CHAPTER ONE
Irene took a deep breath, and then another one. No matter how many times she did it, no matter how many times she tried to visualize a pure white light or count deliberately and carefully to ten, she couldn’t make her heart beat more slowly or her pulse stop fluttering.
Instead, all she could do was plant her feet squarely on the airport floor, hang on to her bag even more tightly, and reflect on what had happened two days ago.
Two days ago, she had been just another graduate student at the University of Khanour, going to class, texting her friends, and enjoying her time researching in a foreign university. Khanour, one of the wealthy but isolated members of the UAE, was a treasure trove of material for her thesis on pre-Islamic art, and she knew that she would leave the country well-prepared to finish her thesis.
Two days ago, she had been thinking about the symbolism of water in certain ancient portraits, when suddenly, two large men had appeared on either side of her. They were dressed plainly, but there was something menacing about them, something deeply frightening about the way they watched her.
“Are you Irene Bellingham?” one asked.
Before she could think to lie, she nodded, and they came even closer. A quick look up and down the street revealed that she was quite alone, and it occurred to her the men knew that was the case before they had approached her.
“All right, you need to come with us,” the other said, and he moved his jacket aside just enough so she could see the butt of the gun he carried hidden in a shoulder holster.
Irene had frozen. There was no choice here, nothing that she could do. Instead, she allowed herself to be pushed into the waiting car, wondering what in the world was going to become of her. She had heard of girls getting kidnapped in other parts of the world, but Khanour was known for being quite safe. They had asked for her by name—what was this supposed to mean?
She got her answer half an hour later when the men escorted her to a small house in what looked like quite a nice suburb. The men seemed courteous enough, but they would brook no nonsense. They led her to a small office with a single high window and pointed to a chair.
She waited for almost fifteen minutes before a short man with just a small fringe of hair around his head appeared. He looked for all the world like a harried accountant, but there was something about him that made her prickle with fear.
“What am I doing here?” she asked.
The man frowned petulantly at her. Instead of answering, he gestured to one of the men standing behind her. Before Irene could react, the man’s hand shot out, latching on to the tip of Irene’s ear and twisting viciously. She cried out in shock and pain, clutching the smarting ear when he let go. It was hot to the touch, and she looked at the small man on the other side of the desk, her eyes wide and filled with tears.
“That was meant to teach you a lesson,” the man said mildly. “But perhaps it can serve as an introduction as well. We are people who know very well how to hurt you, but we also know how to do it so that no one ever sees. I could have let my associate there all but yank that ear off, and it would hurt as if he had, but it would never be visible.
“Now, I am going to talk, and you are going to listen, yes?”
Irene’s breath came quick and fast. She knew that she had to get out of here as soon as she could. That meant agreeing with her captors, and so she nodded fearfully.
The man’s face broke into a smile, something that felt far more terrifying in some ways than his scowl had been.
“Good. Now to business. We are a business concerned with a need, and it is best if you help us. Ideally you will help us, and then you will never see us again. Wouldn’t that be a pleasant thing?”
She swallowed hard. There had to be more to the story than just what she was hearing. Why had they rolled up to find her at the university? How had they known her name?
“Of course, if you help us with what we need, we can be very kind and very friendly,” the man said, his voice still unnervingly calm. “After all, a friend of yours is a friend of ours. We do not hurt our friends.”
For a moment, the man confused her by fiddling with his phone. Then, obviously finding what it was he wanted, he turned it to face her.
There was a video cued up, and with a tentative finger, she pressed the Play arrow.
The camera zoomed in on what looked like a white cement room with a man bound to a chair in the center of it. The cameraperson zoomed in a little closer, and Irene gasped when she realized that she recognized the man in the chair.
Her twin brother, with whom she shared the same wavy hair, pale skin, and blue eyes, looked up at her, smiling tiredly.
“Hey, Irene,” he said, speaking to the camera. “As you can see, I’ve gotten myself into a bit of trouble. These people are not to be trifled with, sis. Do what they want. However, though they are dangerous, they are also reasonable. Once you clear us both, we can walk away free and easy…”
Peter tried to smile at her, but that seemed to break something inside him.
“Please, Irene. Help me. Please. I need your help…”
The video cut off, and the man behind the desk shook his head sadly.
