The Sheikh's Lost Princess

“I cannot. I have family who … I cannot, sir.”

The old woman was not Taj. That much was clear. But how long had she been living with them? Long enough to bear Taj children?

Suddenly, the old woman was too much of a liability to leave behind—but killing her was out of the question. “Sorry. You go with us.”

Moving with the speed of lightning, Shakir grabbed the old woman up with one arm, then swung around and picked up Nicole with the other. Neither of the women was a burden. Both weighed less than his backpack. The old woman went limp against his side, but Nicole was another matter.

She didn’t shriek or call out but beat at him with her fists. “Put me down. I can walk.”

He hesitated. “Will you behave? If I set you down, you must keep up. And you must do exactly as I say. Everything. Understood?”

Nicole nodded but kept her mouth closed. Good girl.

He lowered her to her feet. “We don’t have a lot of time left.”

Taking her elbow, he guided her out into the narrow hallway. Once again in darkness, he flipped the NVGs over his eyes. But he didn’t really need infrareds to see. He had memorized every inch of the maze inside this building and they weren’t that far from an exit. He could make it blindfolded.

Moving like a cat, Shakir let his instincts take control. He wanted to blank his mind, to act as he had been trained—without thought. But that look in Nicole’s eyes still bothered him.

He tried to reconcile the tough woman in a makeshift disguise with the sophisticated royal he had once both loved and then hated, but couldn’t make the connection. In a way, he should be impressed with her. Impressed that she would’ve taken the initiative to disguise herself and try to escape on her own. The Nicole he remembered was a follower, not a leader.

Slanting her a glance in the dark, he wondered what kind of person this new Nicole had become. And if he would care for her as much as the Nicole he’d fallen in love with long ago. So far, that seemed highly unlikely.

Nikki let Shakir lead them out of the harem and into the fresh air. She still couldn’t believe it was really him. When he’d first said her name, shock waves of memory blasted right through her system like an earthquake.

Of all the people in the world. Why now?

There’d been a time when she would have given ten years of her life just to see him again. To hear him say her name. To have him tell her what to do.

But that was long ago. A different lifetime.

In this lifetime, he presented a threat. Oh, not that she thought he might hurt her. She knew without question that he would never do such a thing.

No, the biggest threat Shakir posed today was that he had a different agenda from hers. Nikki wasn’t sure exactly what his agenda entailed. But she knew he must have some reason for showing up here in Zabbarán all of a sudden. Since he couldn’t possibly know what she needed most, what she longed to get back, he could not be trusted.

It didn’t take much for her mind to travel from that thought to the next—she might not trust him, but she could use him. She’d seen the light in his eyes when he’d first realized it was her under the makeup. She’d also caught his slight distraction whenever they touched. He’d felt that instant charge the same way as she had. He still had feelings for her.

But Nikki could not let her own distraction deter her from her goal. She would use the charge between them, that sexual awareness, to her best advantage.

With Lalla thrown over his shoulder, Shakir led Nikki through the gardens toward the outer perimeter wall. He was heading toward the hidden gate. She’d been told by Lalla that no one else knew about the almost invisible exit in the wall.

Squaring her shoulders, Nikki prepared for a surprise confrontation at the gate. If he knew about it, others might know and be waiting. This could be some kind of trap. Nikki only wished she still had the dagger that Shakir forced her to leave behind.

When they reached the farthest wall, Shakir leaned down and whispered, “We’re late. Make no noise.”

Noise was the last thing she had on her mind when freedom was this close. She froze, silent and panting, as he released her to lean against the wall.

The gate was nearby. Only a few yards away, but Shakir didn’t move in that direction. Instead, he ignored the gate and withdrew a long doubled up rope with a hook arrangement on the end and began twisting it in his hands. In a few seconds, he pitched the hook end up and over the ten-foot wall. A distant clank told her the hook had hit something solid on the other side.

After another few rope maneuvers, Shakir turned to her. “You first. Put your foot in the loop. I’ll hoist you to the top of the wall. Wait for us there.”

One second’s hesitation was all she allowed herself. She slid her sandal into the loop, locked her knee and hung on to the rope with both hands. The ride to the top went quickly and she crawled up on the wide ledge. Taking a breath, she dropped the rope loop back over the same way she’d come up.

