Never Refuse a Sheikh

  Never Refuse a Sheikh

  An International Bad Boy Novella

  Jackie Ashenden

  Never Refuse a Sheikh

  ©Copyright 2015 Jackie Ashenden

  Digital Edition

  The Tule Publishing Group, LLC

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-1-942240-69-3

  Dedication

  To my readers.

  Thanks for all your support.

  You’re the best!

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  An excerpt from Never Seduce a Sheikh

  The International Bad Boy Series

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  “Where is the princess?” Sheikh Altair ibn Tariq Al-Tahan didn’t like to ask questions more than once, and since this was the second time he’d asked, it took his mood from already annoyed directly to foul.

  Not a good sign for anyone who valued their continued existence.

  The black-robed Bedouin chief did not seem to realize this, studying Altair with expressionless dark eyes.

  Around them were Altair’s royal guard, ready to step in should he command it, and a number of robed tribesmen who weren’t making any effort to hide their weapons. More than a few cradled rifles. They weren’t overtly hostile but neither were they particularly friendly.

  “What princess?” Sayed’s voice, when he spoke at last, was as expressionless as his weathered face.

  But Altair hadn’t spent all day in an SUV in the middle of the desert as they tried to locate Sayed’s camp, only to waste more time arguing with a disrespectful tribal chief. He had a princess to find and bring back to the capital immediately. Both the fragile peace of his country and his own position as ruling sheikh depended on it.

  “Do not play that game with me,” he said coldly. “You know what princess I’m talking about. Safira bin Yvette al-Kashgari. The one you’ve been guarding for the past fifteen years.”

  Sayed’s expression didn’t change. “I know nothing of such a girl.”

  Long years of hard fighting had left Altair with an extremely short fuse on his patience when it came to obstacles standing in the way of something he wanted. With some men this meant exploding into rage. With Altair, who saw no point in such wasteful displays of emotional energy, it meant taking action quickly, coldly and cleanly.

  These days he didn’t even need to bother with a command; his men knew him too well.

  As one, his guard lifted their rifles.

  At last the expression on Sayed’s face flickered.

  “I realize you have been protecting her,” Altair said, his voice level. “And I realize this is a hard habit to break. But her mother put her into your care to keep her safe, until such a time as her country needed her. That time has come. I am here to bring her home and I will do so with or without your agreement.”

  The desert chieftain shifted, glancing at his own tribesmen. They too had their rifles at the ready, but there were only a small number of them. They would be no match for the palace guards should it come to an out-and-out firefight.

  Tension gathered. The Bedouin camp was silent, but for the bleating of the goats tethered by the oasis.

  Altair didn’t move and neither did his men. He’d garnered a reputation for cold ruthlessness in the years following his taking of Al-Harah’s throne from the rebels, a reputation that was well deserved. And he would be ruthless now if the situation demanded it.

  Being away from the capital with unrest still on the city streets had been a calculated risk, but the longer he stayed away, the riskier it became. The insurgents who disputed his claim to the throne wanted him off it, and their tactics would soon turn deadly if he wasn’t careful. Luckily he was always careful.

  Al-Harah couldn’t afford another war. The peace he’d forged with a single-minded determination on par with any dictator was tenuous at best and could be broken at any time.

  Finding Princess Safira was his last option.

  Officially, she was dead along with the rest of the Kashgari family, killed in the palace bomb blast that had plunged Al-Harah into civil war. But unofficially? Well, he’d spent the last three months tracking down rumors that the princess, the last of the Kashgari line, wasn’t dead after all. That her mother, the Russian oligarch’s daughter Sheikh Amir had married, had sent Safira into the desert with allies of the sheikh, the night before the bomb blast. Rumors he now knew were true.

  Safira was alive. And that made her hugely valuable.

  For ten years he’d fought in the war that had nearly destroyed Al-Harah, finally ousting the rebels who had killed Sheikh Amir and his family. He’d then taken the throne in order to rebuild his once proud country. The past five years had been hard ones, trying to stamp out the last of the rebels, healing his people’s war wounds, getting the economy back on its feet. But he thought he’d gotten over the worst of it. Until a band of insurgents started calling for his blood, wanting to return the throne to its rightful owners. They’d proved to be both remarkably vocal and remarkably difficult to get rid of, and it was clear that his government was sympathetic to them. Loyalty to the Kashgari family, who’d ruled Al-Harah for generations, ran deep and for many it wasn’t enough that Altair’s own father had been the old sheikh’s closest advisor, Altair’s family Sheikh Amir’s staunchest supporters. Those people wanted the old blood to rule. They wanted a true Kashgari on the throne.

  Unfortunately for them, that was something they could not have. Regardless of whether Princess Safira was alive or not, Altair was not giving his throne to anyone, still less an untried young woman brought up in the desert tribes. His work rebuilding his country and protecting it from further conflicts was unfinished. Which left him with only one option to both appease the loyalists and ensure peace.