“It is a terrible thing when family goes astray,” he said with every indication of regret. “He says that you are twins, but surely one of you must be the older…”
“That would be me,” she said, her mouth dry. She wanted to reach for the phone again, to play the video one more time, allowing her to verify that her brother was alive.
“Ah, of course. Then the younger brother is your responsibility,” the man said, nodding with understanding. “You are well used to this.”
She could have told him that he was precisely right. She had been bailing Peter out throughout their lives together, whether it was hiding evidence that would have gotten him into trouble or simply outright taking the blame whenever he had erred. However, those incidents had involved stolen pie and broken windows, not whatever was happening here.
“What are you going to do with my brother?” she asked, her voice hollow. She was prepared for the man to pinch her ear again, but she had to know. Instead, the man behind the desk smiled beatifically, as if she had pleased him.
“If you help us, we will do nothing to him. We will return him to his apartment and tell him that he should start a new and better life, thanking his elder sister every day for her part in helping him survive.”
The man paused, and when he continued, it was with a frown, as if she had said it was a terrible idea and had asked for more options.
“And if you do not help us, we will make sure that no one ever sees or hears from your brother again.”
She made a small sound at that. She wanted nothing more than to return to the woman she had been a few hours ago, when there was nothing on her mind as pressing as the work that she had to do.
Peter and this man had changed everything. She couldn’t go back. All she could do was go forward, and that was how she was going to proceed.
She took a deep breath. When she spoke, her voice was level, even slightly aggressive.
“What do I have to do?” she asked finally.
The man beamed at her.
“It is good to see family sticking together,” he said.
Now, two days later, she was sitting in the Khanour airport, her small carry-on bag sitting innocuously on her lap. Inside were her clothes, a few souvenirs for family members whom did not strictly exist, and one tightly wrapped paper package.
The man had assured her there were no drugs in the package. Instead, he said it was a piece of art that was destined for American hands. A small thing, nothing more than trifle, but Irene could read between the lines. She knew to be very afraid.
There was a very hot trade in antiquities in the world right now. The man who had recently become sheikh of Khanour had put a stop to most of the illegal and even legal ways to acquire Khanour art, declaring that national treasures needed to stay in the country. Of course, that had sent interest in the art of the country where she was staying sky-high. This man seemed to be interested in taking advantage of the trend, and he needed someone relatively unassuming and trustworthy to take the artifact to the United States.
Now Irene started counting backward from one hundred for the eighth time. She had lost count each and every time she had started it before, but perhaps now it would be different.
She was just giving it up as a bad job when she saw a handsome young Khanour man in a sharp Western-style blue suit watching her. She knew she had made a mistake as soon as he smiled slightly and approached her. She had been told not to attract attention, and now she wasn’t sure whether she should move seats or simply smile and send the man off as soon as she could.
“Are you flying out soon?” the man asked, settling down in the seat next to hers.
Irene smiled weakly at him. Despite the dire nature of her own situation, she couldn’t help but remark on how handsome this man was. Like many Khanour men, he had dark olive skin and jet-black hair, but instead of the brown eyes she had seen throughout her stay, his eyes were an arresting pale green. He was tall and moved with the grace of a natural athlete… or a natural predator. Something about the way he looked tugged at her mind, as if he was someone she had met before, but she shrugged it away.
“I am,” she said. “My plane leaves in just under an hour.”
Irene hoped that would be enough for him, but he nodded knowingly.
“Ah, and where are you headed?”
“The United States,” she offered, and when that still did not seem to be enough, she added, “I’m going home to Pennsylvania.”
He smiled a little.
“Home has a good ring to it, doesn’t it? I’ve just landed at home myself.”
Despite herself, she glanced curiously at him. The men who had given her the package had told her that she was to act natural at all costs. Perhaps this was natural? Talking with someone who was simply not involved in this mess was at least a little calming.
“If you’ve just landed at home, you don’t really seem to be in such a hurry to get there,” she observed. “Unless you live at the airport?”
He chuckled ruefully, shaking his head.
“Fortunately for me, I do not,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to live here. The lines for the falafel are simply too long.”
She smiled a little at his joke.
