There was still no sign of deference. No hint that she might wish to plead for her freedom.
“I’m Dr. Anya Turner, emergency medicine.” Again, her dark eyes flashed. “I’m a doctor. I help people. While you’re nothing but a tiny little man who thinks his dungeon and his armed guards make him something other than a pig.”
CHAPTER TWO
ANYAHADEXPECTEDthis moment to be sweet and satisfying, if it ever came, but it went off better than she’d imagined.
And she’d done very little elsebutimagine it.
For months.
The Sheikh of Alzalam himself stood before her. The man who every guard she’d encountered had spoken of in terms of such overwrought awe and glory that they’d made it a certainty that Anya would have loathed him on sight.
Even if she wasn’t incarcerated in his personal prison.
She didn’t much care for arrogant men at the best of times, which this obviously was not. Between her own father and every male doctor she’d ever met—not to mention the surgeons, who could teach arrogance to kings like this one and would not need an invitation to do so—Anya was full up on condescending males. An eight-month holiday in the company of these prison guards had not helped any.
And the way the Sheikh stared back at her, as ifdumbstruckthat she wasn’t even now weeping at his feet, did not exactly inspire her to change her mind about the male ego.
The stunned silence went on.
Anya found herself sitting a little straighter, a little taller, as if that would protect her if the Sheikh had finally turned up only to go medieval on her. It occurred to her that, perhaps, she should have tried to get herself out of the dungeon before shooting off her mouth.
A lesson she never seemed to learn, did she?
After all these months, she’d figured she already knew how bad things could get here. She’d decided that sharing her unbridled feelings couldn’t make thingsworse.What was worse than finding herself locked away in a literal dungeon in a country she wasn’t even supposed to be in—separated from her colleagues who were very possibly dead and being kept alive for reasons no one had seen fit to share with her?
But as she stared back at the tall, ferocious, and obviously powerful man on the other side of her cell door, she was terribly afraid he might have a few answers to that question she wouldn’t like.
Anya held her breath, but he didn’t move. He only stared her down, inviting her to do the same.
There was a wall of other men behind him, staring at her in shock and disapproval, buthelooked like he was attempting to crawl inside her head.
Anya didn’t know what was wrong with her that she wanted to let him. Just because staring at him made her feel alive again. Just because it was different.
It had beeneight months. Some two hundred and forty days, give or take. At first she’d intended to scratch each day into the walls, because wasn’t that what people did? But she’d quickly discovered that someone—quite a few someones, or so she hoped, given the number of slash marks she’d found—had beaten her to it. She’d found that depressing. So depressing that she’d covered up the marks once the guards started permitting her furniture.
She had already cycled through fear. Despair. Over and over again, in those early days, until the panic faded.
Because that was the funny thing about time. It had a flattening effect. The human body couldn’t maintain adrenaline that long. Sooner or later, routine took over. And with routine, a tacit acceptance.
She’d become friendly with her guards, though nevertoofriendly. She’d learned the language, because that meant she was less in the dark. They’d made her comfortable, and over time, it became more and more clear that they had no intention of hurting her. Or no immediate plans to try, anyway.
Anya would have said she didn’t have much fear left. She would have meant it.
Though the longer she stared at the man before her, stern and forbidding and focused intently on her, the more it reintroduced itself to the back of her neck. Then began tracing its way down her spine.
Maybe that’s not entirely fear, something inside her suggested.
But she dismissed that. Because it was crazy.
And she had no intention of losing her mind in here, no matter how tempting it was. No matter how much she thought she might like a little touch of oblivion to make the time pass.
Okay, yes, she told herself impatiently.He is remarkably attractive for a pig.
Thoughattractivewas an understatement.
He was dressed all in white, and in a contrast to the variously colored robes all the men wore around him, his fit him more closely. And more, were edged in gold. She probably should have known from that alone that he was the man in charge.