stumbled slightly, her leg brushing against something she assumed was the bed, but then she felt a sharp, stinging pain in her ankle. She gasped, and Zayed looked at her in surprise, but before Olivia could so much as open her mouth she felt a strange, numbing cold sweep over her body, and then she knew nothing at all.
* * *
‘Olivia...?’ Zayed stared at her in confusion—at her face, pale and shocked. ‘What is it—’
Out of the corner of his eye he saw a movement and he jerked around to see the sinuous, black shape of a desert cobra slither across the darkened floor.
Zayed swore aloud and then he shouted for help. Already Olivia’s body was going stiff, her eyes sightless. Quickly Zayed hoisted her onto the bed, looking for where she’d been bitten. He found the angry-looking fang marks on her ankle, and he tore off a strip from his thobe to tie around her leg and isolate the venom, praying that he wasn’t too late.
Seconds later Jahmal burst into the room, followed by several of his armed guards.
‘What is it? What has happened?’
‘Snakebite,’ Zayed said tersely. ‘Do we have an antivenom injection in the Jeep?’
‘I’ll get it.’ Jahmal left quickly, while Zayed stared down at Olivia, her body jerking in response to the venom flowing through her system, her gaze blank and unresponsive. Cobra bites were some of the most dangerous in the world, with a high mortality rate, especially in such remote areas as this.
Damn it, why hadn’t he checked for snakes? After ten years of living in the desert, he was used to doing it, but he’d been so consumed by Olivia, by the promise he’d seen in her eyes, that he’d forgotten. And now he stood here, helpless, holding her hand, her life at stake, his life at stake...because she was his life. The realisation cut through him cleanly, leaving him dazed and reeling.
He loved her, Zayed acknowledged with a terrible, sinking sensation, and once again he was going to have to stand by and watch as the person he loved most in the world suffered and died. It was more than he could bear. Not again. Not ever.
‘Hold on, Olivia,’ he whispered, trying to imbue her with his own strength. ‘Hold on.’
The next few hours passed in a blur of grief and fear. Jahmal administered the antivenom medication, and Zayed watched, utterly helpless as Olivia writhed and retched, so clearly suffering and in pain that Zayed felt as if his own body, his own heart, were being rent apart. He wished he could take her pain, longed to ease her suffering, but just as before, just as always, there was nothing he could do. And he didn’t know if he could live through that again.
‘Will she survive?’ he asked the doctor he’d flown in from Arjah, thirty-six hours after Olivia had first been bitten. Zayed had barely left her bedside in all that time.
The doctor gave him a sorrowful smile and shrugged. ‘It is impossible to say. A snakebite... As a man of the desert, Prince Zayed, you know how dangerous and even deadly these can be.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Zayed’s hands curled into fists. ‘But a person can survive if the venom hasn’t spread.’
‘Yes, and we will not know whether that has happened.’ The doctor dared to lay a hand on his arm. ‘If it is fatal, it will be soon. We will have an answer in the next day or two.’
An answer Zayed couldn’t bear to think about.
Forty-eight hours after the serpent had first slithered away, Olivia stirred and then opened her eyes. She licked dry lips, her unfocused gaze moving around the room. Zayed leaned forward.
‘Habibi...’ The endearment slipped from his lips unthinkingly. He reached for her hand. ‘You’re awake.’
Slowly, as if the movement made everything in her ache, Olivia turned her head to look at him, her expression still dazed. She opened her mouth to speak but only a sigh came out.
‘Don’t speak,’ Zayed urged her. ‘Don’t strain yourself, not now.’ Relief broke over him like a wave on the shore, followed by a deep, unsettling unease. If she was awake, if she was cognisant, she had survived. She would survive. And, as grateful as Zayed was for Olivia’s life, he didn’t know if he had it in him to withstand something like this again. How many risks would he have to take? He’d live his whole life in jeopardy, in fear, for the one he loved. For the heart that could break.
Back in his own room, Jahmal was waiting with a grim look on his face, having just returned from Rubyhan. Zayed glanced at him, both irritated and alarmed by his aide’s gloomy face.
‘What?’ he demanded. He hadn’t slept in over two days and his mind was a haze of physical and emotional fatigue. ‘Why are you looking like the walls have come crashing down?’
‘Perhaps because they have, Prince Zayed.’
Zayed stilled in the action of taking off the linen thobe he’d worn for far too long; he hadn’t bothered to change his clothes since Olivia had been hurt. ‘What do you mean?’
‘There was a message from Serrat back at Rubyhan. He says he is sorry, but his government is not willing to support your claim at this point.’
Zayed sat heavily on the bed and raked his hands through his hair. After the success of the dinner with Serrat, he had hoped for better. Hell, he’d expected it.
‘Did he say why?’
‘He gave no reason, My Prince.’
Zayed nodded slowly. ‘There will be others.’ But it was a blow—a big blow—that woke him from the stupor of grief and fear he’d been in for the last two days.
‘You should return to Rubyhan,’ Jahmal urged. ‘Speak to Serrat and reach out to Sultan Hassan again, before Malouf hears of these developments and grows even bolder.’
‘But Olivia...’ The words died on Zayed’s lips as he caught sight of his aide’s face, and the flicker of something almost like contempt that went across it. He was a prince—would be the King when he could return to Arjah and be crowned. He was a leader of men, of a people, a country, and he had a duty to them, to the memory of his family...and that came before any duty he had to his mistaken bride. Besides, Olivia was getting better, and the greatest danger was past.
He gave Jahmal a terse nod. ‘Be ready to leave within the hour.’ Zayed did not miss the relief that broke across Jahmal’s face before he turned away.
After washing and dressing in a fresh thobe, Zayed went in search of the doctor.
‘She seems better,’ he said, part-statement, part-question, and the man nodded.
‘Yes, the worst is past. But it will be some days before I can discover whether there has been lasting damage.’
Zayed’s stomach clenched. ‘What kind of lasting damage?’
‘To organs, muscles, even the brain. I am hopeful, my Prince, that the venom did not spread so far, but I can make no promises at this juncture.’
‘Of course.’ Dread swirled in his stomach at the thought of Olivia facing such damage...and it would be his fault. His fault for bringing her here, for kidnapping
