release.” Kavian kept his voice low, because it was the only thing keeping his hands from her, and his court waited for them even now. “I will hold you on that edge until you scream and then I will remind you that we have no relationship. No relationship, no release. Is that what you had in mind?”
He could hear her breathing, too loud and too fast. And her gaze was wild as it met his. But when she spoke, her voice was flat. Almost matter-of-fact.
“They are waiting for us in the throne room,” she said.
He didn’t believe her apparent calm for a moment. But once again, he admired her courage. The way she stood up to him, the way she gathered herself when he could see the storms in her. The more she kept trying to prove they did not suit, the more perfect he found her.
“They can wait a little while longer.” He raised his brows. “Until we arrive, it is only a very large room with a dramatic chair no one is permitted to touch. By law.”
“That I get to stand behind, yes,” she bit out. She moved then, sweeping past him toward the door, her spine rigid and her head high. “What a joyous experience that will be, I am sure. I can hardly wait.”
He let her go, following behind her as she made her way from their suite and into the grand corridor that led toward the public wing of the palace and the ancient throne room that sat at its center. His aides converged upon him as they walked, and it was not until they’d entered the room and taken their places on the raised dais that dominated one end of the ornate hall that he focused on her once more.
“You stand beside me, not behind me,” he told her. He could not have said what moved him to do so. That she was still pale. That her sweet mouth was set in a hard line no matter that defiant angle to her fine jaw. That she still seemed to imagine that this was something other than foregone conclusion. “A strong king holds the throne, Amaya, but a strong queen beside him holds the kingdom. So say the poets.”
He saw something flicker in her gaze then. “And do you rule with poetry? That doesn’t sound like the man who dragged me out of that café in Canada.”
“You walked out of that café in Canada of your own volition,” he reminded her. “Just as you walked into that encampment in the desert and just as you will walk down that aisle in a few days. My queen obeys me because she chooses it. That is her gift. It is my job to earn it.”
An expression he couldn’t define moved over her face then, as the guards stood at attention down the length of the long hall and announced the series of guests who awaited their notice, and her mother’s arrival. Kavian eyed her as her mother’s name rang out, taking in Amaya’s too-stiff posture. The way she gripped her hands before her, so hard her knuckles hinted at white.
“You are afraid of your own mother,” he murmured. “Why is that?”
But the great doors were opening at the other end of the hall, and she didn’t answer him. Because her mother was walking in and Amaya sucked in an audible breath at the sight, as if she couldn’t help herself. As if she truly was afraid.
Kavian turned slowly to gaze upon the person who could bring out this reaction in the only woman he’d ever met who had never seemed particularly intimidated by him.
Elizaveta al Bakri looked like every photograph Kavian had ever seen of her. She appeared almost supernaturally ageless. She was an icy blonde, her hair swept back into a ruthless chignon and her objectively beautiful face flawless, with only the faintest touch of cosmetics to enhance the high, etched cheekbones she’d passed on to her daughter. Her blue eyes were frigid despite the placid expression on her face, her carriage that of a prima ballerina. She looked tall and willowy and effortless as she strode down the long hall toward the throne, quite as if she hadn’t flown halfway across the world today, and yet as far as Kavian was concerned she was little more than a reptile.
Much like his own, long-dead mother.
“Breathe,” Kavian ordered Amaya in a dark undertone.
He felt more than saw her stiffen beside him, then he heard her exhale.
He kept his attention on the snake.
Elizaveta made a beautiful, studied obeisance when she came before the throne, sweeping deep into a curtsey and then rising in a single, elegant motion that called attention to her lovely figure. But then, most snakes were mesmerizingly sinuous. That didn’t make them any less venomous.
“Your Majesty,” Elizaveta murmured, her voice threaded through with the faintest hint of an accent that Kavian suspected she maintained simply to appear slightly exotic wherever she went. Then she shifted her attention to her daughter. “Amaya. Darling. It’s been too long.”
“You may go to her,” Kavian said in an indulgent tone. It was over-the-top even for him and Amaya glanced at him, startled—but he trusted that the look in his eyes was savage enough to keep her from saying anything. Hers widened in response.
Challenge me, he suggested with his gaze alone. I dare you.
But Amaya merely moved toward Elizaveta, and Kavian was aware of too many things at once as she went. It was the same overly focused attention to detail that he experienced before an attack, whether while practicing the martial arts he’d trained in all his life or in an actual physical skirmish. The vastness of the great room as it echoed around his betrothed. The rustle of her long skirts as she descended the wide stairs. And the way this woman who was meant to be her mother looked at her as she waited, her expression still something like serene yet with nothing but calculation in her chilly gaze as far as he could tell.
The hug was perfunctory, the highly European double-cheek kiss a performance, and Kavian wanted to throw the older woman across the room. He wanted her hands off Amaya, that surge of protectiveness coming from deep, deep inside him, and it took all of his considerable self-control to keep himself from heeding it.
“I’m so glad you came,” Amaya said to her, quietly.
And Kavian reminded himself that this was still her mother. Amaya actually meant that. It was the only reason he did not throw this creature from his palace.
“Of course I came,” Elizaveta replied, bright and smooth and still. It wedged beneath Kavian’s skin like a blade. “Where else would I be but by your side on your wedding day?”
“Your maternal instincts are legendary indeed,” Kavian interjected, like a dark fury from above, his gaze the only thing harder than his voice. “The world is a large place, is it not, and you have explored so many different corners of it with Amaya in tow. An unconventional education for a princess, I am sure.”
Elizaveta inclined her head in a show of respect that Kavian was quite certain was entirely feigned. Amaya stared back at him, stricken. And he could not hurt her. He could not.
“But I welcome you to Daar Talaas,” he said then, for the woman who would be his wife. His perfect queen. He waited for the older woman to raise her head, and then he nearly smiled. “I do so hope you will enjoy your stay in my palace. What a shame it will be so brief.”
* * *
“He is rather Sturm und Drang, isn’t he?” Elizaveta asked Amaya when they were alone hours later, after a long day of formal greetings and diplomatic speeches. She sounded arch and amused and faintly condemning besides. As if this were all a terrific joke but only she knew the punch line. “Even for a sheikh. I’d
