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Her arm wrapped around his neck “I didn’t hear you outside”

“I am very quiet”

“Thank you”

He h inarticulate sound that she didn’t understand but she felt his chest vibrate and his hold on her tightened

She knew he’d protect her He’d protect her no matter what

He loves ht He loves h “I knew you’d co in her throat

“Did you?”

She nodded, insides knotting, ee and strained She never wanted to care for him; never expected him to care for her Love between two people such as they co It wasn’t the tidy romantic love of Western culture—the love captured in movies and popular bestsellers Love here in the desert was hard, fierce, sacrificial

Love here wasn’t safe Love in Ouaha was dangerous, nearly as dangerous as Tair himself

“Put me down,” she said as they reached the street and were circled by Tair’s men “I can walk”

Tair put Tally down, let her walk

They were in troubleHe was in trouble He couldn’t do this Couldn’t make this work Not like this, not when he felt the way he did these past forty-eight hours, the worst hours he’d known since discovering the slaughtered bodies of his wife and tiny son Feeling what he’d felt, going where he’d gone—into an endless abyss, a place of such darkness that he could only describe it as absolute rage and despair—and it wasn’t a place he could handle, wasn’t a place that allowed him to be

He couldn’t beSoussi el-Kebir, or Sheikh el-Tayer, not with Tally here

TheBarakan rebels were cowards and villains and they didn’t just pillage and burn They’d slaughtered the elderly, the wo the dead in the terrible bloodbath seven years ago But seven years see when he reh the night, riding with heaven and hell in his heart, only to arrive home and hold his five-year-old as Zaki died

Tair wouldn’t let himself think much more than that

But he knew, he knew in his black scarred heart, that he couldn’t go through that loss again, and he couldn’t think, lead, guide—not with Tally here It was one thing to have a mistress Another to have a beloved wife

And Tally was his—she’d been his from the start—and she made him afraid, made him worry, made him a man

But he couldn’t risk being an ordinary man Mortal He had to reive, or feel