  First he had to find Safira. Then he would marry her.

  Luckily he’d done one of those things already.

  “What do you want her for?” Sayed asked after a long, tense silence. He didn’t give Altair any honorifics; the desert people in this part of the world didn’t bow to anyone, which would have been impressive if it hadn’t been so damn annoying.

  The early afternoon sun was ferocious, beating down on Altair’s head, but he ignored it. He’d lived out in the desert before; it didn’t bother him.

  “Her people need to know she’s alive,” he answered. “They need to see her restored to the throne.”

  The older man’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re abdicating?”

  “No, of course not.” Altair kept his tone cold. “She will be on the throne as my sheikha.”

  “Ah.” Sayed gave him a knowing look. “So your claim is disputed.”

  There was a world of satisfaction in his words, which Altair did not appreciate and in lesser men would have been punished. But he didn’t have time to punish Sayed now and, besides, alienating the desert tribes in such a way wouldn’t be prudent. His country
had to stand together; the time for fighting was past.

  “Al-Harah needs a strong hand. I am not giving it to an uneducated girl, no matter how loudly the insurgents shout.” Altair wasn’t accustomed to explaining himself, but now that Sayed had given him the truth about the princess, the old man deserved some kind of explanation. The chieftain had been protecting her for fifteen years after all. “But what Al-Harah also needs is peace. We’ve been fighting too long; the time now is to heal. Marrying her will legitimize my claim to the throne and give us that peace.” He let the words sit there for a moment, then he added, “Unless you want to plunge us all into another civil war?”

  Sayed’s gaze narrowed. “You’re not the only one who knows she’s alive. Zakir has had people out this way asking after her, wanting her for himself.”

  Altair cursed silently. He too had heard those rumors. Zakir ibn Rashiq Al-Nazari, the new sheikh of neighboring Al-Sakhra, was looking for an alliance to prevent his own country from sliding into ruin. That he had his sights set on Safira wasn’t a great surprise—the two countries had long been rivals and though Al-Harah had been through a terrible war, they were richer by far than Al-Sakhra. Zakir probably thought Safira was the key that would drag his country out of the dark ages.

  Sadly for Zakir, Altair had found her first.

  “I would think very carefully before you look to sell her to the highest bidder.” Altair allowed an icy, dangerous edge to creep into his voice. “She is your princess. Her place is here.”

  The chief’s expression darkened. “You insult me, sheikh.”

  The guards on either side of Altair tensed, but he raised a hand for calm. Sayed’s reaction had just told him more than anything else the man had said: she would be safe from Zakir; that much was certain.

  “It was not my intention,” Altair said. “Your service to the Kashgari family has been noted and your protection of the girl will be rewarded. But the time for such protection is at an end. Now, do you wish to do this the easy way? Or the hard way?”

  The chieftain stared at him in silence for a long minute. Then abruptly he jerked his chin in the direction of one of the tents. “She’s in there.”

  Wasting no time on triumph, Altair looked the tribesman in the eye. “I won’t hurt her; you have my word.”

  It was only then that a strange hint of a smile turned Sayed’s mouth. “That’s not what you should be worried about, sheikh. It’s the other way around that should concern you.”

  The words made no sense, so Altair dismissed them, moving past the chieftain toward the tent the man had indicated.

  The flap was open and he walked straight in, his guards at his heels.

  As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, a couple of dirty-looking children ran past him, heading outside laughing. In one corner, lounging on cushions, were a teenage boy and one pre-pubescent girl. The girl, far too young to be his quarry, quickly got to her feet, lowering her eyes respectfully as she dashed out of the tent, perhaps in hot pursuit of the children.

  That left the boy, sitting cross-legged on a cushion, delicately peeling an orange with what looked like a small machete. He was robed, a red-and-white keffiyeh wrapped around his head, and Altair didn’t miss the rifle slung casually over his narrow shoulders.

  The boy didn’t look up, absorbed in finishing peeling his orange then pulling it apart into segments. He put one into his mouth, chewing for a moment, before finally leaning back and looking up at Altair.

  “Your Highness,” Hamiz, his advisor, murmured from beside him.

  But Altair already knew.

  The impact of the boy’s bright turquoise eyes hit him like a punch to the gut. Because there was no mistaking that legendary color. Or the delicate line of the jaw. The straight dark brows, the full curve of the mouth.

  And deep inside Altair a long-buried and long-forgotten emotion stirred. A familiar emotion. Guilt.

  The boy was not a teenager after all.

  The boy was not a boy.

  “I suppose,” she said in a soft, husky voice, “that you are here to bring me back to the palace.”

  Altair crushed the stirring guilt flat. He would not feel it, he would not let it take hold. That was the past and he could not think of the past when the future—she—was sitting right here in front of him.

