The pen he’d forgotten he was holding snapped in his hand and he muttered a curse, throwing the pieces into the wastebasket that sat beside his desk in his private office, the pen fragments making an oddly satisfying sound as they hit the metal sides.
He wished it was the poisonous Elizaveta instead.
“You are not truly planning to sneak past me, are you?” he gritted out, as if to the walls around him. As if to the ghosts that the locals claimed had plagued this place for centuries. “Do you imagine that is wise?”
A moment later, Amaya appeared in the doorway. She was still wearing the gown she’d had on in the throne room earlier, which displayed her femininity so beautifully and yet with such exquisite restraint that it made his throat hurt. That hair of hers that he was beginning to view as an addiction he might well succumb to completely was still caught up in all the braids and twists that he thought made her look something like ethereal. Something so much more than merely a bartered bride, his for the taking, though she was that, too. She was everything.
She was so lovely—so very much Amaya and his—it made his chest feel hollow. Scraped raw.
But it took her too long to raise her gaze to his and when she did, those chocolate eyes of hers were much too dark. Too troubled by far. He eyed her from across the span of the room, temper beginning to pound through him as if he were running flat out across the desert sands, straight on toward the enemy.
Amaya crossed her arms over her chest and he hated it. He hated the defensive gesture itself. He hated that she felt she had to make it. Even after he’d combed the whole of the earth for her. Even after everything he’d told her. Even though she knew the truth about him and it had not made her hate him.
Apparently only her mother could do that.
He wanted to throw back his head and howl, like some kind of wild thing, all claws and fangs.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Amaya’s voice was a scrape against the quiet and did very little to calm him.
“How am I looking at you?” he asked. Mildly. “As if I think you might be rationalizing a new way to betray me even as we stand here?” He studied her. “Are you?”
Something sparked in her dark eyes. “I can’t betray you, Kavian. By definition. First I would have to pledge myself to you in some meaningful way, of my own volition.”
“Careful, Amaya.” His voice was rougher, deeper. “Be very, very careful.”
The elegant column of her throat moved as she swallowed, but she didn’t look away.
“Did you sleep with all seventeen of the women you kept here in your harem?”
He muttered something harsh in Arabic that he was quite certain she understood, but she only tipped that sweet chin of hers higher and let that mouth of hers go mulish. “It’s a simple yes or no question.”
“Ten of my so-called concubines were under the age of fifteen,” he told her, and it was a remarkable experience for him. He had never explained himself to another living soul, as far as he could remember. He had never felt the slightest compulsion to do so. “They were gifts from each of the ten tribes who live in the great desert, as is tradition. I brought them here to educate them, to make them aristocratic women who could do as they pleased rather than chattel to be bartered and traded in the desert encampments. Most of them are currently studying abroad, or have made excellent marriages.” He tried not to grit his teeth. “And, no, I did not sleep with these teenagers, Amaya. My tastes run to grown women, as you should know better than anyone.”
She didn’t crack. “Seven women, then.”
“My predecessor 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.”