Chosen For His Desert Throne - Caitlin Crews

CHAPTER ONE

SHEIKH TAREK BIN ALZALAM had accomplished a remarkable amount in his first year as undisputed ruler of his small, mighty country.

He had accomplished more than he’d lost.

This was not only his opinion, he thought as he greeted the one-year anniversary of his father’s death. It was fact, law, and would become legend.

He stood at the window of the royal bedchamber, gazing out on the ancient, prosperous walled capital city that was now his own. The city—and the desert beyond—that he had fought so hard for.

That he would always fight for, he asserted to himself as the newly risen desert sun bathed his naked body in its light, playing over the scars he bore from this past year of unrest. The scars he would always wear as they faded from red wounds to white badges of honor—the physical manifestation of what he was willing to do for his people.

His father’s death had been sad, if not unexpected after his long illness, twelve months ago. Tarek was his eldest son and had been groomed since birth to step into power. He had grieved the loss of his father as a good son should, but he had been ready to take his rightful place at the head of the kingdom.

But his brother Rafiq had let his ambition get the best of him. Tarek hadn’t seen the danger until it was too late—and it was his younger brother’s bloody attempt to grab power no matter the cost that had required Tarek to begin his reign as more warrior than King. In the tradition of those who had carved this kingdom from the mighty desert centuries ago, one rebellion after another.

Or so he told himself. Because his was not the only brother in the history of this kingdom who had turned treacherous. There was something about being close to the throne yet never destined to rule that drove some men mad.

As King, he could almost understand it.

As a brother, he would never understand it—but he rarely allowed himself to think of that darkness. That betrayal.

Because nothing could come of it, save pain.

His mother had always told him that love was for the weak. Tarek would not make that mistake again. Ever. His blind love for Rafiq had nearly cost him the kingdom.

And his life.

But now his brother’s misguided and petty revolution was over. Tarek’s rule was both established and accepted across the land—celebrated, even—and he chose to think of the past year’s turmoil as more good than bad.

Some rulers never had the opportunity to prove to their people who they were.

Tarek, by contrast, had introduced himself to his subjects. With distinction.

He had shown them his judgment and his mercy in one, for he had not cut down his younger brother when he could have. And when he knew full well—little as he wished to know such things—that had Rafiq accomplished his dirty little coup he would have hung Tarek’s body from the highest minaret in the capital city and let it rot.

Tarek could have reacted with all the passion and anguish that had howled within him, but he preferred to play a longer game. He was a king, not a child.

He had made Rafiq’s trial swift and public. He’d wanted the whole of the kingdom to watch and tally up for themselves his once beloved brother’s many crimes against Tarek—and more important, against them. He had not taken out his feelings of betrayal on his brother, though that, too, would have been seen as a perfectly reasonable response to the kind of treachery Rafiq had attempted.

His brother had tried to kill him, yet lived.

Rafiq had been remanded to a jail cell, not the executioners block.

“Behold my mercy,” Tarek had said to him on the day of his sentencing. There in the highest court of the land, staring at his younger brother but seeing the traitor. Or trying to see nothing but the traitor his younger brother had become. “I do not require your blood, brother. Only your penance.”

The papers had run with it. A Bright and New Day Has Dawned in the Kingdom! they’d cried, and now, standing in the cleansing, pure heat of the desert’s newest sun, Tarek finally felt as if he, too, was bright straight through.

Now the dust was settled. His brother’s mess had been well and truly handled, cleaned away, and countered. It was time to set down sword and war machine alike and turn his thoughts toward more domestic matters.

And while you’re at it, think no more of what has