Tagan's Child (40 page)

“Who’s in the
other cars?” I asked, feeling awkward around him.

“Bodyguards.”

“Oh, of
course.” It would take me a while to get used to the trappings of a
royal lifestyle.

“You are
beautiful,” Ahran said softly. Suddenly, all thoughts of who was in
what car vanished as I turned towards him. I blushed but revelled
in his attention. I wanted to reach out and touch him, kiss him, be
held by him.

“I’m looking
forward to when we can be on our own properly,” he said, his words
full of promise.

I didn’t answer
as our eyes met. I had allowed myself this day, knowing that the
King and Queen were my unwitting chaperones, but spending time
alone with Ahran was out of the question.

“I love it when
you blush,” he said teasingly and placed his hand on my thigh. His
hand felt hot through the thin fabric of my dress and it sent
little shock waves down my leg. I was unprepared for the sudden
contact.

The King’s cars
moved off.

“Ahran,” I said
breathily, my eyes closing involuntarily. Before I knew it his lips
were on mine. I tried not to respond but I was beginning to learn
that my body worked entirely independently of my brain where he was
concerned. My lips accepted his eagerly.

“You and the
memory of those lips were what kept me going when I was being
beaten to a pulp at Bazeera’s castle,” he said against my
mouth.

The memory of
his suffering was a painful one. I touched his top lip with my
tongue and he responded with more demanding thrusts of his own. I
was desperate for the taste of him. His kiss had ignited a white
hot flame within me and every cell in my body throbbed for his
touch. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. All I knew was that
I was powerless to stop.

“God Sophie,
carry on like that and we won’t make it to the beach,” he
threatened deliciously, breaking away. I could feel the heat
spreading down my neck. I noticed with satisfaction that he too had
a tell-tale flush high across his cheek bones. Allowing him to kiss
me was like signing my own death warrant and not only had I signed
it, but I’d done it with a flourish. I had no will power, no sense
of self-preservation, and now that my barriers were down I just
craved more. I took his hand and laced my fingers with his. I
smiled not quite trusting my voice.

“Just so
beautiful,” he said.

My eyes feasted
on him, taking in the masculine set of his brow, the strong
downward sweep of his nose, his well-defined cheekbones set
squarely above equally well-defined jaw bones and settling on his
devastating lips which were set with a hint of a satisfied smile.
If I closed my eyes I could pretend that this was my forever, that
his was the face that I would wake up to every morning and those
were the lips I would kiss every night before I went to sleep, but
I knew if I did, it would only be deluding myself. I fought the
tears that were starting to sting. “We ought to get going or they
will be wondering where we are,” I said in a small voice.

“You’re right.
But the hours until I can have you to myself are going to be long
and challenging,” he said as he gently ran his fingers down my
cheek. He was staring at my mouth as if he was about to go in for a
second delicious assault.

I closed my
eyes to the pain in my chest. I couldn’t let him know about my
plans to leave and as selfish as leading him on was, I justified it
to myself that after all the anguish I had suffered in my life, I
deserved these last few hours of happiness. But once today was
over, I wasn’t going to stubbornly cling on only for him to
eventually realise that the price for being with me was the ruin of
everything he had dreamed of and worked for.

We drove out of
the palace gates and in the direction of the lakes.

“You are going
to have to behave yourself this afternoon Mr Elessar we don’t want
to raise the suspicions of the King and Queen just yet,” I said as
light-heartedly as I could muster. The more I discouraged his
advances the better chance I had of resisting him.

“I want them to
know how I feel about you,” he said, looking at me as long as it
was safe to do so.

I looked away,
I couldn’t bear to see the depth of emotion in his eyes. “Can we
just keep it to ourselves for the time being? Toby’s got a lot to
take in at the moment and besides there is something nice about
no-one knowing.” God, I hated myself for using Toby as an excuse,
again.

“I understand,
but you don’t realise how difficult it is for me to keep my hands
off you. It was all I could do to stop myself from grabbing you and
whisking you off over my shoulder when you walked into the sitting
room this morning.”

