A Royal Engagement: The Storm WithinThe Reluctant Queen Read online

  She did not know this man. She had only the memories she’d held on to for years, and her own sense that she owed Marlena this—that she could not let her mother pay such a high price for their escape. That was all. And yet she had agreed to marry him? To be the queen of a country she hardly remembered—had gone out of her way, in fact, to forget? Lara shifted in her seat and wondered if she would wake up and find herself in her bed at home in Denver—if this was one more of those dreams she’d used to have, all desperate and yearning and dark until she woke, gasping for breath, her heart pounding in her chest.

  But when she looked up, she was still on the plane. It was all too real. And Adel was watching her from his place across the cabin, as if he’d heard her very thoughts.

  “You should rest,” he said. His gray eyes were shadowed now, storm-colored and stern, not silver at all. She did not know why she should feel that as a loss—why she should want to change them back. “You will need your strength, I think, for what lies ahead.”

  “Thank you,” she said past the dryness in her throat and the clutch of panic that still gripped her. “That is very comforting.”

  “Your father lies in state in the palace,” Adel said, his voice giving her no quarter, his hard eyes allowing her no mercy. “He must be buried as his legacy and consequence demand. As his country demands.”

  Lara opened her mouth to make a wry comment on that—to mention, perhaps, what sort of legacy he’d always held in her mind—but swiftly thought better of it. Adel Qaderi, hand-picked by King Azat to succeed him, always the son to her father that she could never be, was unlikely to find Marlena Canon’s stories of the cruelties visited upon her particularly persuasive. Given the way he’d referred to her mother already, however offhandedly, Lara suspected Adel believed a deeply skewed version of reality. He was King Azat’s chosen heir! She knew exactly what he believed: the story her father had told him.

  But what if Marlena had made all of that up? a small voice asked. She swallowed. It didn’t matter any longer. It couldn’t. It was twelve years too late. She would have to go on believing what she’d always believed.

  Something must have showed on her face, because his attention seemed to focus in on her then. Too intent. Too demanding. He exuded far too much raw power, even sitting there with his work in front of him, like some kind of common businessman.

  Common, Lara thought, with a shaking deep within that she could not quite convince herself was panic, was something Adel Qaderi could never be.

  “If you have negative things to say about King Azat, as I can see you do, I suggest you say them to me here,” Adel said. His voice was harsh, his gaze frankly condemning. “You are unlikely to find a receptive ear in Alakkul, where he has long been considered a hero as well as a monarch.”

  “Perhaps,” Lara said, conscious of the edge in her voice, her skin prickling with the urge to slap back at that disapproving note in his voice, to defend herself and her mother, “he was a better king than he was a father or a husband.” She raised her brows in challenge. “For your country’s sake, I certainly hope so.”

  “And you feel qualified to judge him as a man, as a father?” Lara did not mistake that silky tone for something soft—she could see the steel in his gaze. “You, who showed your daughterly devotion by pretending he did not exist for twelve long years? You, who were not even aware that he was ill, nor that he had died?”

  “I do not need to justify myself or the intricacies of my family’s dynamics to you,” she snapped at him, surprised that his words pricked at her.

  His eyes bored into her from across the cabin. Why should she want to squirm? Why should she feel something far too much like shame? “I witnessed, firsthand, what your abandonment wrought.”

  “I can imagine how it must have pained him to lose two of his many interchangeable, nameless possessions,” Lara said sarcastically.

  “Azat will raise you to be nothing more than a pet,” Marlena had told her. Repeatedly. “Meek. Easy. Forever owned and operated at his command, at his disposal. Is that what you want? Is that any kind of life?”

  “Believe me, he knew your name,” Adel replied in that low, furious tone. His mouth twisted, and his gaze chilled. “And your mother’s.”

  “My mother is the only hero I’m aware of being related to,” Lara threw at him, feeling a desperate, consuming need to defend Marlena. To avenge her. To fight for her, even now, even when she wasn’t sure she believed her story. “But that’s not something a man like you can understand, can you? The plight of a single mother on her own, forced to run from all she knew—”

  “Forced?” Adel laughed, but it was a mirthless sound. “You must be joking. The only thing your mother was ever forced to do was face her own failings as a wife. But she could not handle that, and so she ran from the palace with you rather than deal with the consequences of her behavior.” His gaze hardened. “And when I say ‘consequences,’ let me be clear. I am speaking of her admitted infidelity.”

  “Don’t you dare speak of her!” Lara cried, rising from her chair without knowing she meant to move. Her hands moved of their own accord, out in front of her as if she meant to strike him. As if she dared. And oh, how she wished she dared! “You know nothing about her, or me! You have no idea what our life was like!”

  “No,” he said with a seething sort of impatience, and that hard gaze that seemed to arrow into her very core, “I know what your life should have been. I know what was stolen from you. And from the King. And from your people.” He made an abortive gesture with one hand. “I know that when the country needed you, you—the Crown Princess of Alakkul—were toiling away in some pedestrian job, in some life far beneath your station, acting as if you were nothing more than a run-of-the-mill, anonymous nobody. Instead of who you really are. The last Alakkulian princess. The dawning of a new age for our people. How can you possibly defend the woman who so dishonored you?”

