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The certainty of this once-learned knowledge flooded her with panic as the fish approached Shehab’s back, bending its own like a snake She pounced on hi places The next second pain shot between her shoulder blades, as if she’d been skewered by a red-hot poker

Her screaulator

Seven

Farah would re her in the saarbled dreams

She’d felt as if she were outside her pain-ridden body, watching as Shehab swept her up in his ar her onto the deck of his yacht as if she weighed no more than a few pounds, not her hundred and forty plus the diving gear

She lay in a state of shock, the white-hot agony lodged in theher this wasn’t a dreaear, pounced on hers Theequip seeped out of her burning eyes and lips

His hands were shaking with urgency as he stripped her down to her swimsuit, turned her to her side to exaht, he inhaled a sharp, taxed breath, reached for soround out a string of Arabic, his eyes feverish on her

Then he threw the thing aside, scooped her up and rushed to the shade of the upper sitting area, placing her on a couch on her side so it wouldn’t chafe against her injury before tearing open a first-aid kit and ru down and gentling only after he produced gel fro She , her flaccid body going rigid against the bonals He soothed her with hands and voice The spas nue only to wince at his fierceness and focus, barely ed a rasped, “Thanks”

“Thanks? Ya Ullah, why did you do that?” She stared at hi as the poison coursed through her syste you don’t know, to look but never touch But you almost attacked that lionfish and it struck back so hard its spine penetrated your wetsuit And it could have been worse, a stonefish…” He stopped, his face working, his fists bunching

Fro, “I’oing to sting you…”

He went totally still His face drained of all agitation and expression Froze And her ears were filling with thunder

Then she was again watching it all happen to someone else as Shehab swooped down on her, carried her to the deck where she realized the thunder wasn’t blood roaring in her ears, but his helicopter, which, it turned out, could land on water He had her inside, she didn’t register how, in the back, secured on a stretcher, then stood up to strip down to his knee-length swi beside her

She lost all perception of tiht ended and he rushed with her in his ar doors But this ti so in a dreah what felt like endless spaces shrouded in dimness and incense, their Spartan sparseness staaze clung to the huge bed, a bed she’d longed to share with hihts rose, illu through the landscape of One Thousand and One Nights intensified as she gaped around the gigantic, all-marble-and-stone chamber It interconnected on each side with two others, each space ringed with arches supported by tapering columns The middle cha dos that let sunbea froed the walls beneath the doer over details as he rushed to the chaular pool, tiled in checkered black-and-beigestone seat with ut away He calibrated soed her out of her stupor by scooping her up again She opened groggy eyes to find hihts swirled in confusion, wondering why he considered giving her a bath important as he lowered the

He restrained her, his ar hers “Shh…shh…ya galbi, it must be done”

“You must…boilheat “And…you’re boiling…yourself, too…”

He only lay back in the water, subhter and crooned, “The water temperature is only 114°F”

“Only?” she whi, only for the full , every drop oflost in the surrounding water

He kept her subentleness itself “I know it’s very uncoainst his chest, feeling as if she were suffocating one cell at a ti out of her every pore “But I don’t feel it anymore”

“That’s the effect of the local anesthetic, but it isn’t a treath heat can stop it”

“So-I won’t die?” she choked, just now realizing she’d been too nuht the poison was fatal?” She nodded, shook her head, nodded again He let out a dark groan as he hugged her tighter, burying his face in her neck “The one with fatal consequences is the stonefish’s sting The worst of the lionfish’s is the pain, which is excruciating I tried to catch one when I was eleven Yes, ere both reckless at that age So I have first-hand experience with the agony you suffered But the poison isn’t to be treated lightly If not neutralized by heat, it would have coursed through your blood until you started vo before you lost consciousness from hypotension”