Maria was furious. How dare this stranger mock her misery? How dare she openly laugh at her? Deeply offended, Maria could do nothing else but glare.

“Why are you laughing?” she demanded, adding, “Is this funny to you?” Clearly, it was. Shahrazad would not stop laughing. Her teeth ground together. Finally, Shahrazad calmed down, wiping away tears from her eyes.

“My dear,” Shahrazad began, laughed some more, then continued, saying, “whatever makes you think that?”

For a moment, she was taken aback by the question. Everyone thought that! It was not just her. The rumours that Zain was kidnapping girls and taking them against their will for his harem had been everywhere. It was the juiciest and most controversial piece of gossip in every part of town for the first few months of Zain’s reign. Her own father had believed them. Why wouldn’t she believe them? Zain was a bandit first and foremost! He murdered the former Sheikh, and had taken over their town after all, so why wouldn’t he be capable of something like that? Most importantly, he’d just done it to her!

“Ah. I see.” Shahrazad’s amused face changed into an expression of understanding. “Aziz’s faction still continues to spread lies.”

Maria’s eyebrows furrowed in a heavy frown at that. What faction? And what did the older woman mean by ‘spreading lies’? She asked it out loud.

Shahrazad was suddenly serious, “Never mind you that. Now, take off those hideous pants and those silly clothes. I want to see if you’re hiding anything else.”

She gulped.

Zain rubbed Dagger’s nape and scratched behind his ears. The dark wolf’s ears flattened in satisfaction, his chest rumbling deeply. He envied the slumbering wolf, for he wished it was just as simple to satisfy his own raging desires. Her image immediately flashed in his mind. Heavens, she was beautiful, all wild-haired, rebellious hellcat. The sight and smell of her triggered a reaction deep in his core that was primitive in nature. Zain was a man who prided himself on his self-discipline and control over all that he owned. Yet he rarely exhibited these qualities when faced by her. How easily she could anger him and make him exasperated. His wet-eared reactions embarrassed him.

Now that he’d tasted her sweetness, he wanted more.

He let out a world-weary sigh and fell back on his bed. For the hundredth time, he recalled her story and felt his mood darken as it did every single time. She’d pretended to be male for two years because she thought him the basest of animals and the cruellest of men. It made him angry; angrier than he’d been for a very long time. Initially, he had thought himself furious at her for accusing him of forcing girls into his harem and going as far as to wear a disguise for years, but now that he’d cooled down, he realised that he was angry at whoever had started those damaging, baseless rumours. Blatant lies, the whole lot of them! He’d been a desert bandit for over a decade, yes, but he had never in his life forced a girl into anything she did not want or agree to. He’d sooner cut off his own limbs before he ever reached a hand to harm a defenceless woman. Women, children and elderly were where Zain drew the line.

He closed his eyes. Her face was itched to the back of his eyelids.

He wanted a name to associate with the face.

He heard his door fly open and crash into the wall. Dagger yelped and started rumbling in a growl by his side. He placed a hand on the startled wolf’s head to calm him, which immediately quieted him. Zain smelled Saif’s rose-scented perfume before he slowly opened his eyes to see Saif’s painted face hovering directly above his. Saif stood with his hands on his hips, dressed in a gaudy-coloured dress.

“Who might this new ‘girl’ I’ve been hearing about all day be?”

Zain raised an eyebrow at him in surprise. Saif rarely took any interest in his harem. For him to exhibit any, now meant that he’d heard something about the nature of the girl’s capture. Once again, he sighed, regretting the way he’d handled things with her like a mindless brute. No doubt the whole town knew by now of the events that had transpired that afternoon. What a way for him to reaffirm supposedly ‘false’ rumours.

He met Saif’s narrowed eyes. He would see for himself how much Saif knew.

“What girl?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

“Do not play games with me. You know damn well ‘what girl’ I mean.” Saif huffed in annoyance.

He sat up and got out of his bed. He made his way to the wine decanter on his desk, poured himself and Saif a drink, then began to tell his friend everything he knew from when he’d gone out on his monthly inspection of the town and its people up to when the girl confessed her secrets. He omitted a few parts, however, most notably the kissing part.

After a full minute of silence (which had to be a record for Saif), the shocked man asked, “What did you do with her? Where is this girl now?”

He let out a long, heavy sigh then told him.

Saif stared with bulging eyes in disbelief, then shook his head at him disapprovingly. “This is so very unlike you, Zain.” Sighing once again, he sipped from his drink, not really tasting the strong liquid.

Saif asked the one question Zain dreaded the most, “So why have you taken her? Doesn’t that just prove to her -and to everyone else- that you do take girls and force them into your harem?”

Why had he taken her?

Truthfully, he’d taken her on a whim. He’d seen her, been fascinated by her, and he’d wanted her -he still wanted her. He could write it off as an honest attraction, as lust, but in all honesty, he was not so sure. There had been many beautiful women he’d been attracted to, but none had ever lingered in his memory the way she did and stirred him so. None had left him burning with desire till the late hours of the night.

“I do not know,” he confessed and then emptied his glass in one gulp.