The Forced Bride Of Alazar

What would she do here, as Azim’s wife? Lie on a bed with her face to the wall, as her mother had these many years, trapped by her own endless despair? Johara resisted that with a deep, frightened instinct. She had long ago vowed never to be like her mother, had chosen a cheerful, optimistic approach to life as a matter of principle, because to give in to doubt or despair was no life at all. Yet optimism was hard to find now.

So then would she devote herself to her children, if they came, and try to forget the unending loneliness of being yoked to a man who had no interest in her beyond her bloodline? Would she be able to make friends, make a life? There was so much she didn’t know, so much she couldn’t imagine and didn’t even want to imagine. She wanted more for her life than what Azim was offering. She wanted more for her life than any arranged marriage could provide. It had taken a fleeting week of precious freedom to make her realise that.

She sank onto a divan by the window, her body aching with both emotional and physical fatigue. It had been a little more than twelve hours since her father had told her she was marrying Azim. And only a week until she would be forced to say her vows...unless she could find some way out of this disaster—seek her father and try to persuade him to end the engagement. He had to listen to her. He loved her, she reminded herself. She was his habibti, his treasure, his little pearl. He wouldn’t let her suffer a fate such as this.

* * *

Azim blinked in the gloom of his bedchamber, the migraine having finally lessened to a dull, endurable throb, the fragments of a dream still piercing his brain in poignant shards. He’d been back in Naples, hiding from Paolo, cowering and afraid. He hated that dream. He hated how it made him feel.

With determined effort Azim shook it off, banishing the memories of his confusion and fear. He was a sultan-in-waiting now, restored to his rightful place, a man of power and authority. He would not allow himself to be bested by his old nightmares, even if he’d had more and more of them since returning to Alazar.

He had no idea what time it was, but he noted the moonlight sliding between the shutters and knew it had been many hours. He closed his eyes, his whole body aching with the effort of having battled the pain—and won.

The headaches that had plagued him since he was fourteen years old had been getting worse since he’d returned to Alazar, no doubt from the unrelieved tension of being back in a place with so many bitter memories, as well as his legacy hanging by no more than a slender thread. He hated the fragility of his position, the powerlessness it made him feel. No wonder he’d had that old dream. He had no idea if the old tribes of the desert would accept him as a leader when he had been gone from his country, from his people’s memory, for so long. He had only been a boy when he’d been taken, an event he couldn’t actually remember. He had not yet had a chance to prove himself capable and worthy of command, no matter that his grandfather had been preparing him for it for years. Marrying Johara, as unwilling as she was, would help to cement his position as the next Sultan. He needed her compliance...or at least her perceived compliance. How she felt didn’t matter at all as long as she obeyed.

Sighing heavily, he rose from his bed, the room see-sawing around him until he was able to blink it back into balanced focus. It wasn’t only the pressures and tenuousness of his role that weighed on him now. It was the look of shocked hurt in Johara’s clear grey eyes when he’d issued his flat commands earlier that day. He had not attempted to soften them with the merest modicum of kindness or compassion; he’d been in too much pain as well as too angry at her own unguarded reaction, when she’d looked up at the palace and he alone had seen the truth in her face.

He supposed he would need to remedy the situation somehow, but he was not a man prone to apologies. In the world he inhabited an apology was weakness, the admission of any guilt a mistake. He could not afford to do that now, even if he wanted to, which he did not. It was better for his new bride not to have any expectations except obedience.

‘Azim?’ Malik spoke softly from behind the bedroom door. Quickly Azim grabbed his shirt and pulled it on. He’d shucked it off in the worst throes of the migraine, when he’d been covered in icy sweat, but he was always careful to keep his back covered. No one, not even his infrequent lovers, had seen his scars. No one would know of his shame.

He flicked on the lights even though the flash of brightness sliced through his head like a laser. He straightened his clothes and ran a hand over his closely cropped hair, determined that Malik not see any sign of his weakness.

‘Enter.’

Malik came in, closing the door quietly behind him. ‘You are well?’

‘Yes, of course. What is it?’ He spoke more tersely than he’d intended, and saw the flash of bruised recognition in his brother’s eyes. Once, a lifetime ago, they’d been close, leaning on each other when the adults in their lives had failed them, but now Azim had no idea how to navigate that old, once-precious relationship. For too long everyone had felt like an enemy, someone who would break the trust he now refused to give.

‘You spoke to Johara?’

‘Yes. She is not as compliant as her father indicated.’

Malik leaned one powerful shoulder against the doorframe, his arms folded. ‘She knows her duty.’

‘I would hope so.’ Azim reached for his trousers, preferring the Western dress he was far more comfortable in after twenty years in Italy, at least in private. ‘I told her we would marry in a week’s time.’

Malik’s eyebrows rose. ‘So soon?’

‘I do not have time to waste.’

