Page 46 of Her Vow to Be His Desert Queen

‘But you don’t believe that, do you?’

He couldn’t keep it all inside. ‘Mercy should not hurt, yet it was the most painful thing I have ever done. And I could not help thinking that I did it to ease my own suffering, not my dog’s.’

A tear escaped, running down her cheek, and he thought she would pull away from him, and he didn’t know what he would have done if she had. But she didn’t. Instead she lifted her hands to take his face between her palms, and it shocked him so much that she should want to touch him after what he’d told her that he couldn’t move. ‘Oh, Khal,’ she said huskily. ‘Of course it was painful. You loved your dog. He was sick and you were only a child. You shouldn’t have been made to do that.’

He lifted his hands to hers, wanting to pull them away and yet wanting at the same time to keep them exactly where they were. ‘My mother’s intentions were good. She wanted to make me strong because she believed I would make the best King. That I would save Al Da’ira from my father. But I was also my father’s son, and she did not want me to turn into him.’

Sidonie didn’t say anything then, merely rising on her toes and brushing her mouth against his, silencing him once again. ‘You’re not him,’ she said against his lips. ‘You’re just not, Khal, and you never were. Your people think so too. Remember what that old man said to you just before? He didn’t think you were Amir, so why torture yourself with this?’

He gripped her tightly, his heart beating faster, harder, the doubt inside him eating away at his foundations, weakening him. ‘Because Amir was a flawed man. A greedy and selfish man. Everything he did was for himself. So how am I any different? What if I took Yusuf’s life because I wanted the way clear to be King? What if I took Dusk’s because I hated to see him suffer and did not want to deal with it any more?’

Her hands gripped his face, holding him tightly, her green gaze on his, suddenly fierce. ‘Youaredifferent, Khal. You havealwaysbeen different. You’re protective and generous, and you care about people so much. You don’t want what’s best for you. You want what’s best for your people. But your problem, my darling husband, is that you’re too rigid. Your standards for yourself are so high. And I think you’re trying to be this strong, semi-divine king because you’re too afraid to be a man.’

‘That is not true. I am—’

‘It is true. Doubts are normal. Doubts make you human. And you’re a wonderful, special human. A good man, a kind man. Yusuf, your dog...they were things you did because you felt you had to, but those things don’t change who you are inside.’ She let him go and put her palms back on his chest, pressing down. ‘Your heart is still the same. You’re the kindest man I’ve ever known, the kindest person.’ Yet more tears were escaping and were running down her cheek even as the warmth of her palms seeped into him, easing the jagged ache inside him. ‘And you’re a good king. You held your country together through all those years of unrest, and you want what’s best for it. You want what’s best for your people.’

‘A good king would not doubt himself.’

‘No.’ Sidonie gave him a smile through her tears. ‘Doubt makes the best kings, you idiot. Don’t you know that? It shows he cares, and you have to care, Khal. That’s why you’re different from your father and you always will be. It’s because you care about other people, not because you don’t.’

He stared at her, smiling at him despite those tears on her cheeks, feeling a kind of slow-dawning shock. He didn’t know about all the other things she’d said about him, but what she’d said about doubt...resonated. He’d been taught that certainty was strength, and so he’d pushed away his doubts, crushed them, cut them out so there was nothing left in him but the strength he needed to rule.

He’d never thought that perhaps a king might need that doubt. He’d never thought that a king should care. His mother had told him that it was a weakness, not a strength, and yet... Perhaps Sidonie was right. His mother’s intentions had been good, but she’d been rigid in her way. Her father hadn’t treated her well and she had come to hate him in the end.

After all, his father really hadn’t cared about his people or his country, and look what had happened to Al Da’ira.

He wanted to be a better king than that, he always had, but what if that meant admitting that he was just as full of doubt as the next person?

This is how she will change things. By changing you.

That fractured stone around his heart shifted again, making him ache for something he couldn’t name. An ache that puzzled him when what he truly wanted was already standing right in front of him.

All he knew was that the tension that had gripped him wasn’t there any more, and now all he could think about was her. He wanted his new wife and he wanted her now.

He took one of her hands in his and lifted it to his mouth, gently biting the tip of it and making her eyes go very wide. ‘You are always wise,ya hayati.And I will have to think about what you have said. But...it is our wedding night, and, since you have not left me as I thought you would, I would like very much for you to continue the job you started.’

CHAPTER TEN

THEGENTLENIPon her finger had sent a shockwave of sensation through her, and she was very conscious, all of a sudden, that he was shirtless, the wide, muscled expanse of his bronzed chest right in front of her.

Her husband.

He was so much more complicated than she’d ever guessed. She’d thought he’d told her everything about himself and yet he’d been holding on to those secrets. Those terrible, painful secrets. Secrets that had hurt him so badly.

It made her heart ache.

‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘But I wish you had told me those things years ago. You didn’t need to torture yourself for so long with them.’

‘I did not want to tell you. I thought you would see me differently if I did. And I...could not have borne that back then.’

She blinked back the tears that kept filling her eyes. ‘I would never have seen you differently. Not even back then.’ And she wouldn’t have. Because she’d told him the truth. Granting mercy to his sick dog was an act of kindness, though naturally it would haunt him. And as for Yusuf... No wonder he’d been tortured by that too.

He wasn’t a killer. He’d just been forced into a situation that required him to defend himself, and that had had consequences.

It would be terrible if hehadn’tdoubted.

Khalil shook his head. ‘You were everything bright, everything beautiful back then, Sidonie. You were the only happiness I’d ever known. I did not want to risk losing that for anything.’

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