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CHAPTER ONE
SHE HAD NO WARNING
There had been no telltaleher froaps in conversation when she walked into the se in British Colu-ups or naled her little noose was drawing tight
She had a large , hot coffee to ward off the late-autumn chill this far north, where snoas plastered across the Canadian Rocky Mountains and the thick clouds hung low The pastry she chose was cloyingly sweet, but she ate all of it anyway She checked her ees There was a new voice nored She would call him later, when she was less exposed When she could be certain Rihad’s men couldn’t track her
And then she glanced up, soht in the second before he took the seat across from her at the tiny little café table
“Hello, Amaya,” he said, with a kind of cal inside her shifted into one great big scream “You’ve been more difficult to find than anticipated”
As if this were a perfectly casual , here in this quiet café in an off-season lakeside village in a remote part of Canada she’d been certain he couldn’t find As if he weren’t the erous man in the world to her—this man who held her life in those hands of his that looked so easy and idle on the table between them despite their scars and marks of hard use, in notable contrast to that dark slate fury in his too-gray eyes
As if she hadn’t left hi sheikh of the desert stronghold Daar Talaas—if not precisely at the altar, then pretty dao
A ever since She’d survived on the money in her wallet and her ability to leave no trail, thanks to a global network of friends and acquaintances she’d abond youth at her heartbroken ers, stayed in the forgotten rooms of friends of friends and walked et out of cities and even countries where she’d thought hemore than to leap up and run non the streets of the near-deserted village of Kaslo and straight into the frigid waters of Lake Kootenay if necessary—but she had absolutely no doubt that if she tried that again, Kavian would catch her
With his own bare hands this time
And she couldn’t repress the shiver that swept over her at that thought
Much less the one that chased it, when Kavian’s sensually griht of her reaction
Control yourself, she snapped Inside her own head
But Kavian looked as if he heard that, too She hated that some part of her believed that he could
“You seem surprised to see me,” he said “Surely not”
“Of course I’ed to push the words out of her ht that second, if there was any hope for her to escape hi her to try—raced through her head But she couldn’t seem to look away from him Just like the last time she’d met him, at her brother’s palace to the south of Kavian’s desert kingdoement to this ht the last six ain”
“You belong to me,” he said, with that sah her at the celebration of their betrothal in the Bakrian Royal Palace half a year ago That same spear felt even colder now “Was thisto find you, Amaya The only question hen”
His voice was deceptively cal like silken in the quiet of the s sort of threat that emanated from that lethal body of his, all harsh n to her as it was oddly, disruptively fascinating He looked nothing like the local , wreathed in hearty beards and thick plaid jackets to fend off the northern cold
Kavian wore unrelenting black, relieved only by those furious slate-gray eyes he didn’t shift fro legs, utilitarian black boots on his feet What looked like a fine black T-shirt beneath the black boranite-hard chest rather than conceal it in any way His thick dark hair was shorter than she remembered it, and the closer-cut style accentuated the deadly lines of his brutally captivating face, from that warrior’s jaith the faintest hint of his dark beard as if he hadn’t bothered to shave in days, his blade of a nose and cheekbones male models would have died for that nonetheless looked like weapons on such a hard-hewn face