Page 18 of The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin
“Too late,” Hope murmured.
He ignored that. “Your job is to submit to their ministrations, no matter how odd they may seem to you.”
“Thank you.” Her voice was dry, her golden gaze sharp. “That’s very comforting.”
“Did I not make myself clear? It is not my aim to make you comfortable, Hope,omri. That will never be a goal of mine.”
He thought she might wilt at that. Anyone would. But instead,thiswoman smiled at him. A great, big, brilliant sort of smile that made him grind his teeth together. Because she shouldn’t flash that around. It should come with a warning, that smile. Particularly in a place like this, where it could only reflect the sky and the sun, and she risked blinding the whole kingdom.
But he did not wish to tell her such things, so he settled for a scowl instead.
And then made himself turn away and stride off when what he wanted was to watch her go—an urge he could make no sense of.
But as the afternoon wore on, he found it was far more difficult to lose himself in the usual matters of state than expected. This fortress was set up to withstand modern as well as medieval attacks, and thus had been renovated in his father’s time so that it could function as a reasonable office if necessary.
It is necessary, his father had told him years ago, when he was at the end of his reign. Cyrus had come back from his years in England by then, filled with sheer delight to be out of all that rain.You and I might wish that this place could remain untouched by the march of time, but wishes only highlight our weaknesses, my son.We must use them only as guides toward what we should eradicate.
Cyrus found himself repeating those words again and again as the day wore on.
Because he knew exactly what the female attendants were doing with Hope. They knew nothing of any rumors about her. What should they care about what happened in far-off lands? They knew her only as their king’s new bride. As the Lord’s first wife.
First they would have swept her off into the old harem that he’d ordered aired out and redone to his specifications. These days, the Lord of the Aminabad Desert did not live in a palace that was easily discoverable from above in a time of satellite imagery. He did not gather all his people’s valuables into one place, inviting attack.
Cyrus preferred to make himself more difficult to be found.
He had turned the country’s ancient Royal Palace into a set of museums, so that his people could enjoy the spoils of their own wealth as they pleased. He himself split his time between different compounds, not because he was paranoid like his father, but because his tribe had always been nomadic.
And Cyrus found his people loved him all the more when he made himself accessible to them in the old ways, moving from place to place and speaking with those he asked to follow him. So that every citizen and every region might consider themselves as royal as the next.
But this fortress was something else again. It had been built in a different time. When the King was a warlord and one of the greatest sources of his wealth and consequence was the women he collected and the sons they gave him.
As a child, he had explored the old harem himself. He’d wandered in and out of the alcove rooms gathered around the central courtyard, with its grand fountain in the middle, pools for all, trees and flowers and every detail carefully thought out to proclaim the glory of the desert Lord. So that even when the women were not tending to their master’s needs in the royal bed, they might think of him. Long for him.
Vie for his favor.
It was there, in the baths that were fed by the warm spring deep beneath the fortress, that the women would be tending to the undeserving woman he had elevated to the coveted position as his first wife, because that was the promise he had made long ago. They would take that wedding dress, meant for another man, and burn it. They would cover Hope in oil, massaging it into her skin. They would make certain that all blemishes and unsightly hairs were covered or removed, according to his preferences and the custom of the land.
And they would tell her that was what they were doing, whether they used English words for that or not, so that she would know at every moment that everything that was happening to her was to make her his.
Entirely his.
Only once they had tended to the standards of beauty that he required would they bathe her, washing every part of her and allowing no modesty. They would lather her once with handcrafted soaps, then again with sweet sand, then a third time with scented lotions, moving her from pool to pool until she was clean. Ready. Only then would they anoint her.
This time, when they applied oils, it would be to make her glow. To make her hair gleam. To make her skin soft and supple.
They would bedeck her in jewels as befitted the wife of their lord. Then they would drape her in silks and perfume her all over before, at last, they brought her to him.
He knew this was a process. That it would take the time it took.
And still Cyrus found himself counting the minutes. As if he were little more than the adolescent he had been when he had first discovered the joys that could be found with a woman. She had been older than him, a great catch in his eyes, and she had taken her duties as his bedmate seriously.
She had helped him make certain that the next Lord of the Aminabad Desert was as formidable in bed as he was anywhere else, a man of myth and legend wherever he roamed. She had done her job well.
So too would these women, he knew.
He only wished he could give his the same attention.
By the time the sun set, leaving trails of bright lights in the sky behind it as it went, Cyrus had given up pretending to tend his responsibilities. Instead he waited in the King’s traditional chambers, connected to the harem by one hall that had no other entry or exit. Back in antiquity, blind guards had lined this hall as the King sampled his wares, making certain that no one else dared look upon the royal bounty.
