The True King of Dahaar. Tara Pammi

day, he…”

       Azeez is alive.

      The words rang round and round in her head. But with the dizzying of her emotions also came the control she had developed in order to flourish in her career. “Ayaan? What’s wrong with him?” she demanded, forgetting propriety.

      “He is little more than a breathing corpse. He refuses to talk, he refuses to see a doctor. He’s refusing to live…Nikhat, and I can’t lose him all over again.”

      A knot of fear unraveled in her stomach now. “What exactly is this favor that you want to ask me?”

      “Spend some time with him.”

      No. The word rang through her. Shaking her head, she stepped away from Ayaan. “I’m an obstetrician, Ayaan. Not a psychiatrist. There’s nothing I can do for him that all your specialists can’t.”

      “He won’t let anyone see him. You…you he won’t refuse.”

      She felt brittle now, as if her calm was nothing but a facade, as if she would fracture under it. But she couldn’t fall apart, she refused to let pain and powerlessness wreak havoc on her again. “You don’t know what your brother will do if he sees me.”

      “Anything is better than what he is now.”

      “And what about the price I’ll have to pay?” The question escaped her before she knew she had said it.

      His head jerking up, he studied her. Nikhat looked away. The air between with them reverberated with questions he didn’t ask and she didn’t answer.

      Ayaan reached her, his jaw tight with determination. There was no grief or comforting familiarity in his face now. He was the man who had come back to life against all odds, the man who fought his demons every day to do his duty by Dahaar.

      “Would it be such a high price? All I’m asking for is a few months. I’m running out of options. I have to find something that will pull him from this spiral. Spend some time with him alone in the palace. Talk to him, try anything that might—”

      “If word of this gets out, I’ll be damned for the rest of my life in Dahaara,” she said, only realizing after she spoke that she was even considering the proposition. “That clinic you are baiting me with will be nothing but a sand castle.”

      “The Crown Princess Zohra is pregnant. She needs someone who will stay in the palace, a dedicated ob-gyn. And as to any time you spend with Azeez, no one will know you are with him. I give you my word, Nikhat. I will protect your reputation with everything I have. My coronation is in two months. At that time, whatever state he is in, you can walk away from him. No one will stop you.”

      Two months with a man who would once again plunge her into her darkest fear. Two months revisiting everything she couldn’t have, couldn’t be. Ya Allah, no. “You’ve no idea what you’re asking me to do.”

      “I was hoping that you would accept my proposition, but I cannot give you a choice, Nikhat. Desperation never leaves you with one. As of this moment, you’re either the Crown Prince’s guest or prisoner. If I have to lock you with him, I’ll…” His words reverberated with a pain she herself was very familiar with. “He’s my brother. He was once your friend. We owe it to him.”

      Her friend? Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside her.

      Azeez bin Rashid Al Sharif had never been just her friend. He had been her champion, he had been her prince, and he had been the man who had promised to make her every dream come true.

      And he had kept each and every one of his promises.

      Nikhat sprang to her feet and straightened her shoulders. She met Ayaan’s gaze and nodded before she could refuse, before ghosts of the past crippled her courage, before her bitterest fear trampled her sense of duty.

      She would do it because she owed it to King Malik for turning a middle-class girl’s fantastic dream to be a doctor into reality; she would do it for a childhood friend who had been through hell and survived; but more than anything, she would do it for the man who had once loved her more than anything in the world.

      It was not his fault that she wasn’t the woman he had thought her. “I will do it,” she whispered, the true consequences of what she had accepted weighing her down.

      Strong arms embraced her tightly. “I have to warn you, Nikhat. He’s not the man you or I knew. I’m not even sure that man exists anymore.”

      * * *

      There she was again, tall, beautiful, graceful.

      Like a mirage in the desert, she appeared every day during this time to taunt him, to remind him of everything he was not.

      The darkest time of the day when dawn was a mere hour away, when he found himself staring at the rise of another day with nothing but self-loathing to greet it with.

      However drunk he got, it was the time the reality of everything he had become, everything he had done, pressed upon Azeez.

      He had been the Crown Prince once. Now he was the Crown Prince’s prisoner, a fitting punishment for the man responsible for his sister’s death, his brother’s suffering and so much more.

      Just the passing thought was enough to feel the palace walls close around him.

      A cold breeze flew in through the wide-open doors to his right. The cold nipped at his bare chest, slowly but silently insinuating itself into his muscles. He would feel the effect of it tomorrow morning. His right hip would be stiff enough to seize up.

      But his imagination was stubborn tonight, the moment passed, and he saw her again.

      Tonight, she wore a dark brown, long-sleeved kaftan made of simple cotton with leggings of the same color underneath. She had always been simple in real life, too, never allowing him to splurge on her, never allowing him anything he had wanted to do with her, for that matter.

      Like kiss her, or touch her or possess her.

      And yet, he had been her slave.

      Her hair, a silky mass of dark brown, was tied back into a high ponytail in the no-nonsense way she had liked. Leaving her golden skin pulled tightly over her features.

      A high forehead that had always bothered her—a symbol of her intelligence—almond-shaped copper-hued eyes, which were her best feature, her too-long nose—a bit on the strong side—and a wide pink-lipped mouth. If one studied those features objectively and separately, as he had done for innumerable hours, there was nothing outstanding about any of them.

      And yet all together, she had the most beautiful face he had ever seen. It was full of character, full of laughter and full of love.

      Or being a naive, arrogant young fool, so he had thought. Until his love for her had destroyed him, shattered him to pathetic pieces.

      Leaning over the side of the lounger he was sitting on, Azeez extended his right hand. The movement pressed his hip into the chair and a sharp lance of pain shot up through it. Reaching the bottle of scotch, he took a quick sip.

      The fiery liquid burned his throat and chest, making his vision another notch blurrier.

      But the image in front of his eyes didn’t waver. In fact, it became much more focused, as if it had been amplified and brought much closer for his very pleasure.

      Because now he could see her long neck, the neck he had caressed with his fingers so long ago. The cheap, well-worn cotton draped loosely over her breasts, losing the fight to cover up their lushness. The fabric dipped neatly at the curve of her hip.

      Wiping the back of his mouth with his hand, he grabbed the bottle with his other hand and stood up abruptly.

      White-hot pain exploded in his right side, radiating from his hip, traveling up and down. He had been sitting for way too long today and had barely exercised since his brother had locked him up here in the palace.

      Gritting