Page 2 of The Innocent Carrying His Legacy

‘Bring her to the guardhouse,’ Nazir ordered tersely, letting no hint of his temper show. ‘I’ll deal with her there.’

Both guards saluted and disappeared off up the corridor.

Nazir muttered a curse under his breath then grabbed the black robe he’d hung over the back of a chair, belting it loosely around his waist before striding out.

This was the very last thing he needed right now.

There were always people coming to his gates, but he never let them in and he didn’t particularly want to start now. Especially not with a woman who’d demanded first a sun umbrella then fainted. She was probably some idiot tourist who’d heard the rumours he’d carefully cultivated to deter most of the people who turned up at his door—rumours about the brutal warlord and his army of murdering thugs that he’d collected from prisons around the world, who led a nomadic lifestyle in the desert to escape detection and woe betide any who came across them because they did not understand the concept of mercy.

It was the best kind of rumour, one that held grains of truth. Hewasa brutal warlord and it wasn’t that he didn’t understand mercy, he just saw no point to it. The murdering thugs and the nomadic lifestyle were smokescreens, naturally, but it succeeded in deterring most idle fools.

This woman was clearly a fool who had not been deterred.

One thing he was sure of though: she definitely wasn’t pregnant. And if she was then she was more of a fool than he’d initially thought. What woman would head out into the middle of the desert in search of him, despite the terrible rumours, then spend a couple of hours standing outside his gates in the sun, and all while she was pregnant?

Nazir strode out of the big stone fortress he called home and across the dusty courtyard in front of it, heading towards the small guardhouse by the massive reinforced steel gates.

It was a sturdy building made of stone, equipped with the same high-tech surveillance equipment that was in use in the rest of the compound. It was also air-conditioned—unlike the fortress, which didn’t need it due to its medieval construction of thick stone walls that protected from the worst of the heat—since the heat was brutal and Nazir preferred his men uncooked, especially when on guard duty.

The two guards outside saluted at his approach and Nazir ran a reflexive, critical eye over them. Guards on duty in the hottest part of the day were relieved on the hour every hour, and, judging by the colour of these two, they were due to be relieved any minute. They were also new recruits, young men wanting to prove themselves to him, which often led to unwanted complications.

‘Make sure you get some water when you go off-duty,’ he said shortly. ‘Soldiers who can’t look after themselves are of no use to me.’

‘Yes, sir,’ the two guards said as one.

Nazir pulled open the heavy iron door into the guardhouse and stepped inside.

Another guard stood near the door while a second sat at the station in front of the bank of screens and computers that constantly monitored all areas of the fortress.

The downside of being Commander of one of the world’s most sought-after and feared private armies was that he’d made many, many enemies. And there were a great many people who wanted him and his army gone. Preferably for ever.

His fortress was marked on no maps, nor was it detectable via any other high-tech search, and all its communications were encrypted. To the rest of the world it simply didn’t exist. Yet there were always people trying to find it and trying to find him.

They always failed.

The beauty of the desert was that it mostly did his work for him when it came to winnowing out his enemies.

Of course, there were always a few determined souls who didn’t let sand and savage heat stop them.

Souls such as the woman who lay in a bundle of dirty white robes on a makeshift camp stretcher set up on the guardhouse floor.

The two guards came to attention the instant Nazir stepped inside.

He ignored them, moving over to the camp stretcher where the woman lay.

She was small, her figure and hair obscured by the robes she wore, which had obviously been bought from the tourist bazaar in Mahassa since the cotton was thin and cheap and would offer exactly zero protection from the sun. Her hair was covered by another length of cotton, but her face was unveiled. She had a pointed chin, a small nose, and straight dark brows. There was an almost feline cast to her features, not pretty in the least, but her mouth was fairly arresting. It was full and pouty and sensual, though her lips were cracked.

Her lashes were thick and silky-looking, lying still on sunburned cheeks...

Actually no, they weren’t still. They were quivering slightly and Nazir could detect a faint, pale gleam from underneath them.

An odd, delicious thrill went through him, though what it was and what it meant, he couldn’t have said. What he did know was that the woman was definitely not unconscious.

And she was watching him.

Ivy Dean had been on the point of pretending to wake up when the door to the small guardhouse she’d been taken to had opened and the tallest, broadest man she’d ever seen had walked in.

Her breath had caught and the fear she hadn’t felt once during the long and sometimes frustrating journey from England’s cool, misty rain to the brutal heat of Inaris had suddenly come rushing over her.

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