“I’m sorry,” she said with a little shrug. “I’m sure it’s none of my business what you do or where you go…”
“I don’t mind,” he said, and to her surprise, he seemed to be making himself comfortable in the seat next to her. “If you don’t mind my asking, you don’t seem so eager to get home yourself. Or am I reading this wrong and you are simply afraid of flying?”
Irene knew she should have seized on the excuse. She had a fear of flying, and she needed to concentrate on calming herself down before they took off. Could he please leave? That was the natural thing to say, but instead, a strange version of the truth came out.
“My brother’s in trouble,” she said, her voice soft and pitched only for his ears. “He’s… he’s my twin, and he’s always been the one that couldn’t stay out of trouble, and I guess he’s in it again. I need to fly back home and see if I can help.”
The man’s eyebrows shot up, and he regarded her with renewed curiosity.
“That sounds serious,” he observed.
“It’s terribly serious,” she said, then spoke out loud her greatest fear. “And I’m afraid that even if I do all this, it still isn’t going to get him to a good place. He’s dug himself into some serious holes before, but this one feels different. It feels like this one is too deep by far, and I don’t know if I can help.”
To Irene’s horror, she felt tears well up in her eyes. Whatever else tears might be, they were not subtle or inconspicuous, and she blinked them back rapidly.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I know you didn’t come over her to comfort a woman who must seem insane.”
He smiled at her, pulling out a crisp white handkerchief and handing it to her.
“I’m the one who intruded on your thoughts, and for that I am sorry. I was watching you across the concourse, you see, and when I saw you, something stopped me in my tracks. There was a girl who seemed as if she should have everything going for her. Instead, she sits and looks as if her world has ended.”
“My world hasn’t ended,” she said, a slight smile on her face. “At least, not yet.”
“Yes, because you still have to fly to your brother’s rescue and play hero,” he said with a laugh.
“I’m not a terrible superheroine,” she protested. “I can’t fly, but I can get on a plane, and I don’t have super strength, but I’m pretty darned stubborn.”
He laughed at her, but there was a kindness to it. Despite her success in life, there had been remarkably little kindness, and a part of her bent toward him, like a sunflower turning toward the light.
“I don’t doubt it,” he replied. “I have every faith that you will pull your brother out of whatever hole he has fallen into.”
Somehow, the conversation was helping. The stranger was right; this was simply one more hole that Peter had fallen into. She had saved him many times in the past. She would save him again.
“You said that I was a girl who should have everything going for me,” she said. “What did you mean?”
“It seems shallow perhaps, to say it now, but I simply meant that you looked so lovely sitting here. You’re a beautiful woman, little heroine, all fair hair and pale skin, and those blue eyes of yours could stun a rampaging bull and drop him to his knees. What could a beautiful woman have to be upset by?”
Irene shook her head at him, half-amused and half-frustrated.
“Have you ever talked to women?” she retorted. “Women, whether they are good-looking or not, have plenty of problems.”
“Name one,” he challenged her, and it was such an absurd argument that she simply said the first thing that came to mind.
“Mostly, it begins and ends with men,” she said, and then to Irene’s surprise, they both burst out into laughter.
“All right, all right, I deserve that,” he said. “At least, when I relay it to my female cousins and my aunts later on this week, that is what they will say. And when they ask, who shall I say imparted that particular pearl of wisdom upon me?”
“Irene Bellingham,” she said with a slight smile. “From Kingston, Pennsylvania. And when I’m telling this story to my girlfriends, who did I embarrass myself in front of when I had too much coffee and too little sleep?”
“You can call me Raheem,” he said, and he offered her his hand.
She thought that he was going to shake her hand, but instead he turned it palm down and kissed the knuckles gently.
Somehow, just that little touch sent shivers of electricity bolting through her. The sensation of his skin touching hers, his mouth brushing across her knuckles, was all it took to make her catch her breath.
He pulled back, and the look on his face was just as startled as hers, though he quickly hid it.
“It seems that we have quite a connection, Miss Bellingham. Do you think it is possible to explore that connection later on, when you return to my country?”
For a moment, she wanted nothing more. There was something about this man who called himself Raheem. When she was with him, she didn’t feel afraid or preoccupied with worry about other matters. She hadn’t forgotten what her errand was all about, but somehow, for the last little while, she hadn’t thought about it.