‘Still, that is rather quick,’ Malik said mildly. ‘Considering only a week ago she was meant to marry me.’

‘She was meant,’ Azim clarified with clipped precision, ‘to marry the heir to the Sultanate, whoever that was.’

Malik inclined his head. ‘You are right, of course. But she is very young, and she is not as used to our ways as you might—’

‘I thought you did not know her.’ Azim heard the edge to his voice and turned away from his brother. The knowledge that Johara had been meant for Malik gave him a deep-seated sense of resentment that he did not fully understand. He knew Malik and Johara had never so much as kissed, and yet still he resisted the notion of them together. So much had been taken from him, including his bride. He was more determined than ever to gain it all back, no matter what the cost—or who paid the price.

‘She said she has spent most of her time in France,’ he remarked to Malik. ‘Why is that?’

Malik shrugged. ‘Her mother has been ill for a long time. Arif has kept her away from Alazar.’

‘Simply because she is ill? That does not seem sensible.’

‘I am not quite sure of the details,’ Malik answered. ‘Arif never speaks of her.’ He paused. ‘That seems intentional.’

Azim frowned. ‘I was assured Johara’s bloodline was impeccable—’

‘It is. But even impeccable bloodlines contain people with problems, with illness or suffering.’

Azim did not answer. God knew he had his own share of suffering, and he was descended from kings. ‘Well,’ he said after a moment. ‘She will comply. She has no choice.’

‘A little kindness might go a long way,’ Malik suggested mildly. ‘Considering her youth and inexperience.’

Azim had come to that conclusion himself, but he didn’t particularly like hearing it from Malik. And what kindness could he offer her? He had no time or interest, not to mention ability, in wooing, paying court or offering flattery. He was a man of action, not words. He always had been. And in the world he’d lived in these last twenty years, flattery got you nowhere.

‘I can manage my own bride,’ he told Malik, his tone curt. Malik nodded, his mouth a pressed line. Tension simmered between them. Once they’d been as close as brothers could be, sharing everything, including sorrow, and now—what? Reluctant allies, perhaps, but even that was a step of faith for him, a level of trust he wasn’t comfortable with, not even with Malik.

After Malik had left Azim summoned an attendant to his room. ‘Send some fabric to Sadiyyah Behwar,’ he instructed. ‘Brocade and satin, spare no expense. As a gift from me, for her wedding dress. And ensure there are seamstresses on hand to do her bidding.’ He knew she already possessed a gown from her intended wedding to Malik, but he wanted her to have a new one, one that was just for him. A new start for a new marriage. He hoped Johara appreciated his gesture.

CHAPTER THREE (#uf2605fab-884b-5e3b-9981-4b5eec157bea)

JOHARA WRAPPED HER arms around herself, suppressing a shiver despite the sultry summer air, as she looked out on the steep roofs and steeples of Paris’s Latin Quarter. She’d arrived back in Nice that morning and she was still trying to ignore the icy panic creeping coldly over her—and to convince herself that she’d made the right decision.

In the end it had been both easy and heartbreaking. She closed her eyes against the look of icy disbelief in her father’s eyes when she’d asked him to delay the wedding. The memory of the conversation caused pain to lance through her again.

‘F-F-F...Father,’ she’d stammered, inwardly cringing at the look of barely concealed impatience in her father’s face. She’d caught him leaving a meeting, and the other diplomats and dignitaries had eyed her with cold disapproval, a woman trying to break into a man’s world.

‘What are you doing here, Johara?’ Arif asked. He glanced back at his colleagues. ‘She is to marry His Highness Azim next week.’

‘That’s what I wanted to talk about,’ Johara said, trying to gather the tattered remnants of her courage. ‘About the marriage...’

‘What is it?’ Arif grabbed her elbow and steered her to a private alcove. ‘You are humiliating me in public,’ he snapped, his eyes narrowed to dark slits, everything in him radiating icy disapproval. Johara shrank back, shocked. He’d never looked at her like this back in France, even when she’d dared to risk his displeasure.

‘Azim is...very cold.’

‘Cold?’ Arif looked nonplussed.

‘He seems almost cruel,’ Johara whispered, losing courage by the second. ‘I...I don’t want to marry him. I can’t!’

Arif stared at her, his lips thinned, the skin around them white. ‘Clearly I have spoiled you,’ he stated in a hard voice. ‘For you to be speaking this way to me now.’

‘Father, please—’

‘You have been petted and indulged your whole life,’ Arif cut her off. ‘And I have asked only one thing of you, something that is a great honour and privilege. And now you tell me to humiliate myself and my family, risk my career and livelihood, because you find him a little cold?’ He shook his head slowly. ‘I will do my best to pretend this conversation has not happened.’

‘But, Father, if you love me...’ Johara began, her voice shaking. ‘Then surely you wouldn’t...’