can get on now,” he said, four AK-47s slung over his shoulder.
For a split second, she considered fighting him for the guns.
His gaze was sharp on her face, steady. She could barely stand. If she didn’t succeed, what would he do? Kill her, leave her to die in the desert or tie her up and take her to his camp anyway? She had to face the truth—she could not overtake him. To try would accomplish nothing but tip her hand and make escape more difficult later.
She mounted, and as soon as she was in the saddle, he vaulted up behind her. His arms, one on each side of her now, held onto the rein and set the horse going with a gentle flick.
As if the moving animal had unbalanced her, she slid to the side, testing Saeed. His arm barely moved, although she’d leaned her full weight against it.
He was strong and in control of his strength. In control of her, too, for the moment. As temporary as it was, she didn’t like the feeling. Dara straightened herself in the saddle. He was taking her, whether she wanted to go with him or not.
Fine. She would ride to his camp, eat, get her hands on a few flasks of water, then sneak away at the first opportunity. Shouldn’t set her back more than a day.
SAEED KEPT HIS EYES on the desert, constantly scanning the horizon, unsure when or from where the next ambush would come, knowing only that they weren’t done with him yet.
The woman in front of him had made a valiant effort of staying upright when they’d first mounted, but was now sagging farther back in the saddle, losing her strength rapidly. Her back touched his chest and she jerked forward, but soon was slipping again.
He let go of the rein with his left hand to pull her fully against him, leaving his arm around her waist to hold her in place, unsure how much longer she could do it on her own. “Rest.”
“I’m fine,” she said, but didn’t pull away.
She felt frail in his arms, but he knew better. She had survived several days in the open desert, taken out an armed assassin with a knife from forty meters. Helpless she was not.
And yet, despite knowing she was probably part of whatever band of thieves had robbed his tribe, he could not quench the surge of protective feelings inside him. Probably because she was a woman, in his arms.
It had been a while since he’d held anyone. Although her head was covered with her makeshift headdress once again, it would be some time before he would forget her face and the way she had looked at him. Her eyes shone like jewels—black onyx with freckles of gold.
She felt soft in all the right places, all sinuous muscle in others. Her shapely behind wedged between his thighs moved against him slightly to the rhythm of the horse, bringing thoughts to his mind the likes of which he had been too busy to think for far too long.
He brought his focus back to more pressing issues. “Where are the rest of your people?”
She stiffened. “I don’t remember anyone.”
Hard to say if she was lying or not. He would have expected a foreign woman who found herself in the desert in the middle of a gunfight with no idea of how she’d gotten there to be a little more frazzled. Maybe she was in shock, too numb for hysterics. No. Not shock. She had thrown that knife with precision, good and steady. And she appeared fine, save her weakness from exposure and lack of food and water. And of course lack of memory—if she wasn’t faking that.
With his attackers dead, once again she was the only possible source of information he had. As much as she wanted to reach Tihrin, he could not let her go until he found out for whom she worked and what her purpose was here.
She shivered in his arms.
“Here.” He slipped off his kaffiyeh, wrapped it around her head, neck and shoulders as best as he could. “Before today you don’t remember anything?” He tried again.
Her response came slower than before. “Nothing. I think maybe I got lost.”
He chewed on that for a while.
She wasn’t an assassin. She could have let that man shoot him or, for that matter, she could have buried that knife in his chest just as easily as she’d done in the attacker’s back. But if she wasn’t in league with the assassins, chances were she was in league with the thieves. Her proximity to the cave when he had found her certainly pointed in that direction.
She had come to steal from him, then had a fallout with her partners in crime who’d left her in the desert for dead. If that was the case, she could hardly reveal her identity to anyone. But with time, if she came to trust him… For a suitable reward she might be willing to give up those who had betrayed her.
But not anytime soon. She was completely limp in his arms. He tightened his hold on her to make sure she wouldn’t slip out of the saddle now that she was out again.
The wadi they rode in deepened, until he could no longer see out. He didn’t mind. If someone drove across the sand at a distance they wouldn’t see him, but he would be able to hear the noise of their motor. And they were close to camp now. That, too, made him more comfortable.
Soon he would be able to see the small rocky jebel, not even a hill but more of a tall outcropping of stones, that protected the encampment from the wind on the east side. A small path led down, steep but doable. Hawk could manage just about any terrain.
He turned the horse up the familiar incline when they reached it. Another few feet and they were high enough so he could see over the bank. And saw the men. He pulled on Hawk’s rein, and without a word, made the horse retreat, then stopped him when he was sure they were back out of sight again. There were people on the ledge above the encampment, two Jeeps with seven men that he had counted.
Not his people.
Had he been alone, he would have crept closer to investigate; as it was, he had to go around, miles out of his way, to get all the way behind the camp without being seen.
He managed, pushing Hawk more than he should have, worried he might lose the stranger in his arms.
DARA STARED at the enormous weaving to her left that hung from the black ceiling of the opulent tent, dividing it in half. Willing the pain in her shoulder to go away, she let her gaze glide over the vibrant colors that made up the slightly off, ornate pattern in the badly woven material. She had fleeting memories of a woman, wrapped in black from head to toe, bending over her. What happened to her?
Sunlight filtered through the cloth panels, the voices of distant chatter coming from outside. Déjà vu. She shook her head to clear it of the memories of summers she had spent on the reservation when she was young. She had loved her mother’s Lenape heritage as a small child, hated it as a teenager, denied it as an adult. Maybe if her mother hadn’t abandoned her father and her when she was twelve, it would have been different.
She sealed off the thought and the feelings it brought with practiced ease and sat up, noticing for the first time the indigo dress of fine linen that reached to her ankles. And panicked. Somebody had dressed her, which meant she’d been undressed first. The voices rose outside. Women. There were women around. She relaxed and straightened her dress, letting her fingers glide over the soft material. It had been a while since she had worn one. She was used to army fatigues.
Because
