heart seized painfully. He’d never thought she’d ever use that knowledge against him. What else had he been wrong about?
Her disgust as she severed his convulsive grip told him this was it. It was over. Worse still, it might never have been real. Everything they’d shared, everything he’d thought they’d meant to each other might have all been in his mind.
Before she receded out of his life, she murmured, “Find yourself someone else who might have a death wish. Because I don’t.”
One
Present day...
“Do you have a death wish?”
Mohab almost laughed out loud. A bitterly amused huff did escape him as he rose to his feet to meet the king of Judar.
What were the odds? That these exact words would be the first thing Kamal Aal Masood said to him when they’d been the last thing the man’s kid sister had flung at Mohab?
Guess it was true what was said about Kamal and Jala. That the two youngest in the Aal Masood sibling quartet could have been identical twins—if they hadn’t been born male and female and twelve years apart. Their resemblance was uncanny.
With the historical enmity between their kingdoms, Mohab had only seen Kamal from afar. He’d last beheld him at the time of his joloos—as he’d sat on the throne, five and a half years ago. Not that Mohab had manipulated his way into Judar that night to see him. Jala had been his only objective. But she hadn’t attended her own brother’s wedding. Yet another thing he’d failed to predict where she was concerned.
Something else he’d failed to predict was how it would feel seeing this guy up close. Kamal looked so much like Jala, it...ached deep in his chest.
It was as if someone had taken Jala and turned her into an older, intimidating male version of herself. They shared the same wealth of raven hair, the same whiskey-colored eyes and the same bone structure. The only differences were those of gender. Kamal’s bronze complexion was shades darker than Jala’s golden flawlessness, and at six foot six, the king of Judar would tower over his sister’s statuesque five-nine, just as he once had. Her big brother was also more than double her size, but they shared the same feline grace and perfect proportions. While all that made her the embodiment of a fairy-tale princess, Kamal was the epitome of a hardened desert raider, exuding limitless power. And exercising it, too.
At forty, Kamal was one of the most influential individuals in the world, and had been so even before his two older brothers had abdicated the throne of Judar to him in a chain reaction of court drama and royal family scandals that still rocked the region and changed its course forever.
Now Kamal’s lupine eyes simmered with the trademark menace famous for intimidating anyone he seared with his gaze. “Anything you find particularly amusing, Aal Ghaanem?”
“Your opening remark revived a memory of another...person mentioning death wishes.” At Kamal’s fierce glower, Mohab’s smile spread. “What? You think I find you, or being escorted here like a prisoner of war, amusing?”
He’d expected worse arriving in Judar, with tensions between Saraya and Judar at a historic high. In fact, just yesterday, his king had all but declared war on Judar during a global broadcast from a UN summit. For Mohab, a prince of Saraya second in rank only to the king and his heirs, to land uninvited on Judarian soil in these fraught times was cause for extreme concern. Especially when said prince also happened to be the former head of Saraya’s secret service. He’d expected to be put on the first flight out of Judar. Or even to be taken into custody.
In a preemptive bluff, he’d asserted he had time-sensitive business with King Kamal and the king would punish whoever detained him. That sent border security officials at the airport scrambling for orders from the royal palace. Mohab had half expected his gamble to fall through, that Kamal would have him kicked out of the kingdom. But within minutes, a dozen of Judar’s finest secret-service men had descended on Mohab, breathing down his neck all the way here.
Apparently they considered him that dangerous. He was flattered, really.
“So you find death wishes a source of amusement? A daredevil by nature, not only by trade, eh? Figures. But aren’t you also supposed to be meticulous and prudent? I thought that’s why you’re still in one piece after all the crazy stunts you’ve pulled. Isn’t it the first thing you’re taught when you’re hatched in Saraya—that Judar doesn’t sustain life for your species?”
His species. The Aal Ghaanems. The Aal Masoods’ mortal enemies. Aih. There was that stumbling block, too.
“So again...do you have a death wish? Don’t you know that, now more than ever, a high-profile Sarayan like you at large in Judar could have been targeted for any level of retribution?”
Mohab flattened a palm over his heart. “I’m touched you’re concerned about keeping me in one piece. But I assure you, I behaved in an exemplary fashion, antagonizing no one.”
“No one but me. Arriving unannounced, terrorizing my subjects, forcing me to drop everything to investigate your incursion. Is this your king’s last hope now that he’s put his foot in his mouth on global feed? Is he afraid I’ll finally knock him off his throne, as I should have long ago? Has he sent his wild card to deal with the crisis...at the root?”
“You think I’m here to...what? Assassinate you?” A huff of incredulity burst from Mohab. “I may be into impossible missions, but I’m not fond of suicidal ones. And I was almost strip-searched for anything that could even make you sneeze.”
Kamal’s laserlike gaze contemplated Mohab’s mocking grin. “From my reports, you can probably take out my royal guard stripped and with both hands tied behind your back.”
“Ah, you flatter me, King Kamal. I’d need one hand to go through them all.”
The other man’s steady gaze told him Kamal believed Mohab was capable of just that—and more—and wasn’t the least bit fooled by his joking tone. “I have records of some true mission-impossible scenarios that you’ve pulled off. If anyone can enter a maximum-security palace with only the clothes on his back and manage to blow it up and walk away without a scratch, it’s you.”
Mohab’s lips twitched. “If you believe I can get away with your murder, why did you agree to see me?”
“Because I’m intrigued.”
“Enough to risk letting such a lethal entity within reach? You must be bored out of your mind being king.”
Kamal exhaled. “You don’t know the half of it—or how good you have it. A prince who is in no danger of finding himself on a throne, a black-ops professional who had the luxury of switching to a freelance career...emphasis on the ‘free’ part.”
“While you’re the king of a minor kingdom you’ve made into a major one, and a revered leader who has limitless power at his fingertips and the most amazing family a man can dream of having.”
“Apart from my incomparable wife and children, I’d switch places with you in a heartbeat.”
Mohab laughed out loud. “The last thing I expected coming here is that I’d be standing with you, in the heart of Aal Masood territory, with us envying each other.”
“In a better