  There was a searing kind of silence. As if the whole world hung there between them, changing even as she tried to breathe. Lara could feel her pulse hit hard against her neck, her ribs, her wrists. And between her legs. Just like his voice. “My mother saved me!” She could not take his words in, could not let them register. She could only remember the stories, so many stories, and the nights her mother had wailed and screamed and cursed, and there had only been Lara to comfort her. Had it all been lies? All of it?

  “From what, exactly?” Adel demanded, incredulous, sitting forward in his chair. “Your wealth? Your heritage? Everything that should have been yours? Me? Are you certain she is the hero of this story—and not its villain?”

  “I know all about the life I might have led, had I languished in that horrible place,” Lara threw at him. She wanted to hurt him back. To make him pay for saying these things to her, and she did not want to think about why she blamed him. “I thank God every day that my mother saved me from that. From you—a fate worse than death!”

  “Says someone who has never faced death,” Adel said smoothly, his voice a dark current that moved over her, through her. That made her feel things she hated—that made her hate herself. Things that made no sense. “Because had you done so, you would not make such naive statements. Did your mother fill your head with this foolishness? That death was preferable to your birthright? To a marriage that at sixteen you wanted desperately?”

  “A birthright—a marriage—that would have been nothing but a prison term,” Lara retorted, desperate to strike back at him, to make him as off-balance as she felt, somehow, as some kind of retaliation. Because she could remember, now, that desperate, dazzled yearning for him. Oh, how she had wanted him! It made her even angrier now. “A whole life shut away in a gilded cage—never allowed to think or dream or live. Trained from a girl to be nothing more than a biddable wife, a possession, a thing. The pawn or the prize for men like you. No, thank you.”

  “You say things you cannot possibly mean,” Adel said, his voice growing softer, more dangerous. She was reminded, sud
denly, that he was a warrior first, a king second. That he had all manner of weapons at his disposal. His head tilted slightly as he regarded her. “When I kissed you, you cried tears of joy. When I took your hands in mine, you trembled. You were sixteen and in love with me, and I remember the truth of what was between us even if you do not. She took that from you, too. And from me.”

  “No,” Lara said, her hands in fists at her sides, afraid to let his words penetrate—to let herself remember the things he did. “I was a teenager. I was in love with the idea of love. You were incidental. My mother did us both a favor!”

  “There are any number of words I could use to describe your mother, Princess,” Adel said in a deadly tone. The hairs on Lara’s neck stood at attention. “But I will refrain from using them in your presence because they are disrespectful.” His eyes flashed. “Not to her, about whom I could not care less. But to you, my future queen.”

  “Your mean your possession,” Lara flashed at him. Her temper was a live thing, fusing with her panic, her fear, the memories of her sixteen-year-old heart. Making her too reckless, too thoughtless. But she couldn’t stop—as if she was as desperate now as she had been then. “Your pawn. Your object.”

  “If that is how you see yourself, who am I to contradict you?” he asked, but she could see the temper he kept at bay. It was in the fire in his cold eyes, the set of his hard jaw. “Demean yourself as you see fit.”

  “You would love that, I’m sure,” she seethed at him, drifting closer to his seat, so focused on her anger that she hardly noticed what she was doing. Or maybe you just want to be close to him, as you always have, a small voice whispered, daring her even closer. “Why don’t I just bow down and give you all the power? Why don’t you just treat me like one more mindless marionette who dances on a string for your pleasure?”

  She did not like the way he stared at her, the way his hard mouth curved into an even harder smile, the way his gray eyes glittered. She did not understand the loud beating of her heart, much less the way she shook.

  She did not want to understand.

  “Ah, Princess,” he said, his voice a low growl that seemed to reverberate through her like a drum. “You should not tease.”

  And then, with an economy of movement and a shattering male grace, he hauled her into his arms, across his lap, and took her mouth with his.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LARA had no time to react.

  His mouth was on hers, hard and demanding. One hand held her at the nape of her neck, the other at her hip, holding her fast against the granite expanse of his chest.

  His kiss was possessive, angry, hot. Nothing like the sweet kisses they’d stolen so long ago—and yet so much more. Lara could do nothing but glory in it, even as her hands rose to his shoulders—whether to push him away or pull him closer she would never know.

  Fire rolled through her, scorching her, making her forget everything except the power of his kiss, the dark mastery of it, the tight, lush angle of his mouth, his heat and his taste and the breathtakingly sensual way he held her.

  As if he had all the time in the world to explore her mouth.

  As if tasting her was a matter of critical importance.

  As if he was already inside her, claiming her, taking her, making her his in every way.

  She felt more than branded. More than stamped, somehow, as his.

  She felt more than the molten, restless heat between her legs, more than the wild drumming of her heart, more than his hardness beneath her, against her.

  He kissed her as if he knew her as well as he claimed he did. As if it had been only moments since the last time he’d kissed her, instead of years. As if they had always been destined to come together like this, mouth to mouth, body to body, passion to passion.

  As if they were meant for each other. As if he was, finally, the home she’d spent her whole life searching for.