Nikki couldn’t imagine how Shakir would be able to climb up on his own, especially since he had to carry Lalla. But moments later he was standing beside her.

“Down is trickier,” he whispered. “Got the nerve to try it? Or shall I make two trips—one for you and one for the old woman?”

“Tell me what to do.”

Shakir gave her a quick lesson in rappelling. If Nikki hadn’t been so scared, she might have hesitated to go backward over the edge. But she was determined not to draw any attention or cause any trouble.

Not until the last second when she could make a break for it. Shakir and the others might be leaving by helicopter, but she wasn’t leaving Zabbarán. Not without her son.

She still had her map, her compass and the ability to navigate by the stars. And she could rely on her wits. The only difference now was that with all the others leaving by helicopter, her captors would assume she had left the country as well. They would not be quite as quick to give chase.

Her goal remained the same. She had come to this country to rescue her son.

Dragging Nicole by her arm and carrying the old woman, Shakir traipsed across the sands to a stand of date palms not twenty yards away from the wall. He used a simulated high-pitched falcon whistle to warn the others of their approach.

Out of the darkness, Tarik appeared like a ghostly spirit and handed him a canteen. “The others have already headed for the coordinates. The women hostages are so drugged, they’ve been no trouble. There’s not much time left and ten miles to travel.”

Shakir took the first sip then put the canteen to the old woman’s lips and waited for her to drink. She was not cooperative but he forced her to swallow a couple of priceless drops. Afterward, he handed the canteen over to Nicole.

“I’ll take the old woman,” Tarik told him. “You take Nicole. We can make better time if we carry the women rather than try to walk them that far.”

Shakir nodded at his brother and turned to Nicole. “This may not be comfortable, but it’s for the best.”

“Stop …”

Not waiting for her to complain uselessly and waste any of their precious time, he hoisted Nicole over his shoulders and moved out behind Tarik. It was a difficult ten miles over rough terrain to the extraction point and he knew she would never make it under her own power. This was the only way for them to arrive in time.

At any point along the way, if either of these two women cried out for some reason, all of them would be at the mercy of the Taj Zabbar soldiers. Sounds traveled far in the night desert air. Explaining that to Nicole now, however, was impossible. He had to hope against hope that she was smart enough to keep silent.

In his opinion, the going was easy but too slow. He tried to follow an old camel trail, but sand had blown over it in spots and drifts were several feet deep in many places.

Carrying Nicole wrapped around his neck and draped on his shoulders was the easiest part. She was as light as a bird. He didn’t remember her body being this lean in the past. Perhaps the Taj had starved her while she was their prisoner. That notion made him grit his teeth.

After they were flown to freedom and had a moment to reflect and talk, he wanted to ask her how she had come to be captured by the Taj. Had they taken her by force? Shakir didn’t like the idea of that any better than the idea of her starving at their hands.

After her initial surprise at being carried, Nicole’s body relaxed and she was completely silent during their march across the sand. Grateful for the favor, Shakir only wished he could’ve had a moment to still her fears and calm her down before they began the trip. Grabbing her up like a bag of sheep feed and slinging her over his shoulder seemed barbaric. Like something he may have seen done to women back when he’d learned to live as a desert warrior at his grandfather’s knee.

The more he thought about it, the more horrified he was by his own savage reaction. Despite having done it for her best interests, he knew she would never forget. He could only hope she would be able to forgive him someday, though he doubted if he could forgive himself.

They ended up covering the ten miles of desert in good time. In a little over two hours, he looked ahead and spotted the chopper hovering over a wide flat surface. The other members of the team were boarding with their human cargo.

Worried that they were too exposed in the open desert, Shakir halted about fifty yards shy of the pickup zone and lowered Nicole to the ground beside a creosote bush. “Sit and stretch your legs out in front of you for a moment. I’m going in closer to help load the other women. For safety’s sake, I’ll board you at the last possible second. I don’t want to take any chances on surprise sniper fire. Think you can walk?”

Rubbing at her feet to get the circulation back, Nicole looked up at him with that strange expression in her eyes again. “I can walk. May I have the canteen?”