“I’m sorry,” Irene said with genuine regret. “I don’t think I’m going to be returning to Khanour after this.”
Even as she said it, something about it broke her heart. This was a land she had spent more than six months researching, and the art, the culture, and the people called to her, embracing her as nothing ever had before. However, after she had run her dangerous errand, it was simply too likely that she would have to stay in the United States, never to return.
“Ah, a shame, then. Well, if I am ever in Kingston, Pennsylvania, I know that someone who I very much want to get to know better lives there.”
She smiled and then flinched a little as the flight attendant announced her boarding.
“I should go,” she said, standing up and fretting with her bag. “I… thank you for coming over to talk with me.”
He grinned, and there was a little bit of regret and wistfulness there.
“I am glad that I decided to come speak with you as well,” he said softly. “Time spent with someone so lovely is never wasted.”
She smiled, even if it was a little wan.
“Go home,” she said. “You’ve been putting it off long enough.”
He laughed, and then he would have turned to disappear into the crowd if someone hadn’t snatched her bag.
Irene was so startled that she could only shriek, but at the last moment, she managed to wrap her arm around the strap to hang on. The only thing she achieved was getting knocked to her side as the thief regained his footing and kept going.
That’s it, she thought. They’re going to shoot us both, and it will be all my fault…
Then, to her shock, Raheem sprang into action, racing after the thief and seizing the back of his jacket before he had even gone a dozen feet. A crowd gathered to cheer him on as he shook the weedy little thief hard.
“Give it back,” he said, his voice carrying an iron-hard tone of command. “Come on, you little pissant…”
The thief, sullen and furious at his capture, threw her bag to the ground, and to Irene’s horror, the tightly wrapped paper package rattled out to roll a short distance before catching up next to a railing. She started to reach for it, but Raheem, after handing the thief off to airport security, reached it first. He caught it up in his hand, but in the middle of handing it to her, he froze.
In all of the ruckus, a corner of the paper had peeled away, revealing an unmistakable shine of pure yellow gold.
Instead of handing it to her, he straightened up to his full height, ripping the paper away to reveal what was inside.
Irene had had no idea what she was carrying, and when she saw it, her heart skipped a beat. It was a golden statue of a gorgeous little roe deer, curled up with its legs tucked underneath it and its delicate horns curving from its head. Her well-trained historian’s mind told her that it was a fine example of early Islamic period art, a time when the Middle East led the world in art and science. The deer was delicately rendered by the hand of a skilled artist, and to a trained eye, there was no chance of mistaking what it was. It was nothing less than a national treasure, one that was beyond price when it came to history and importance.
When Irene looked up at Raheem, the fury in his eyes made her take a step back She wanted to run, and she wanted to hide, but she could do nothing besides stand there like a stunned deer herself, waiting for the wolves to come and finish her off.
“Do you know what this is?” he asked, his voice vibrating with anger. “Do you have any idea?”
She couldn’t speak. Her throat was closed up with guilt and pain and fear. It was over. Her life was over. Her brother’s life was over. All she could do now was maintain her silence.
He stared at her, and for a moment, she was afraid that he would come and shake her, perhaps even strike her. The men who came to take her by the arms were almost an afterthought. They did not offer the same kind of fear and terror that Raheem did. He looked as if she had personally betrayed his country, offered insult to his relatives. In a very real way, she had.
“What do you want us to do with her, Your Highness?” one of the guards asked deferentially, and for a moment, Irene had no idea what he was saying or who he was addressing. Then she noticed that every eye was on Raheem, who surveyed the situation like a man with infinite control over the world.
A number of emotions flickered over Raheem’s face. She could not track them at all. In the middle of what was one of the lowest points in her life, all she could do was watch Raheem’s face, as if she could see her fate and Peter’s there.
“Take her to the precinct,” he said finally. “I will be in contact with the chief of police and the international crime head.”
When he spoke like that, a part of the puzzle clicked into place. He had told her to call him Raheem, but that was just the start of it. She had thought him handsome, but she had ignored the part of herself that insisted she had seen him before.
As a matter of fact, she had seen his face on the news, on the Internet, and even on the magazine racks on her way through the airport. The man who had been comforting her, flirting with her, soothing away her fears, and making her smile, was none other than Sheikh Raheem ben Ali, the lord of Khanour and ruler of the country from which she was stealing.
