“It’s cool in here,” Nicole murmured after he found her a sandy spot to sit. She sounded surprised.
He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her—yell at her. As long as they were in the desert, she must learn that he knew best.
Instead, he merely nodded and asked, “Do you think you can eat something?”
“Not snake?”
He couldn’t hold back the chuckle. “No, not snake. But you might like snake meat a lot better than you will one of these American-made MREs.”
“MREs?”
“Armed services food. Meal, Ready-to-Eat. This one is meant to give you quick strength and stamina.”
He handed the MRE over and showed her how to open the package. “This isn’t much. But I didn’t imagine we’d be trying to survive in the desert for this long.”
Nikki would’ve liked to strangle Shakir with her bare hands for both teasing her about the snakes and for his wisecracks about surviving in the desert. But since he had knowledge of survival tactics that she didn’t possess, she settled for strangling down the MRE.
“You appear extraordinarily hungry,” he remarked as she concentrated on swallowing past her dry throat. “Most people in the desert lose their hunger to the heat. How long has it been since you’ve eaten anything?”
After struggling with the last bite of the MRE, she said, “I haven’t eaten since I came to Zabbarán. Maybe it’s been a few days. I’m not sure.”
“The Taj didn’t feed you?”
She took a few more sips from the canteen. “The food they gave us was drugged. I did not dare to touch a bite.”
“How’d you learn about the food being drugged?”
Nikki leaned back and closed her eyes, but her voice was rough. “Lalla took pity on me. We struck up a kind of friendship when I first arrived. She warned me not to eat, and she sneaked clean water in for me to drink.”
“Don’t think about it now. Rest.”
With her eyes closed, Nikki’s mind blocked out all the images of the past few days and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. When she awoke, she couldn’t tell how much time had passed. But Shakir was still sitting in the same place and his eyes were still trained on her. Watching her closely.
“Feeling better? Sleeping should’ve helped.”
She nodded and took a sip from the canteen.
“Nicole … What else did the Taj do to you while you were a captive?”
“Nothing much.” She stretched and wiggled her toes. “They made all the women bathe and forced us to wear special robes. But Lalla told me the elder wanted to keep us pure for the auction. He wouldn’t allow any of the guards to touch us.”
Shakir grimaced and lowered his voice to a near whisper. “The Taj elder planned to auction off the women prisoners.” He sounded angry. “Do you know to whom?”
She shrugged, but then she wasn’t sure he was really seeing her movements in the shade of their cave. He seemed lost in his own world.
“I think it was better that I didn’t know. I’ve been having a hard enough time sleeping as it is.”
Now why had she admitted that? It was a slip of the tongue she should not have made. And she had promised herself to be careful with her words.
Thankfully Shakir did not appear to catch her slip. She wasn’t sure what she would’ve done had he asked her to explain her restlessness. Nikki would never rest again until her son was back in her arms.
Still staring out into dead space, Shakir nodded absently.
Finally he spoke. “How did the Taj capture you? Was it through violence? Were you injured?”
Uh-oh. This explanation could be a minefield if she wasn’t extremely careful.
“No. I came here willingly. I thought I was coming to Zabbarán for a legitimate job. It wasn’t until I arrived at their port city that I realized I was really a prisoner.”
“A job?” Shakir sounded incredulous. “But why would someone like you, a royal princess, need to work?”
Damn it. She wasn’t ready for this explanation yet. How could she be sure that he would not use her story against her somehow?
Who was he—really? He didn’t seem like the same person she remembered loving in her college days. Who had he become over the years?
“Uh … Before I tell you my story, I need to hear yours. What are you doing here? What does your family, your wife, think of this? And tell me how you knew I was in Zabbarán and in need of help. You were looking for me when you came, weren’t you?”
He took a couple of swigs from his water skin and then stared out at a spot over her shoulder. “That’s a lot of questions.” Then he pinned her with a sincere look. “I have no wife. No one who is waiting for my return. And as for why I was looking for you, my older brother, Darin, obtained a listing of foreign women being held prisoner in the Taj elder’s fortress. I spotted your name on the list and knew I had no choice but to come for you.”
“How did your brother get the list? Why would he even have access to such a thing?”
Sudden horrible ideas popped into her head and made Nikki tremble with nerves. Was Shakir’s older brother supposed to have been one of the bidders? Had the Kadirs stolen the women out of the Taj prison so they wouldn’t have to pay for them? Just who was she dealing with here?
She backed up as far into the cave as she could go.
“This may be hard for you to believe,” Shakir began. “But the Taj Zabbar have declared a kind of cold war against the Kadir family.”
“Why would they do that? And if they have, why hasn’t it been on the news?”
His lips spread in a wry smile. “There was a time when you trusted everything I said.” Sighing, he gave his head a slight shake. “I only wish I knew why they hate us today. Our old family legends say the two tribes have been enemies for over five hundred years. And supposedly about fifty years ago, my family took sides against the Taj Zabbar and sided with the country of Kasht, their neighbors.
“The Kasht government offered the Kadirs control of Zabbarán’s only seaport. I guess my grandfather’s generation decided that a deep water port was a good enough prize to trade arms to the Kasht. Unfortunately, those weapons allowed the Kasht to kill and imprison a hell of a lot of the Taj people—women and children included—before they could win their freedom a few years back.”
“I can see why the Taj might hate you. But …” He barked out a sharp laugh. “Yeah, I know. It was a long time ago, and revenge is an odd reason for war. Nevertheless, the Taj have already blown up one of our port facilities in America, killing a dozen people including my uncle. And we’ve tracked the Taj
