no idea what I can handle.” She gave him a quirked eyebrow. “I hope you can take it as well as dish it out?”
“What do you think?” Those black lasers he had for eyes told her exactly what to think. “But I attempted a watered-down approach for my own sake. I hear your species subsists on a steady diet of fawning and flattery, and I wasn’t up to saving you again if an injection of the truth sent you into anaphylactic shock.”
At her hoot of delight, he continued watching her over the rim of his mug, taking more tranquil sips.
Wiping away tears, she rose to her knees, facing him. “Sir, you misjudge my species. Understandable, since it’s undocumented with me as its only member. The fluke female Aal Shalaan. Of which you know nothing, according to you. I guess all knowledge is on my side. I bet you never noticed I existed before tonight.”
A bolt of black lightning arced from his eyes.
Did that mean he had noticed her? When? How hadn’t she noticed, when she’d been analyzing his every nuance, scavenging for any sign of interest or attention?
She let out a choppy exhalation. “So you noticed me? And still think I was indulged? What on earth did you observe in my family’s treatment of me that could have been mistaken for indulgence? You thought my mother keeping me practically on a leash was that? Or my father making any excuse he could think of to escape giving me five minutes of his time? Or both using me as a pawn in their maneuvers with everyone else or a weapon in their own ongoing war?”
He frowned. She hadn’t seen him do that when he’d been about to kill her attackers; then, she had only seen that scarily empty expression.
But now she felt something emanating from him, far deadlier than the rage he’d exuded earlier tonight.
Wow. Was this in response to her account of how her parents had treated her? She hadn’t meant to sound bitter, but in reality, she’d “watered things down.” Not that she’d thought to appeal to his sympathy. Whatever she’d suffered at her parents’ self-serving hands had been nothing compared to what he’d suffered.
Needing to lighten the mood, she infused her voice with extra lightness. “Or maybe you believed I was indulged because my legions of cousins didn’t rough me up like they did each other? That had nothing to do with my being female, just being the youngest.”
As if consenting to play along, his lips twisted. “I didn’t see those who succeeded you to that position being spared, since these were disappointingly male. You can’t deny the Aal Shalaans’ situation goes against everything our region believes in. Instead of valuing males above females for offspring, having nothing but sons made the Aal Shalaan males a dime a dozen, and a female a treasure. Your aunt Bahiyah was that for decades. Then came you.”
Her hairs stood on end at the way he said those words. It got worse when he leaned closer, and she was hit with another wave of his vigor and virility.
He only placed his empty mug on the floor between them. “It’s the one thing that made your family tolerate your Hydra of a mother. That she managed the miracle of giving the Aal Shalaans a female child.”
She grimaced. “Hydra, huh? Ouch.” Then she laughed. “But, yeah, apt description. Though in anything else, you must be talking about an alternate universe. In this one, I never noticed any tolerance toward my mother. Not that I blame anyone for that. My mother, as you so bluntly noted, is intolerable. I also never had any evidence that I was such a big deal to the family for achieving the feat of being born female. In fact, I mostly experienced the opposite. Being the lone estrogen bubble floating in an ocean of testosterone was no fun.”
A contemplative look greeted her words. “I expect it must have had its drawbacks.”
Her laugh was mirthless this time. “For my first decade I couldn’t understand that I wasn’t a boy, then I wouldn’t accept I wasn’t, tried my best to be one, so I’d fit in. My mother did her best to flog me, emotionally and sometimes physically, out of my efforts. Then puberty hit and I began to feel some good sides to being a girl.” Like growing a whole new appreciation of his masculine wonder. “But those did not outweigh the bad. I was such a disappointment to everyone. Not male, so couldn’t be shoved into the roles in need of a steady supply of Aal Shalaans, and not the type of female they had in mind. The older I got, the more disgusted with me my mother and aunt became for not inheriting their refined genes, for manifesting the looks and temperament of the Neanderthal-like Aal Shalaans. I was ‘tainted’ by my Aal Shalaan blood, as my mother put it when she was trying to ‘cleanse’ me of its disadvantages. And though I cleaned up good when they had their way with me, when left to my own devices, I slipped back into my graceless, disgraceful self. Not that they gave up. They kept hoping that through constant pressure they’d prove the ancient proverb right.”
“Which proverb is that?”
“Ekfi’l edrah ala fommaha, tet’la el bent l’ommaha.”
“Set the cauldron on its face, after mother the girl takes.”
She whooped. “And it almost rhymes, too.”
He tutted. “Almost doesn’t count. Either it rhymes, or it’s lame. That was lame.”
Another man would have accepted her praise of his translation. He’d accept nothing he hadn’t fully earned. The self-made, self-sufficient entity that he was would care nothing about others’ approval, anyway.
She waved his dismissal away. “Details. It was good enough. And clever. Not to mention instantaneous.”
Not one to continue a subject he’d already dismissed, his gave her what felt like a mind and soul scan. “So your mother and aunt couldn’t ‘turn’ you.”
A chuckle overcame her. Yes, he was disparaging her family, but he did it deliciously, not to mention accurately. “Like vampires would, huh? Another spot-on analogy, sorry to admit. And nope. To their escalating frustration, I remained an inferior human with loads of abhorrent failings that made them break out in hives. The worst of it was the traits you had a demonstration of tonight.”
Was that teasing that simmered in the blackness of his eyes? Was it even possible?
“Being overriding and unstoppable?”
“Hah. They’d have a stroke if they heard anyone describe me as that. Their dissatisfaction with me was based on what they said formed the foundation of my character. In their words, a ‘total lack of discretion, insight and shrewdness and a genetic absence of poise, presence and influence.’“
Yep, she’d memorized the slurs. They’d been said in too many variations often enough.
His eyes told her he’d made a note of that fact. “It’s clear they didn’t know you well.”
Her lips relaxed, as did her heart. “Do you mind if I take that as a compliment?”
A perfectly formed hand—strength, skill and command wrapped in bronze and adorned by raven silk—waved her a knock yourself out. What she’d give to know those hands better.
She sighed. “Then I began to mess up their plans for me and was exposed to the full measure of their ruthlessness. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, their conspiracy to depose Uncle Atef and take over Zohayd was exposed. Not only didn’t I see any of it coming, when I was the closest anyone ever got to either of them, I never realized they were capable of such… malevolence. Guess they were right about my lack of insight and shrewdness.”
“You feel guilty that you didn’t realize what they were planning.”
As usual, he was right. “I felt almost responsible. It’s one of the main reasons I left Zohayd.” She gave a self-deprecating shrug. “And here I am.”
“Here you are.”
The words hung in the warm air like intoxicating incense. They sounded as if he was glad that she was.