As the guards started to lead her away, she twisted her head for one last look at Raheem, who looked as if he were a man carved from stone. He looked after her with a level eye and a stern gaze, but there was something soft there, something that she might only have imagined.
I’m sorry, she mouthed to him before they led her away. I am so sorry.
***
It should have been a good day for Raheem. He had closed negotiations with Dubai early, and though no one had exactly gotten what they wanted, he liked to believe that everyone had at least walked away from the table satisfied.
All he had wanted to do was to get home, kick some of the dust off his well-polished shoes, and spend some time not thinking about anything.
Of course, the comforts of home meant the warm embrace of his family, and that family, though loving, definitely had its own agenda. When his father had died three years ago, Raheem had sworn to himself that he would be happy to take over the task of looking after his mother and aunts. They loved him, they were grateful to him, and they were the ones that knew what was best for him. Of course, what was best for him lined up precisely with traditions that had originated some five hundred years ago in the desert wastes, and they didn’t quite understand that a modern man, let alone the modern ruler of a modern emirate, could not take the same actions as a horse lord might have centuries ago.
He had been heading home, ready to take on the gauntlet of his female relatives, but then something about the small blond sitting in the airport lounge had caught his eye. Even now, he couldn’t say what it was. He knew what the police officers would have said. They would say he had picked out a criminal with the native sharp instincts of his ferocious ancestors. They would say he had picked up on the thousand invisible cues of a wrongdoer and pounced with intent to capture and restrain.
He knew that it hadn’t been that.
There was something about the girl—Irene Bellingham, he remembered, if that was her real name—that had captured his eye, and once she had it, she would not let him go. He had known many women who were far more beautiful, many women who were far more educated and polished, but something about this woman had caught him and held him.
If the thief hadn’t appeared like the righteous hand of providence, he would have simply said good-bye to her and thought of her from time to time. But the thief had intervened, and when that occurred, had revealed a much greater crime.
He had known what the statue was the moment he had seen it, and when he thought about that previously lost treasure leaving his country, he saw red. It was the work of the master craftsman Qebbi ben Faddir, who had made only four such statues some three hundred years ago. Only one had ever been recovered, and this second one was thought have been destroyed decades ago.
He had come home from his talks with the police and with the agents in charge of international matters. He had stalked past his relatives and gone straight to his apartments at the palace. When some ill-advised person had tried to knock on his door, Raheem had roared with anger and thrown a valuable cut glass tumbler at the door. The shattering glass had been satisfying, but only for a moment.
His people had stories of evil spirits that could follow you for all your days. A moment’s carelessness, and suddenly, one of these spirits would appear, following you and bedeviling you so that you never received a moment of peace or rest.
He had never wondered before what one of those monsters might look like, but now he was becoming to believe that it had blond hair and blue eyes that were like falling into the deepest part of an oasis pool.
Even through his fury, her bright blue gaze had cut him right through the heart. The police were leading her away to face her crimes, and when she turned to him, she had not begged for her life. She had not cursed at him or smirked, either one of which would have at least made sense.
No, she had looked at him, and she had apologized. There was grief and sorrow in her heart, but none of it seemed focused on getting caught or in losing a valuable treasure. Instead, Irene had wanted to apologize to him, and that had struck a hard blow against his heart, stunning him.
Even now, hours later, he couldn’t understand it.
He strode to the balcony and cast it open to stand in the cool night air. The sun had set hours ago, but now the glow from the city of Khanour itself could be seen. One of the richest cities in the emirates, and one of the most modern, it shone like a star itself, casting a glow so vivid that someone might believe that the city had turned night into day.
In Khanour, Raheem ruled without question. There was a parliament to govern the city, but when he chose to intervene in civic matters, his word was literally law.
Why now did he feel so powerless? What had happened in that airport, over that scanty hour, that had changed him?
He was changed now, no matter how hard he tried to deny it. He felt like a beast brought to bay, something changing without any way to answer or halt it.
Raheem looked down over his kingdom, and he knew what the answer was. It lay with a beautiful girl in one of the darkest places in Khanour, and he had to have her.