LITMIR.BIZ

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had never been the type to throw up or swoon. Ballerinas looked like fairy-tale princesses on stage but the truth was, dancing was a tough life, especially if you came to it via a publicly funded dance program instead of some expensive Manhattan studio.

      While one girl vomited and the other shivered, she’d fought the ropes that bound her. But their captors burst in, held them down and injected something into their arms. She’d come to in this horrid cell, alone, knowing she’d been sold…

      Knowing it was only a matter of time before her owner claimed her.

      Now, that time had come.

      The giants dragged her down a long corridor that stank of sweat and human misery. They shoved her into a small room with stained concrete walls and a drain in the middle of the floor, and slammed the door behind her. She heard the sound of a bolt sliding into place but she threw herself at the door anyway, pounding it with her fists until her knuckles hurt.

      Then she slumped to the cold floor, looked at the stained walls, at the drain. At the dark, wet stain around it.

      She buried her face in her hands.

      A long time later, she heard the bolt sliding open. Leanna began to tremble.

      “No,” she whispered to herself, “don’t let them see how scared you are.” Somehow, she knew that would only make things worse. Slowly she dragged herself to her feet and lifted her chin.

      A woman entered the room. Leanna sagged with relief. Two men with cold, dead eyes stood behind her but the woman’s bearing made it clear she was in charge.

      “Do you speak English?” Leanna asked. No reply, but that didn’t prove anything. “I hope you do,” she said, trying to sound reasonable instead of terrified, “because there’s been an awful mis—”

      “You will disrobe.”

      “You do speak English! Oh, I’m so—”

      “Leave your clothing on the floor.”

      “Listen, please! I’m a dancer. I don’t know what you think I—”

      “Do it quickly, or these men will do it for you.”

      “Do you hear me? I’m a dancer! And I’m an American citizen. My embassy—”

      “There is no embassy in Baslaam. My lord does not recognize your country.”

      “Well, he’d better. Otherwise—otherwise—” The woman jerked her head toward the men behind her. Leanna shrieked as one of them moved faster than she’d have thought he could and grabbed the neck of her T-shirt. “Stop it! Take your hands off—”

      The shirt tore to the hem. Leanna lashed out but he laughed and caught her wrists in one hand, lifting her off her feet so the other man could yank off her sneakers and her cotton trousers.

      When she was stripped to her bra and panties, they flung her to the floor. Leanna scrambled toward the wall and screwed her eyes shut. Maybe she was dreaming. She had to be dreaming.

      This couldn’t be real, couldn’t be real, couldn’t be—

      She shrieked as a gusher of warm water hit her in the face. Her eyes flew open. A scraggly line of serving-women surrounded her. Some held steaming pitchers, some held soap and towels. The men had dragged in an enormous wooden vessel…

      A tub?

      “Take off your undergarments,” the woman in charge snapped. “Bathe yourself well. If you are not clean enough, you will be punished. My lord, the sultan Asaad, will not tolerate filth.”

      Leanna blinked. She was in an improvised bathroom. That was the reason for the drain in the floor.

      A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her throat.

      The ruler of this godforsaken place had bought her, had her thrown into a vermin-infested hole in the ground. He was going to make her into his newest sex toy.

      But first, she had to scrub behind her ears.

      Suddenly everything that had happened, that was happening, seemed unbelievable. Leanna let the laughter out. Peals of it. The servant women stared at her in disbelief. One giggled and slapped her hand over her mouth, but not quickly enough. The woman in charge slapped the one who’d dared laugh, barked an order, then rounded on Leanna in rage.

      “Perhaps you would like to appear before my lord beaten black and blue!”

      Leanna looked her tormentor in the eye. She was tired of being afraid, tired of behaving like a whipped dog. Besides, all things considered, what could she possibly lose?

      “Perhaps you’d like to appear before him and explain how you managed to damage the merchandise.”

      The woman blanched. Leanna’s heart was racing but she smiled coolly.

      “Tell your goons to get lost and I’ll get into that tub.”

      Stalemate, but only for a few seconds. Then the woman snarled a command and the men marched out of the room.

      Leanna took off her bra and panties, stepped into the tub, eased down in the hot water and let it soothe her body while her brain worked feverishly to come up with an escape plan.

      Unfortunately, by the time she was pronounced clean enough for the sultan of Baslaam, she still hadn’t thought of anything. Improvisation was for actors, not for classically-trained dancers.

      But she’d never been a coward.

      If she had to, she’d die proving it.

      CHAPTER TWO

      CAM had seen a lot of places in upheaval.

      Baslaam wasn’t in upheaval. It was in collapse. It didn’t take training as a spy to see that.

      No people. No vehicles. A gray sky, filled with plumes of smoke. And the vultures, scores of them, circling overhead.

      Things were not going well in the sultanate, he thought grimly.

      Adair offered no explanations. Cam, nobody’s fool, didn’t request any. All he kept thinking was that the pistol he’d secreted in his briefcase might end up being useful.

      The sultan was waiting for him in a marble hall with ceilings easily twenty feet high. He sat on a gold throne elevated on a silver platform, and he sure as hell wasn’t the man Avery had described.

      The sultan, his father had told him, was in his eighties. Small. Wiry. Hard-eyed and determined.

      The man on the throne was in his forties. He was big. Huge, really, a mass of muscle just starting to turn to fat. The only resemblance between the picture Avery had painted and this behemoth were the eyes, but the hardness in them spoke more of cruelty than determination.

      Had there been a coup? That would explain a lot of things, including the disappearance of his father’s representative. It was a good guess the poor bastard was one of the unlucky souls attracting the attention of the vultures.

      Cam had only one real question. Why hadn’t he been disposed of, too? The man on the throne must want something of him. What? He had to find out, and do it without giving away the game.

      Adair made the introductions. “Excellency, this is Mr. Cameron Knight. Mr. Knight, this is our beloved sultan, Abdul Asaad.”

      “Good afternoon, Mr. Knight.”

      “Excellency.” Cam smiled politely. “I expected you to be older.”

      “Ah, yes. You thought you would meet my uncle. Unfortunately, Uncle passed away most unexpectedly a week ago.”

      “You have my sympathy.”

      “Thank you. We all miss him. I had similar expectations about you, Mr. Knight. I thought the man who owns Knight Oil would be much older.”

      “My father owns

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