  “Yes.” He met her intense, blue gaze. “It is time you came home, princess.”

  She stared thoughtfully at him for a moment as she chewed and swallowed the segment of orange, the expression in her eyes unreadable. Then abruptly she raised the machete and brought it down into the center of the wooden table in front of her with a hard thunk. The weapon vibrated there for a second.

  She sat back. “No,” she said.

  * * *

  Fear lodged in Safira’s chest, sitting there like a boulder, threatening to crush her. But she wouldn’t give in to it. Anger was stronger than fear—at least that’s what Sayed had always taught her—and she was so very, very angry.

  She’d known the moment a series of shiny-looking SUVs had swept into the tribe’s camp, and palace guards had spilled out, that the day she’d thought would never arrive, finally had. That the palace knew she was alive and they had come for her.

  And a small traitorous thrill of excitement had threaded through her because at last, at last, it meant that perhaps the half-life that was her desert existence was coming to an end.

  Yes, a traitorous thought because she should be grateful for the fifteen years Sayed had spent bringing her up, keeping her safe. Hiding her from anyone who wanted to use her for their own ends.

  But she felt it anyway. Because, although she’d been kept safe, Sayed’s methods had also kept her apart. He’d been very strict, her title and position isolating her from the rest of the tribe and tribal life more effectively than if she’d been a prisoner in a cell. And lately, that isolation had felt suffocating. Frustrating. And as the other young people of the tribe had either left for marriage or to find jobs in the cities, Safira had begun to think that perhaps this was her life. That she was destined to remain hidden in the desert forever, always apart; always alone.

  Yet now the sheikh had come and that meant—finally—change.

  When Sayed had thrust the boys robes at her and ordered her into the tent, she’d gone without a protest, her heart hammering in her chest, adrenaline firing through her, excitement ready to shake her apart.

  But it was only as she’d sat there in the tent, listening to the men talk about her outside as if she were nothing but a pawn, that her excitement began to slowly drain away and something else took its place.

  Anger.

  Because this was just a replay of the past fifteen years of her life. Where other people discussed what to do with her, without consulting her. Where they made decisions about her future as if her opinions on the matter weren’t important.

  As if she was still the seven-year-old princess thrust into the arms of a desert warrior and taken away to be kept safe.

  Well, no more. She wasn’t a child any longer. And she wasn’t going to sit here and let other people decide her future without her. This time, by God, she was going to have a say.

  So she’d sat there and waited, bracing herself for the moment when he’d come in and find her. Gathering her courage and hoping he would be reasonable when she refused him.

  Until the second he’d walked into the tent and her heart had sunk, and she’d understood then that there would be no reasoning with a man like him.

  Eyes the deep gold of desert sands had met hers, and she’d felt inexplicable fear nearly choke her. Because they were cold and hard as ancient amber, emphasizing a force of will as implacable and merciless as a sandstorm.

  His features, too, were stamped with the imprint of that iron will. Carved from bronze, each line was certain and hard and edged like a weapon. His jaw strong, his nose a blade, cheekbones sharp and high. No softness to him anywhere. Even his mouth was hard, cruel.

  He looked at her now and she c
ould feel her anger wavering beneath the force of his certainty. The certainty that no matter what she told him, no matter that she had refused him, she would, in the end, do exactly what he told her to do despite her protests.

  Once again she would be ineffectual and powerless.

  And that more than anything made her afraid.

  “Out,” he ordered, his voice cold and dark as a desert night.

  Instantly his advisor and his guards melted away, leaving them alone in the tent.

  A silence fell.

  The simple white shirt, dusty camel-colored pants and desert boots he wore should have made him seem human and approachable, but the air of power he radiated made that impossible. There was an elemental iron strength about him, a focused, relentless purpose. As if he were a glacier moving forward—inexorable, unstoppable, crushing everything in his path.

  A shiver whispered through her, that strange fear gathering tight.

  You really think anything you say will make any difference to a man like him? You are nothing to him. Less than nothing.

  Safira crossed her arms to keep the shiver inside and held his forceful amber gaze, the machete still embedded in the table as a wordless declaration of intent.

  No. She had had enough of being treated like a ghost in her own life. Of having her fate decided by others. She had to take control of it herself sometime or else what would her future be?

  There was a tradition amongst the desert tribes, where young men from one tribe would ride into the camp of another, and “kidnap” the young women they wanted to court. The women themselves would either consent as a sign that they returned the interest, and let themselves be lifted onto the back of the horse, or they would refuse and the young man would have to find someone different.

  The tradition was always the source of much laughter and excitement, and there would be betting on which young man would “kidnap” which young woman and whether she would consent to it or not.

  Safira had always longed to be part of those games. She’d heard the young women who’d been kidnapped talk amongst themselves about the experience, their eyes bright with something mysterious, something unknown. Something thrilling. The next stage of their lives set out before them.