indicated otherwise.”
Kavian heard his own voice then, so rough and dark in the quiet room, he might as well have kicked down the walls. He was certain he could see the way it slammed into her. He saw the way she gulped in a breath. He even saw the way she adjusted her stance, as if her knees had suddenly weakened beneath her.
He didn’t recognize the feeling that moved in him then. Thick, dark. A rich thread of an agony he could not name, balling in his gut and sitting there like a stone.
Shame, he realized after a stunned moment. And something like a keening hatred of himself and these battleground tactics on this woman who was no desert warrior, no matter how tough she appeared at times. He’d never felt anything like it.
He didn’t much care to experience it now. He moved toward her, aware on some level that his careful veneers were cracking as he moved, the masks he wore shattering—
But he couldn’t stop.
“And what will happen when you get what you think you want?” she threw at him, all the tears she was not crying audible in the thickness of her voice, and he hated himself more. “What happens when I give you everything I have and the thrill is gone? When you use me up and cast me aside? Will you consider that an act of mercy, too?”
“You should not listen to the rantings of a bitter old woman. I am not your father.”
Her eyes swept over him, that bittersweet shine. “Are you sure about that? Because so far, the two of you seem very much the same.”
He felt unchained then. Untamed. Wild beyond measure. And it did not occur to him to temper it at all as he moved toward her.
Kavian didn’t stop until he was upon her, right there, looming over her until she stepped back and came up hard against the doorjamb.
“Do you want me to apologize, azizty?” It was a growl from the deepest part of him. “In this fantasy of yours, do I beg your forgiveness?”
“You wouldn’t mean a word of it even if it was a fantasy.”
He stroked the tender skin of her elegant neck, trailing his fingers over her satiny flesh and the tumult of her pulse. He felt the way she trembled, and he saw arousal edge into that darkness in her gaze, whether she wanted it—him—or not.
“No,” he agreed, despite those too-dark things that still moved in him. “I would not.”
“Kavian.”
He knew what she was going to say. He could see the words form on her lips, see them scroll across her face.
“My mother—”
“I will have that snake of a woman removed from the palace within the hour. She—”
“She is my mother.” Her voice was a shocked whisper.
“Do you think I cannot tell a bad mother when I see one? Can you have forgotten mine? Your mother is a viper. I want her and her poison gone from here.”
“No.” Amaya’s voice was flat. Incredibly bold, for someone so much smaller than he was, so much more fragile, but she stared back at him as if she was unaware of those things. As if she was his equal in every way. As if she had every intention of engaging him in hand-to-hand combat if he didn’t do as she asked.
As she commanded.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.” Her chin rose fractionally. “You cannot throw my mother out because you don’t like her. I don’t care if you don’t like her.”
“You do not like her.”
She frowned at him. “I love her.”
“I cannot abide her.” He felt that stone in him, dragging down, threatening his ability to stand before her. Threatening far more than that. “She is envious of you. She whispers poison into your ears. You fear her.”