Royal Protector: Traded to the Desert Sheikh / Royal Captive / His Pregnant Princess Bride. Dana Marton

tight thing in his chest feel easier, well, he told himself it was the conquest that fired his blood, nothing more. That tightness was about the injustice and sheer insult of the way she’d kept herself from him, that was all. She was his. It was time she behaved as if she knew that at last, as if she finally understood her place.

      Because Kavian was king of this harsh land, not a bloodhound who could roam the earth forever in search of his runaway bride. He had won back his father’s throne with his blood, his strength. He ruled Daar Talaas with his own cunning and his commitment to defend what was his no matter the cost. He’d had no choice but to chase down the woman who had tried to shame him in the eyes of his people.

      More than that, he’d wanted her. He thought he would always want her. She was his.

      But it was past time he got back to the intricate business of running this ancient, desert-hardened place, or he would lose it to someone who would do so in his stead. That was the law of Daar Talaas. That was the price of power—it belonged only to the man who could wield it.

      His relationship with this woman could be no different. He would not allow it.

      Kavian took Amaya’s sweetly rounded chin in his hand and held her there, though he knew he could hold her as easily with his gaze. He could feel the way she shivered at his touch. He could see emotion and longing in those dark eyes of hers, and he reveled in both. He could smell the delicate scent of her soft skin and the sweet fragrance that rose from the masses of her dark hair she finally wore down around her pretty shoulders.

      And beneath it all rose the far richer fragrance of her arousal.

      The only thing he’d ever wanted more, in all his life, was the throne he’d won back through his own fierce determination. He’d found the darkness within him; he’d become it. He’d used it to do what was necessary. He’d been raised on vengeance and he’d finally taken his when he was barely twenty. And even that—the achievement of his life—seemed far off just now, with Amaya naked and obedient before him, her gaze fixed to his.

      This is the way back to reality, he assured himself. Conquer her here, now, and you will never need to risk the throne for her again.

      He’d known that he wanted Amaya from the moment he saw that video of her. And he’d known precisely how he would take her, and how she would thrill to it, the moment he met her in her brother’s palace. He’d suspected then that she would fit him perfectly.

      Now he knew it as well as he knew his own name.

      Six months ago, the wild passion between them had been a burst of flame, unexpected and all consuming. They’d met for the first time when Kavian arrived with his entourage at the Bakrian Royal Palace to claim her as his betrothed and begin the official alliance between their two countries. It had been a formal and very public greeting of political allies, an elegant affair in a majestic salon, surrounded on all sides by ministers and aides, ambassadors and carefully selected palace reporters who could be relied upon to trumpet the appropriate information into all the correct ears.

      There had been all those contracts to sign, all those oaths to take, and this woman he’d agreed to marry had been dressed in a fine, formal gown that made her look every inch the untouchable desert princess. They’d talked with excruciating politeness while surrounded and closely observed on all sides. They’d been feted at a long, formal dinner ripe with too many speeches from what seemed like every Bakrian noble in the whole of the kingdom. And for all that they’d sat next to each other during the endless evening, they’d never been out of that too-public fishbowl for even a moment. There had been no real conversation, no chance of anything but the loosest connection.

      Then they’d had their betrothal ceremony the following day, in the grand ballroom of the palace that had been draped in every shade of gold in the glare of too many cameras to count. Cameras and gossips and a parade of aristocrats to comment on every last bit of it. Like carrion crows, pecking away at them.

      “In my country,” Kavian had told her as they’d made their formal entrance together, touching only in that stiffly appropriate manner that befitted their respective ranks on such an occasion and before so many judgmental eyes, “there is no need for a wedding ceremony. It is the claiming that matters, not the legalities that follow. A wedding is all but redundant.”

      “My brother’s kingdom may not sit at the forefront of the modern age, exactly,” Amaya had replied, and he’d been lost in the bittersweet chocolate gleam in her eyes, the sweet lushness of her lips, that kick of deep, dark need that had haunted him since the moment he saw her face. To say nothing of the unscripted, less than perfectly polite thing she was saying then and that flashed in her gaze, giving him a hint of the woman beneath the high-gloss Bakrian princess adorning his arm. A glimpse of that defiance of hers that sang to him. “But he does prefer that any royal marriages be legalized. As do I, I will admit.”

      “As you wish,” Kavian had murmured. In that moment, he’d thought he’d give her anything she asked for another glimpse beneath her surface. His name, his protection, that went without saying. His kingdom, his wealth, his lands, certainly. His blood. His flesh. His life. Whatever she desired.

      But she’d kept her gaze trained on the ceremony, not on him.

      He’d hated it.

      They’d exchanged their initial vows, there before the kings of the surrounding realms, sheikhs and rulers and sultans galore. Officials and ministers, the ranks of Bakrian aristocrats and the high-placed members of his own cabinet. Her brother. His men.

      And then, once it had been finished and all the rest of the formal speeches about unity and family had been made for the benefit of their enemies in the region, Kavian took his betrothed aside so they could finally, finally, have a moment to themselves.

      Merely a moment, he’d thought. He hadn’t had anything planned. He’d only wanted a little bit of privacy with her, with no eyes on them and nothing but their real faces. He’d wanted to see what was between them then, when there was no one but the two of them to judge it, pick over it, analyze it.

      He had congratulated himself on his magnanimity, proud of himself that he was not like his own forefathers, that he had every intention of winning this woman slowly and carefully—instead of throwing her over his saddle and riding off into the desert with her like the Bedouin chiefs of old who made up a sizable portion of his family tree. He’d had absolutely no intention of playing the barbarian king to a deeply Westernized woman like Amaya, who no doubt had all sorts of opinions about what civilized meant. Oh, no. He’d planned to wine her and dine her like all the urbane sophisticates he’d imagined she’d known all her life, in all the cities she’d visited in all those concrete and glass places he abhorred. He’d planned to do what he had to do, whatever it took, to bind her to him in every way.

      She’d led them to that alcove, tucked away out of sight in a far-off corner of the ballroom’s second-floor balcony while the rest of the assembled throng moved about far below, reveling in Rihad al Bakri’s lavish hospitality. Kavian had stared down at her when they were finally alone. He hadn’t smiled. He’d been trying to see inside her, trying to match her exquisite beauty in person to the image he’d carried around with him in his head. He’d been trying to process the fact that she was well and truly his already, no matter how he approached her.

      It had felt like sunlight, deep inside him, warm and bright. He hadn’t known what to make of it.

      “Well,” she’d said with false brightness. “Here we are. Officially betrothed and still total strangers.”

      “We are not strangers,” he’d corrected her, with far more gruffness than he’d intended. He hadn’t meant to speak. He’d found those intricate braids that she’d worn like a crown of her own glossy hair an enchantment, and he’d been deep in their spell. He’d felt her gaze like a caress, an incantation. “I will soon be your husband. You are already mine.”

      “I’m not yours yet,” she’d said, and then she’d lifted her chin in a kind of challenge that he’d only understood, in retrospect, had been a bit of foreshadowing