laced with that amusement she had come to crave. Because she knew it was only hers. “Many brides were kidnapped from an enemy tribe, and it was always best not to leave too much time between taking her and claiming her, in case the warriors from her tribe came to collect her.”
“Romantic,” Anya murmured. “Practically to Western levels, really.”
She was rewarded for that with the bark of his laughter.
And she was starting to get used to how deeply she craved such things. His touch. His laughter. Him.
Not that she dared say such things to Tarek.
It wouldn’t do to throw too much emotion into their very practical arrangement. She knew that. And no matter that she found it harder and harder to pretend her feelings weren’t involved.
Anya sobbed out his name regularly, but kept her feelings to herself.
Just as she decided it was best not to tell this man of stone that sometimes, her own panic dropped her to the floor. Because that might not only involve emotions—Tarek’s response to such a weakness might spark an attack.
She had spent hours in fittings over the past month, as packs of the kingdom’s finest seamstresses descended upon her, determined to make sure that everything she wore—whether traditional or Western, depending on which day of the wedding week it was—reflected the glory of the King.
“And accents your own beauty of course, my lady,” the head seamstress had murmured at one point, after there had been quite a lot of carrying on about Tarek and the honor due him from the women assembled in the room.
With more than a few speculative looks thrown her way, not all of them as friendly as they could have been.
But she understood.
“Of course,” Anya had replied. “But I must only be an accent. It is the King who must shine.”
That had changed the mood in the room. Considerably.
And it was not until later that Anya—who would once have ripped off heads if anyone had suggested she was an accent to a man—realized that somehow...she meant that.
The realization hit her like a blow as she stood in her glorious shower, and when her heart kicked in, she froze. She expected the panic to rush at her, to take her to the shower floor. She expected to sit there, naked and wet and miserable, until it finished with her.
But the panic didn’t come.
No nausea, no hyperventilating, no worries that she might aspirate her own saliva and choke while unable to help herself.
The hot water rained down upon her. Anya pressed the heel of her hand into that tightness in her solar plexus, hard.
But still, though she could feel that she was agitated, there was no panic.
“Because I chose this,” she whispered out loud. “I chose him.”
It was hardly a thread of sound, her voice. She could barely hear herself over the sound of the water.
But it rang in her, loud and true, and kept ringing long after she left the shower and dried herself off.
The night they announced their engagement, Tarek did not eat dinner with her the way he’d been doing, too caught up was he in matters of state. Anya ate alone, enjoying her solitude now that it was not enforced. She read a book. She caught up with her far-flung friends, many of whom could not make it to this remote kingdom on such short notice, no matter how they wished they could. She let herself...be part of the world again.
After she ate, she sat outside. She found she couldn’t get enough of the desert evenings. The sunsets were spectacular, a riot of colors that never failed to make her catch her breath. And even in the dark, she could feel the desert itself, stretching on and on in all directions, almost as if it called to her. She wrapped herself up in a blanket when she grew cold and stayed tucked up under the heaters, watching the magical old city bloom as the lights came on. Her aides had taken her on a guided tour of the narrow streets, the ancient buildings stacked high, and the more she saw of it, the more she loved it.
A mystery around every corner. History in every step. And wherever she turned, the people who smiled at her and called out their support of Tarek. Making her foolish heart swell every time she heard it.
They were not the only ones who adored him.
She didn’t think she fell asleep, but one moment she was gazing out at the city and the next,