LITMIR.BIZ

      The Sheikh’s Defiant Bride

      Sandra Marton

      PROLOGUE

       The Kingdom of Dubaac, early summer:

      THE sun poured like a ribbon of molten gold from a pale blue sky.

      Beneath its brutal rays, a small band of men sat motionless on their horses, embraced by the endless silence of the desert.

      All eyes were on the rider whose stallion stood apart from the rest, and on the hooded goshawk that clung to his leather-gloved wrist with lethal talons.

      At last, one of the men softly urged his own mount forward until it stood alongside the rider and his stallion.

      “It is time, Tariq,” the man said softly.

      The man called Tariq nodded. “I know.”

      He did know. It was time; his father was right but, somehow, this final tribute to his dead brother was turning out to be as emotionally torturous as Sharif’s funeral.

      Who would have thought such an ancient custom would tear so at the heart? Tariq had been raised in Dubaac but he had lived away from the Nations for years. He was a modern, well-educated, urbanized man and this was just a symbolic gesture …

      “Tariq?”

      He nodded and lifted his arm. The hawk gave a little shudder of anticipation as it awaited the unlacing of its hood.

      Instead Tariq undid the bird’s jesses. The tiny bells that adorned the slender leather streamers fastened around the bird’s legs tinkled as they fell to the sand. A second’s hesitation, and then he unlaced the hood and tossed it aside.

      For the first time since its captivity and subsequent training, the hawk was completely free.

      Tariq lifted his face to the scorched sky, his profile as fiercely elegant as the hawk’s.

      “Sharif, my brother,” he said huskily, “I send Bashashar to you. May you and she fly together forever in the vastness of the skies above our homeland.”

      Another hesitation. Then he swung his arm forward and the hawk spread its powerful wings, leaped from his gloved hand and flew unhesitatingly toward the blazing sun.

      For a moment, no one moved or spoke. Then the sultan cleared his throat.

      “It is done,” he said gruffly.

      Tariq nodded. He stood with his face still lifted to the sky, though the hawk had disappeared from sight.

      “Yes, Father.”

      “Your brother is at peace.”

      Was he? Tariq wanted to think so but Sharif’s sudden death was still too new. His plane had gone down on a routine flight; it had taken days to find what remained of Sharif after the crash and the subsequent fire …

      “He was a good son,” the sultan said quietly.

      Tariq nodded.

      “Someday, he would have led our people well. Now he is gone and we must rethink our plans for the future.”

      A muscle in Tariq’s jaw tightened. He had known this was coming, but not so quickly. Still, why put off what he knew had to be done?

      “I understand, Father.”

      The sultan sighed. “There is no time to waste, my son.”

      Tariq looked at his father in alarm. “Are you ill?”

      “Only if old age is illness,” the sultan said quietly. “But Sharif’s death is proof, as if we needed it, that Kismet rules our lives. You are my heir now, Tariq. I tremble at the thought, but if anything should happen to you …”

      There was no need to say more.

      The burden of succession had fallen to Tariq. And to ensure that succession, the unbroken line of rulers that stretched back centuries, it was now his responsibility to marry and produce a son.

      If only Sharif had married and created sons.

      If only Sharif had lived, Tariq thought, and felt the unaccustomed sting of tears in his pale gray eyes.

      “Think of what has happened elsewhere in the Nations, when there has been a question about succession,” the sultan said, misinterpreting Tariq’s silence. “Would you wish that for our people?”

      Tariq cleared his throat. “I don’t need convincing, Father,” he said gruffly. “I will do what must be done.”

      The sultan gave a faint smile. “That is good. Come now. We shall ride back to the palace and celebrate your brother’s life.”

      “You go on with the others. I—I want to be alone for a while.”

      The sultan hesitated. Then he swung his horse around and signaled to his men. They rode off as they had come, single-file, in respectful silence.

      Tariq dismounted. He patted the stallion’s arched neck, then looked once more at the sky.

      “A wife, Sharif,” he said, quietly. “That is what I must find because of you.” He smiled; his brother, if he could hear him, would understand this kind of banter. They’d shared it since they were boys. “And how will I do that, hmm?”

      The sigh of the wind was his answer.

      “Shall I let Father and the council choose my bride? You know who she’d be. Abra, who would talk me to death. Lilah, who will surely soon outweigh me.”

      The wind sighed again.

      “Surely a man has the right to choose his own bride.”

      Beside him, the stallion snorted and pawed the sand.

      “Where shall I find her, Sharif? In the Nations? In America? What do you think?”

      Of course, Sharif was not there to answer but it wasn’t necessary. Tariq knew what he’d have said.

      The

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