Bodyguard Confessions. Donna Young

      Bodyguard Confessions

      Donna Young

      

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To my family, you are my heart

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Epilogue

      Chapter One

      They called themselves Al Asheera. The Tribe. Revolutionaries with crimson veils that masked all but the bloodlust in the deepest black of their eyes.

      Like desert locusts, they poured from the darkness, swarmed over the palace walls. Consuming. Destroying.

      Some carried the poisoned spears and the tapered broadswords of their ancestors, while others—the youths—held the submachine guns and grenades of their allies.

      But all were intent on one objective: to kill the Royal Family of Taer.

      Quamar Bazan Al Asadi pressed his fingers to his eyes, while a litany of screams pierced the darkness around him. Their mounting pitch taunted him with their unrelenting rhythm. They were the cries of the scarcely living—souls lost somewhere between terror and death.

      He thought of the servants, the guards. His cousin, King Jarek, and Jarek’s wife, Saree. Their baby son, Rashid.

      All dead.

      Rage rose in his throat, forcing Quamar to draw short, bitter breaths through his mouth. The wind had stopped. Its strength bogged—first by the familiar stench of blood and battle, and now by the sweeter scent of hashish and cremated bodies.

      A handful of Al Asheera soldiers swaggered around the palace grounds in small groups, confident in their success. Some patrolled, others stood watch from the palace’s silk-draped windows while most celebrated in a drug-induced euphoria.

      Quamar moved, half-crouched, to a nearby abandoned jeep. From his position, he observed the courtyard. Bodies littered the ground, strewn about like blood-spattered rag dolls among the marble statues and mosaic-tiled fountains.

      Men. Women.

      His gaze stopped on a dead Al Asheera soldier, who lay slumped in the jeep’s passenger seat, his crimson scarf torn from his face. Quamar noted the acne that spotted his cheeks and the soft, youthful jawline that hadn’t yet touched the sharp edge of a man’s razor.

      A boy. One who wasn’t a day older than fifteen, Quamar realized. His gaze rested on the knife tucked in the boy’s belt, the sword propped under his hand. Shaving wasn’t a prerequisite when it came to butchery.

      The Al Asheera recruited the young. Not surprising, considering the promise of riches and rewards appealed mostly to those born poor and who hadn’t suffered the horrors of war.

      Frustration filled him, fed his anger. Only cowards made war against women and recruited children to kill. For that atrocity alone, Al Asheera would pay.

      A dull throb started at his right temple, but Quamar ignored it. Instead, he shifted deeper into the shelter of the darkness, monitoring his surroundings. He was a big man, wide in the shoulders, with the broad, hard-boned features of the Arabic, the muscle and meat of the Italian.

      Still, he was born from the desert, his body carved from its wind, sand and heat. He was a soldier by fate, not choice—a man hardened but not cruel, dangerous but not treacherous. His beliefs were his own—this by his choice—deep-rooted in faith, tradition…

      And justice, Quamar thought with grim satisfaction.

      More than half of the palace guards had secretly joined the Al Asheera ranks. Traitors who attacked from inside, catching those loyal to King Jarek unaware. Several had died for their betrayal, but not near enough for Quamar’s liking.

      A stretch of ground lay between the courtyard’s rear entrance and the palace itself. A few hundred feet. Half a football field.

      In the middle lay a cluster of olive trees. Just beyond, fires burned in horrific pillars, their greedy flames fed by the dead.

      It was a contemptible testament from Al Asheera. Muslim law forbade cremation—considered it abhorrent—and in doing so, Al Asheera denied the people of Taer their rightful place with Allah.

      In the distance, curses mingled with loud bursts of laughter. Quamar leaned forward, his gaze shifting until a circle of Al Asheera soldiers, six in all, crossed his line of sight.

      At their feet lay an older man, his worn, leathered features barely distinguishable under the blood that coated his dark skin.

      A servant? A soldier?

      The Al Asheera bound the man’s hands and stripped him down to a pair of mud-stained linen pants. Even from a distance, Quamar saw his arms were thick. Yet, where once there was strength and sinew, the muscle now slackened with old age. But it wasn’t until they ripped off his turban that he saw the shock of gray hair, the deep-set brow.

      Arimand.

      In the flickering light, the Al Asheera soldiers dragged the old man, Jarek’s Captain of the Guard, into the middle of the courtyard, then shoved him against an aged, gnarled olive tree.

      Quamar edged closer, shifting toward the jeep’s front tire, careful to hide from the glow of a nearby fire.

      A rebel tied the rope to Arimand’s secured wrists, then threw the loose end around a branch overhead. Within moments, they hoisted the guard off the ground and left him suspended mid-air with his arms stretched above, his shoulder sockets straining under his weight.

      The smoke blended with the night, making the air thick and murky. For a few moments the Al Asheera poked and prodded Arimand with hot sticks and knives. But soon they tired of their game and drifted to the nearest fire for warmth.

      Quamar flexed his fingers, felt the reassuring rush of blood to his hands. One against twenty was never good odds. But with every passing moment, the rebels’ hashish slowed their reflexes, dulled their thoughts.

      If the number equaled fifty, it would not matter. First and foremost a soldier, Quamar had come to terms with death long before.

      He grabbed the boy’s turban and scarf. His home had been assaulted. His family decimated. And because of this, he waged his own personal war. Quickly, he secured the material over his head, then around his face.

      A war that took no prisoners.

      ANNA CAMBRIDGE STAGGERED through the underground channel. Cobwebs snared her hair, covered her face. She shoved them away. The first two or three had frightened her—along with the rats that scurried and screeched. But no more.

      How