Page 3 of The Innocent Carrying His Legacy

Because it wasn’t just his height—which had to be well over six three—or the fact that he was built like a rugby prop forward, or maybe more accurately an ancient Roman gladiator. No, it was the aura he projected, which she felt like a change in air pressure as soon as he entered the guardhouse.

Danger. Sheer, heart-pumping, terrifying danger.

He radiated a kind of leashed, savage violence, like a dragon guarding his hoard.

And she was the rabbit served up to him for his lunch.

She stayed very still on the camp bed they’d laid her on, holding her breath and silently regretting her decision to fake a faint as he loomed over her, because no doubt he’d pick up on her play-acting easily enough. He was just the kind of man who saw everything, including pretence.

Through the veil of her lashes, she caught a glimpse of a face that looked as if it had been carved from solid granite. His nose was crooked, his cheekbones carved, his jaw square and sharp. His chiselled mouth was as hard as the rest of his features and what could have been sensual had firmed into a grim line.

It was a harsh face, intensely masculine and not pretty in the slightest.

His eyes were what truly terrified her, though. Because they were the most astonishing colour, a bright clear turquoise framed by thick black lashes. She’d seen eyes that colour in the tourist bazaar of Mahassa, in the faces of people descended from the ancient nomadic desert tribes, and they were unusual and beautiful.

But in the face of this man, the colour had frozen and turned as icy as the tundra in the north. There was no mercy in those eyes. No kindness. No warmth.

There was death in those eyes.

This was the warlord, wasn’t it? The one she’d followed all those rumours about. The terrifying, cruel Sheikh who lived in the desert with an army of murderers who either stole people away to sell in some black-market trafficking ring, or killed them where they stood.

‘Stay away from the desert, miss,’ the staff at the tourism information centre had told her. ‘No one goes into the desert.’

They didn’t understand though. Shehadto go into the desert. Because it was the warlord she had to find. Even though she hadn’t wanted to. Even though it went against every self-protective urge she had.

She had to at least try, for Connie’s sake.

The warlord stared at her, the expression on his harsh face utterly unforgiving, and Ivy’s mouth went bone dry. Unable to stop herself, she slid a protective hand over the slight roundness of her stomach.

His predator’s gaze flickered as he spotted the movement and abruptly he straightened to his full height, looking down at her.

‘You can stop pretending now,’ he said in perfect, accentless English. ‘I know you’re awake.’

His voice was as deep and as harsh as his features, like an earthquake rumbling under the ground, and he issued it not so much as an observation but as a command.

He was a man used to giving orders, which made sense. Authority radiated from him, the kind of authority that came without arrogance, the kind that was innate. The kind of authority that some people were simply born with.

Ivy found herself stirring and opening her eyes before she’d even registered that she was doing so.

The warlord said nothing, his frozen gaze taking in every inch of her as she sat up, making it obvious that the onus was on her to explain herself.

Fear gathered like a kernel of ice in her stomach and she kept her hand where it was, as if she could protect the small life inside her not only from the man standing in front of her, but from her fear as well.

But giving in to such emotions was never helpful and despite the urging of her primitive lizard brain to make a dash for the door, throw it open, and run for her life, she remained where she was. Being practical was key; she wouldn’t get far even if she did run, not in a fortress full of soldiers. And besides, where would she run to? There was nothing but desert outside, her guide having abandoned her as soon as he realised that she had no intention of merely viewing the fortress from a safe distance, that she actually wanted to go inside and speak to the warlord himself.

Anyway, show no fear. That was what you had to do when faced with a predator. Running would only get you eaten.

Ivy ignored the ice inside her, just as she ignored that, even from a few feet away, the man still managed to loom over her, making the guardhouse feel ten times smaller than it actually was.

‘I should thank you,’ Ivy began coolly. ‘For your—’

‘Your name and purpose,’ the man cut across her in that rough, rumbling voice, his tone making it clear that this was not a request in any way.

Okay, so if he was indeed Sheikh Nazir Al Rasul, the infamous warlord—and she had a sneaking suspicion he might be—then she would have to tread delicately here.

But she also wouldn’t allow herself to be intimidated. Back in England, she managed an entire children’s home full of foster kids, some of them with quite severe behavioural and mental-health issues, and she had no difficulty keeping them in order.

One man, no matter how tall and terrifying, was not going to get the better of her.

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