  It was that last, impossible thought that had her rearing back, her head caught fast in his large hand, to look into his silver eyes.

  She hardly knew herself, much less him. Their history was lost in the mists of time, a teenage fantasy at best. This was all too real. Too much.

  “You can’t…” she began, but she had no idea what to say. How could she tell him that kissing him made the world fall away? That she forgot who she was? That she wanted nothing more than to burrow into him, lose herself in him, and the very madness of that idea made her tremble with need?

  Just like before.

  “Kiss me,” he urged her, as if he knew all the things she could not say.

  It was not until he closed the gap between them again, that fascinating mouth so hot against her own, so right, that she realized he had stopped speaking English yet again. And more to the point—so had she.

  She tasted sweet, just like he remembered. Like ripe summer berries and the kick of woman beneath it. She went to his head like wine.

  Adel wanted her, this untutored, disrespectful princess of his, more than he could remember wanting another. More than he wanted almost anything else. Her lush little body curled into his, against his, as if she too could not get close enough. As if she felt the same rush of desire that surged through him, making him want to forget himself in her.

  Just as it should be. Just as it had been.

  He let his hands travel over the body he’d longed to possess totally for so many years. He tested the shape of her full breasts, traced the indentation of her waist, learned the intoxicating swell of her hips. She writhed against him, her lushness against his hardness, driving him ever closer to distraction. And still he kissed her, again and again, drinking from her, reveling in her, making her pant and shake against him.

  Again, he felt triumph beat like a drum in him. She was his. She was his, and she was more than simply this lush body, this elemental passion. She was the dream of his family for generations. She was the throne of Alakkul. She was his destiny taking shape, finally, after so many years spent preparing for it.

  She was the only woman he had ever loved. His queen. His.

  Which meant he could wait a little bit longer before taking her, though he longed to do it now with every inch of his body, the want of her so fierce, so total, there was a long moment he was not at all certain he could let go of her.

  She would be his queen.

  She made a soft sound of distress when he tore his mouth from hers, and set her away from him. Her silver-blue eyes were wide and dark, her mouth damp and slightly swollen from his kisses. He felt a sharp surge of possessiveness, of desire. He let his hands rest on her shoulders for a moment, then dragged his thumb over her full lower lip, smiling when she shuddered her response.

  “Not here,” he said, though it was more difficult than it should have been. “Not now.”

  She blinked, and he could see when she understood him. Color flooded her face, staining her cheeks as she disentangled herself from him.

  “You are getting ahead of yourself,” she snapped at him, in what he imagined she intended to be quelling tones, and might have been, were she not still breathless.

  His smile deepened, and he let his hand drop to her breasts, where her nipples stood out, proud and taut, against the tissue-thin fabric of her shirt. He traced one hard peak with the pad of his finger.

  “Am I?” he asked lazily.

  “You are a pig!” she hissed, rearing back from him, putting space between them and climbing to her feet.

  Adel let her go. Temper made her coloring that much more dramatic, and in any case, he had tasted the sweet honey of her desire. He could see the way she trembled, the way her eyes kept returning to his mouth. He knew the truth. If she had to hate him, if she had to pretend—well, he knew what her body wanted, what it needed. It would betray her easily enough.

  “Calm yourself,” he suggested mildly.

  She looked murderous for a moment. He heard her sharp intake of breath, and then, stiffly, she gathered herself, her flowing dark curls like a curtain around her slender shoulde
rs. He watched her spine straighten. She stood near the line of windows, and looked away from him for a moment. Then another. Biting her tongue, he had no doubt.

  “I will not rut with my future queen here,” he told her when she turned toward him again, her gaze shuttered, as if she could hide from him. “On a plane, God knows where. You deserve greater respect from me than that.”

  “How interesting,” she said, her voice sharp. “Respect seems an awful lot like control.”

  “I am sorry to disabuse you of your deep-held fantasies,” he said softly, “but the truth is that I do not wish for you to be my puppet, dancing on a string or otherwise. I want you to be my wife. My queen.” He smiled slightly. “The dancing is purely optional.”

  “And what about what I want?” Her voice was strained. Stark. He did not think this was defiance—he thought this was something else, perhaps even the thing that haunted her, making her eyes too big in her face, her skin too pale. Would she tell him what it was? Would she learn to trust him?

  He wanted her to do so more than he wanted to admit.

  “Tell me what you want,” he said, his voice hushed, as he struggled with urges inside of him he could not entirely understand. “If I can give it to you, I will.”

  “Perhaps I wish to rut with you, right here and right now,” she said, her eyes meeting his boldly. He could not help but harden even further at that—almost to the point of pain—as he imagined her astride him, beneath him, her lush mouth fastened to his, her softness spread out before him. “Why do you get to make the decisions? Am I to be your queen or your slave?”

  He could think of several answers to that question, but chose to take the query seriously.

  “We will rule together,” he said. “As tradition requires.”

  “What does ‘together’ mean to an Alakkulian male, I wonder?” she mused, her eyes narrowed. “I somehow doubt it means the same thing to you as it does to me. What if we wish to rule differently? What if you are wrong? Who gets to decide?”