* *
Raz moved quickly, his hand on the knife he kept strapped to his belt whenever he was in the desert.
The screams sliced through him, ripping his composure into shreds, because he knew who screamed.
His strides fuelled by a primal need to protect, he tore open the entrance of the tent next to his and saw the child sitting upright, eyes staring in terror, forehead glistening with sweat, as she screamed while Nadia stood there helplessly, hopelessly out of her depth.
‘I can’t get her to stop.’
In seconds he had the child in his arms, folding her tightly. ‘What is wrong with her?’
He heard the raw edge to his tone but the girl simply shrugged defensively.
‘She’s awake but she won’t respond to me. It’s as if she’s having a fit or something.’
He smoothed the child’s hair, gazed into those staring eyes and felt an anxiety so acute it slowed his thinking. He prided himself on the speed and accuracy of his decision-making and yet now, when it was so important to get it right, his brain was motionless.
‘Her breathing is fast. Her pulse is fast. Get someone medical in here immediately.’
A calm voice came from the entrance to the tent.
‘It isn’t a fit and she isn’t awake.’
He turned his head and saw Layla, dressed only in a thin nightdress, her hair tangled and tousled from his hands. Her gaze was fixed on the child. ‘She’s having a night terror. My sister had them all the time at the same age. You shouldn’t wake her.’
“She’s already awake. Her eyes are open.’ Nadia’s eyes were cold and unfriendly.
Raz ignored her. ‘You have seen this before?’ Fear made his voice harsh, but Layla seemed calm and unflustered.
‘Many times. It’s very unsettling to witness, but I can assure you she will remember nothing of it in the morning. Who is closest to her? Who does she know the best?’
Her gaze flickered expectantly to Nadia and Raz drew a deep breath.
‘Me.’ The confession was dragged from him, because he hadn’t yet decided how to broach this topic and this wasn’t the way he would have chosen. ‘I have the closest relationship with her.’
Was she shocked?
If so, she didn’t show it. Nor did she question what that relationship was.
‘In that case you should be the one to tuck her back into bed. Snuggle the sheets around her to make her feel safe. Talk to her quietly. It’s not what you say that matters, it’s the way you say it. You need to hold her securely. Blow out all the candles except one. Darkness helps. When she goes back to sleep, stay with her for about ten minutes. Once she is deeply asleep it’s unlikely to happen again.’ Having delivered that set of instructions, she looked at Nadia. ‘We should leave. The fewer people the better.’
The other girl’s expression was stubborn. ‘She knows me.’
‘It’s better that way.’ Layla’s voice was firm. ‘She needs quiet and just one person she trusts.’
‘Do as she says.’ Raz lowered his voice and eased the child back under the covers. She was quivering and shivering and it broke his heart to see her. His urge to call a doctor was powerful, but for some reason he was inclined to give Layla’s suggestion a try, all the while wondering why he was following the advice of a woman he had no reason to trust.
She’d said it was the tone that mattered, so he spoke nonsense, reciting poetry from his childhood, his hand stroking those fragile shoulders until gradually the little girl calmed and relaxed under his fingers.
Her breathing slowed. Her pulse slowed with it. And as hers did so did his.
Her eyes fluttered shut, those eyelashes dark shadows against cheeks swollen by crying.
Raz sat until the change in her breathing told him she was deeply asleep.
His shoulders ached with tension. His head throbbed with it. Responsibility pressed down on him until he felt not as if he had the world on his shoulders but the universe.
Satisfied that she really was asleep, and unlikely to stir, he rose carefully to his feet and left the tent in search of answers.
Nadia was hovering outside, her expression defensive and defiant. ‘I could have settled her. You should not have asked her advice.’
‘How long has this been going on?’
Her hesitation told him everything.
‘A while.’
That reluctant admission did nothing to ease his stress levels.
‘Why wasn’t I told?’
‘You were away.’
‘But everyone knows I wish to be told of anything that affects my daughter.’
‘I didn’t think it was significant. She doesn’t remember it in the morning.’
Holding onto his temper, knowing that he needed time to cool down before he spoke what was on his mind, Raz clenched his jaw and gestured to the tent he’d just left. ‘Stay with her.’ Ideally he would have stayed himself, but he needed information so he strode back into his own tent and found Layla standing still in the middle of the room, her hands clenched into fists by her sides, stress evident in every rigid line of her body.
She’d lit the candles and the tent was bathed in a soft, gentle light that revealed sheets still rumpled and twisted from the wild heat of their lovemaking.
She turned as he entered the tent and their gazes locked and held.
Awareness rushed between them and sexual tension crackled like static in the air.
Now you’re a woman, he thought, and then blocked that out because he knew this was not the time to address the other issues that were piling up.
‘Thank you for your help. You knew what was wrong? You called it a night terror?’
‘Yes.’ Her confidence reassured him, because he was far from convinced he shouldn’t have called for medical assistance.
‘You have seen it before?’
‘Many times.’ Her voice was tight, her eyes shadowed by ghosts and darkness. ‘My sister Yasmin started having them when she was five and it carried on for over a year. It might have been longer. I don’t really remember. Every night, about an hour after she’d fallen asleep, she’d wake screaming, eyes wide open. She seemed to be awake, but she was asleep. The first time it happened I was just like you—I thought she was awake.’
‘But she wasn’t?’
‘No, and it’s very unsettling. It took me a while and some research to realise she was actually asleep.’
Of course she would have researched it. He knew virtually nothing about her, but he knew that much. ‘And did your research suggest a cause?’
‘There is no single cause, but there are different triggers. A fever, extreme tiredness, and—’ She licked her lips and turned her head away so that he could no longer see her eyes. ‘And stress. Stress can cause it.’
Guilt twisted inside him, because he knew without a doubt that the trigger in this case was very likely to be stress. And he knew the cause of the stress. ‘And in your sister’s case?’
‘It was definitely stress.’
Still she didn’t look at him, and he remembered her reaction to their conversation earlier.
You know nothing of the life my sister and I led.
Raz looked at the tension in those slender shoulders and realised he was looking at far more than a reaction