The Royal Collection. Rebecca Winters

he thought of Olivia, professing to love him. They were not the same things. How could they ever be? Because Olivia was nothing like Malik. His mother and father had been nothing like Malik.

      His parents. He had so few memories of them. But they were there. Those twisted, broken shards of his humanity would never have existed in the first place if not for them. Back then, he had been whole. He had been loved. Not in the way that Malik had claimed to love him. It had been different.

      He gritted his teeth against the pain of the memory. It was like trying to break through a brick wall. One he had erected. There was a very clear division in his mind. Life before the death of his parents, and life after. He did not allow his mind across the wall into life before because he did not like to remember. Because it split his focus from his purpose. Because it caused him nothing but pain.

      Searing, unending pain. Much like the torture he had endured at his brother’s hands.

      Pain. At least in the desert there had been no pain. At least when he cut out every desire, every longing, every emotion, everything with a singular purpose before him, there could be no pain. And that was why it was so important.

      Why it was so important to keep himself from wanting. Why it was so important to keep everything but that one goal stripped away. He had honed his existence into one of survival. Survival was simple. It cared not for comfort, for enjoyment. It cared only about breathing. Breathing was easy.

      It was the rest that was difficult.

      But he was not Malik. He had determined he would rule independent of his own desires. Was that not enough?

      Unbidden, he saw a familiar face in his mind. Not Olivia’s this time. His father’s. And he heard his voice, soft, distant, from the unused recesses of his memory. The words. Those words he had longed to hear for so very long, muffled by pain and grief, now made clear.

       I love this country. More than my own life. Without love, how can a ruler temper his power? What will he use as his guide?

      A flood of memories filled him then, washing over the wall that remained, reducing it to rubble. Of everything that had happened before. Of who he had been before the torture. Before his exile. And he wished, more than anything, that he had Olivia here to hold him as the images overtook him. Brought him to his knees. Mingling with the grief he already felt over her loss.

      He realized with sudden, stark clarity that whatever Malik had felt for anything, for anyone, it hadn’t been love. He was the evidence of the absence of love and all the destruction it could cause.

      What did it matter if he swore protection, if he professed loyalty in his speeches, if he gave of himself, if he gave his possessions, but there was nothing behind it? If none of those actions possessed love, what did they mean? And what could they become?

      He saw now that love was not pain. Love was the very thing that kept a man rooted. No matter how fiercely he focused on his goal, if he felt nothing in his heart, there was no compass to guide him. No true north that would ensure his direction was true.

      It was love that would see him making the compassionate choices. Love that would help him believe when everything was dark.

      It was love that had helped him believe already when life was dark, even though he had been too blind to see it. The love of his parents.

      Olivia had told him. She had told him that he was not what Malik had made him. Had insisted that he had been strong already, or he would have perished. She had been right. It was everything his parents had made him. Their strength. Their love.

      Love was not the weakness. Love was the strength. Love was everything.

      Olivia had shown him that, and he had told her to leave. He had been afraid. He had been holding on too tightly, but had no control. It was the fear. Fear of pain. That was what all of this had been. Him running. Him fleeing the kind of pain he had been subjected to in his past.

      And now she was gone. Now was too late.

      She was on a plane, back to Alansund.

      She should run from him. She had been denied her entire life. Perhaps there was nothing more her parents could have done. Her sister had always been ill; she had said so. Whether or not they could have done better by her, they should have. Simply because she was Olivia. And she deserved the best of everything.

      She most certainly deserved a man who wasn’t shattered inside. Most certainly deserved a man who chose to love her the first time she asked.

      Not a man with scars both inside and out. Not a man who had wounded her, told her to leave. Not the man who could scarcely imagine coming after her because he had never been away from his country, never been on a plane.

      She was his queen. The queen he wanted ruling beside him. The queen of his heart.

      Her kiss had changed him back from stone. Had demolished the walls inside him.

      She had given him a new goal. Love. And with it, facets to his existence. More than simple survival. More than breathing.

      He had no idea what he brought to her. No idea what he had done to deserve the feelings she claimed to have for him.

      But if she would have him, he would claim her.

      It didn’t matter how impossible it seemed to leave. Didn’t matter how far he had to go to find her. He was more when he was with her. He was the ruler he needed to be. He was a man.

      And that meant whatever it took, he would see it done.

      * * *

      Olivia had never felt such pain. This truly was losing a part of herself. A grief so strange, so open-ended, she didn’t know what to do with it. It wasn’t like losing someone to death. There was no reclaiming someone who was gone. But Tarek was still walking around on this earth, and she could not have him. Could not be with him.

      She had never loved like this before, either. With all of herself. Unreservedly. She had made herself vulnerable, and she was paying for it. Yet again she was paying for demanding more.

      But she wouldn’t go back, either.

      She realized now that though it was Emily who’d been sick all of her life, Olivia had allowed herself to be crippled inside. To shut her emotions, her desires, away so she wouldn’t suffer more rejection.

      But now she had.

      And she felt more alive than ever. She had been so afraid of loving with all of herself. Because it would leave her vulnerable. Leave her exposed. Marcus’s loss had only seemed to confirm that. But as badly as it had hurt, she could only be thankful at the time that she hadn’t given him her whole heart. Because she’d been afraid long before that loss.

      She hadn’t taken any medication for the flight back. She’d been too lost in her sadness over Tarek to feel any anxiety. More than that, she wasn’t afraid to show it if she did. That was half of why she’d taken the pills. Because she was more afraid of showing her fear than of not being able to cope with it.

      She didn’t care now. She supposed that was one thing.

      She felt battered, broken. But strong. Because she had endured now, hadn’t she? Had faced down her deepest fear, returned alone, back to this palace, useless. No place for her.

      But she didn’t care. Didn’t care that she wasn’t useful. Didn’t care if she was underfoot. Didn’t care to make herself indispensable so that someone might deign to care that she was around.

      She loved Tarek. No matter what he did. No matter what he said to her, no matter how useful he was.

      Didn’t she deserve the same?

      She felt she did.

      Too bad most of her wanted to get back on a plane and beg Tarek to take her back, whether he ever loved her or not. There was a very large part of her that felt pride was overrated in this situation.

       It isn’t about pride. Pride is nothing. It’s about wanting to