“Believe me,
it’s not easy for me either.” If only he knew just how true that
was.

“Okay, I
promise to behave myself providing we can spend the night
together.”

My pulse
quickened at the thought of a night with him but this was out of
the question. “Toby, will be in the next room,” I protested.

“Come to my
room.”

“Someone will
see me.”

“Sophie, give a
guy a break,” he said in good-humoured frustration.

I was running
out of excuses. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.” I had no intention
of going to his room and I had the rest of the day to come up with
a reason for not spending the night with him. I had to change the
subject of us; it wouldn’t take too much more for me to crack. “You
haven’t told me anything about Toby’s rescue. What went wrong at
Bazeera’s? How did you get captured?”

Ahran looked
sheepish. With his reputation, getting caught obviously didn’t sit
comfortably with him. He sighed. “Galius, Elaya and I had decided
to access the castle using an old network of tunnels underneath it.
We thought it was best if we split up. Galius and Elaya took the
north and west tunnels but the tunnel I had chosen, was disused and
had collapsed halfway in, so I had to turn back. Galius had given
us a map of the tunnels from his army days, but it was inaccurate
and led me into a well-used service tunnel. I was caught with
nowhere to hide by two armed guards. It was a stupid mistake and I
shouldn’t have made it.” Ahran was shaking his head at his rookie
error.

“We all make
mistakes Ahran, don’t be so hard on yourself,” I said, touching his
arm instinctively.

“I couldn’t
believe my bad luck, you and I had just got together and I nearly
got myself killed. Thank god for Galius, I shall be indebted to him
for the rest of my life.”

The sharp,
vicious little knife that had lodged itself in my chest over the
last couple of days twisted agonisingly. I turned and looked out of
the window so that Ahran couldn’t see the tears I could no longer
hold back.

We drove in
silence for a couple of minutes as I tried to rein in my
emotions.

“Sophie, are
you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I
said, my voice wavering.

“Are you
crying?” he asked, he started to pull the car over.

“No, no don’t
stop, we’ve been too long as it is.”

“But you’re
upset.”

“Please, I’m
fine.” My plea sounded panicked but I knew I didn’t have the
strength to resist any kind of further probing on his part.
“Talking about Bazeera just brought it all back for me, that’s
all,” I said, sidestepping any further questions. I started to look
in the glove box for some tissues so that I didn’t have to make eye
contact with him. “Keep going, Toby will be wondering where I am.”
My search proved fruitful and I wiped my eyes. I was going to have
to be stronger than this or Ahran would realise that something was
wrong and that wouldn’t help my ‘cut and run’ plan at all.

He hesitated
before finally doing as I asked and continued on to the lake. He
glanced at me several times during the remainder of the journey. I
kept our conversation light but I sensed he wasn’t convinced by my
explanation. We turned down a sandy track which led down to the
lakes. There were two other vehicles parked in the car park in
addition to the King’s cars. Ahran switched off the engine but
didn’t move. “You can talk to me, you know that don’t you?”

I nodded and
stared out of the windscreen giving myself enough time to mask my
raw emotions before I turned and looked at him.

He leant
forward and kissed me. It was a tender kiss, one that sought
reassurance, but as much as I wanted to give it to him I couldn’t
and pulled away before I lost myself to his lips again. I closed my
eyes to the hurt look on his face and got out of the car.

We made our way
along the beach towards the royal group at the other end. It was a
beautifully warm day and the water shimmered invitingly. We passed
two other couples, but apart from a few cursory glances they paid
little attention to the unusual group of people that had taken up
their position next to the rocks at the other end of the bay.
Whether they recognised the King and Queen I wasn’t sure, although
it wasn’t every day a group of people picnicked surrounded by a
handful of men in suits. Ahran was quiet as we approached our
party.

“There you
are.” Leylana broke away from her meticulous attention to a series
of sandcastles she and Toby had started to build. She wore a black
swimsuit with a scarlet sarong tied at the waist and she looked up
at us from under a wide brimmed hat. She reminded me of Jackie
Onassis.

