JOURNAL ENTRY 1, PAGE 1
Farida bint Asim
I was behind the screen when Prince Haytham entered the tent to speak with my father. My father valued my counsel and often allowed me to do this, perhaps because he knew how very restless I became in a woman’s world. Why does Allah create dreams and ap-I petites, the desire to live free and fierce as a man does, if those things are to be denied a woman’s soul? I have often wondered this.
Then I saw the man with the prince. Those longings, banked always against my responsibilities as my father’s daughter, exploded inside me like the brightness of stars, such that they couldn’t be contained. I bit down so hard on my lip I drew blood, though I knew I must fly, sing, dance . . . all for him.
He had to be a djinn spun from the desert sand, for never has a man been so beautifully made. Face carved with the sculpted beauty of the dunes, but smooth as watered stone, as if a goddess had created him and then lovingly stroked him, over and over.
When they sat for coffee, he removed his robes, showing he wore the brown riding trousers and white shirt of a European. He lounged back on the pillows, a graceful animal. Though he smiled and listened in that relaxed way of men as coffee was prepared, he reminded me of a desert tiger, for his hair was burnished copper, an animal’s pelt. He had it scraped back from his face, so every magnificent plane was emphasized. My fingers wanted to feel that fall of straight silk, tied back from his shoulders.
His eyes were true amber, like the tiger as well, an almost unnatural brilliance to them, as if he carried the fire of the desert within him. A djinn, as I have said. I heard Prince Haytham say later that he suspected Lord Mason was a British spy, for during the time he stayed with us, he was always gone by dawn, and returned at nightfall. He also spoke our language as well as a native, and his accent was not as precisely bitten off as other Englishmen who have met our camp.
The prince said Lord Mason’s purpose was nothing that concerned us, though I imagined him stepping out of view of our camp and dissolving into a tornado of sand, a desert devil spinning across the dunes. He had too much energy to contain in the body of a mortal man. I imagined that he returned to us at night only when his need to exercise his powers was temporarily sated.
But I need to leave off my fancies and go back to that first time I saw him. As I bit down on my lip and tasted my blood, I must have made a sound despite my efforts, for he looked at me, found me behind the screen. Those tiger’s eyes flickered. I saw his nostrils flare, as if he had my scent, knew every shameful thing I wanted. A passing moment, over in a blink. He shifted his attention away, not disrespecting my father by staring at a woman of his house.
But when he raised his hand to perform the salaam, I drew in another unsteady breath, thinking how those hands would feel on my flesh, compelling my surrender, my obedience, my devotion and love throughout eternity. I knew then. From that very first second, Fate tied a gentle but unbreakable tether around my throat and handed the lead to him. I would follow him, no matter what our end would be.
The Sahara Present Day
Jessica knew that end had been tragic, horrific, but she didn’t know how anyone could read about a young girl’s hope, the surge of pure, passionate need, and not believe in it, not be moved by it. Of course, perhaps one had to be half insane, stripped to the level of survival, in order to slough off the veneer of cynicism and sophistication and hear that truth in Farida’s words.
“Just another girl’s romantic fantasy,” Raithe had scoffed, taking a glance at what she’d found in the rare book library he maintained. She’d been a research assistant for the archaeology and history departments at one of Rome’s universities before the vampire abducted her and faked her death, so one of her more mundane tasks for Raithe had been cataloging his library.
It was the binding he’d appreciated, which he told her was valuable for its age and condition. “The text was likely written by some aspiring author later that century, hoping a newspaper would run it as a ladies’ serial. At one time, penning stories of the exotic East was a popular pastime, whether or not they were true.”
Thank God Raithe didn’t pay further attention to her absorption in the book. She took care not to be seen studying or researching it too often, or thinking about it in his presence. It had been an effort beyond description, not escaping to those memories when he’d required her blood, or satiation of his sexual needs, or those of his friends. To satisfy their need for pain, for her screams and tears.