“We took the
scenic route,” I said, feeling like I owed her an explanation for
our late arrival. I had no idea whether there was a scenic route
though. I was distracted by Ahran as I watched him join the King
who was sitting on a deck chair absorbed by some kind of electronic
tablet.

I sucked in a
breath and turned my attention back to the elaborate row of
sandcastles they had built. “So what do we have here?” I asked.
Toby never did things by halves, especially where construction was
concerned. Leylana had followed my eyes to Ahran and looked up at
me with a knowing expression on her face. Dammit, I really needed
to try and be less obvious.

“Well, we seem
to have created Dinara’s newest line of defence here, haven’t we
Toby.” She chuckled, clearly enjoying herself.

“Yes, I can see
that,” I said.

Toby’s
attention returned to a hole that was growing bigger by the
minute.

“Wow Tobes, you
really mean business.”

He didn’t look
up and carried on digging as he spoke. “I need to make this hole
big enough for two people,” he replied breathlessly.

“So you’ll be
joining him in the cavern he’s creating?” I asked Leylana

She laughed.
“No, I think I’ll be handing my role of assistant engineer over to
Halsan once the hole is completed.” She looked over at Toby
adoringly.

“You must be
hungry,” she said, standing up and attempting to brush off some of
the sand sticking to her legs.

“Oh, when
you’re ready, there’s no hurry.” My insides felt so screwed up,
food was the furthest thing from my mind.

“No, let’s have
lunch. Halsan has to eat every three hours or he gets grumpy,” she
said as she rolled her eyes. She went over to the baskets to start
laying the food out on a table that had been set up on the sand. We
had enough equipment for a party three times our size. It reminded
me of my childhood trips to the beach with my grandparents. Every
possible scenario had to be catered for and it would take two trips
in the car to transport everything they needed; windbreaks in case
it was windy, blankets in case it was cold, deck chairs as well as
sun loungers and enough egg sandwiches to feed an army. I came to
the conclusion that it must have been something to do with being
grandparents.

I took Toby
down to the water’s edge to wash the sand off his hands. “So what
do you think of your new grandparents?”

“I like Leylana
but I’m not sure about the King.”

“He probably
just needs a bit of time to get to know you. It’s all as new to him
as it is to you.”

Toby shrugged
as if to say, ‘I’ve accepted that I am half alien and heir to a
kingdom in a completely different universe, I can’t see what his
problem is’.

I couldn’t help
but smile.

We re-joined
the others. The picnic was lavish and there wasn’t a soggy egg
sandwich in sight. Ahran came and sat next to me and I struggled to
concentrate on swallowing; I was too acutely aware of his knee
brushing mine. I drank a glass of cool, sweet wine a little too
quickly in an attempt to calm my nerves and made a concerted effort
to live in the moment.

Once we had
finished eating, Toby managed to persuade Ahran and Halsan to play
ball with him. Halsan even dived for the ball a couple of times
which brought whoops and cheers from me and Leylana. Ahran had
stripped down to swim shorts, displaying his heart-stopping body
and I was an avid spectator making the most of the opportunity to
drink him in until the last seconds of play.

Halsan ducked
out and sat back down. I laid down on my beach mat to sunbathe.
There was only so much of Ahran’s half-naked body my blood pressure
could take. I was however, thankful for my sunglasses because it
meant I was able to continue to watch him more covertly. He moved
with such ease and was lightly tanned all over which I think was
more down to his natural skin tone than any lengthy time spent in
the sun. He was a god among men and the memory of his body on top
of mine, moving with mine, made my mouth go dry and caused heat to
flood between my legs.

I was all over
the place. One minute, I was happy to make the best of the day, the
next in the depths of despair only to be shortly followed by such a
driving, brain scrambling attraction for him that it made me want
to pant. I rolled over to force myself to tear my eyes away from
him.

“Toby seems to
be enjoying himself,” Halsan said.