Page 21 of Sheikh's Secret Love-Child

CHAPTER SIX

SHONASTAGGEREDOUT of Malak’s private suite, not at all clear about how she was expected to walk when nothing about her body seemed to work the way it was supposed to any longer. The way it had when she’d walked in.

She felt taken over. Ruined in every respect, as if the longing that still moved through her was a kind of poison, corroding her from the inside out.

She nodded stiffly at the guards who stood at Malak’s doors, and assured herself they couldn’t possibly see what she had been up to inside. With him. They couldn’t possibly see abandon written all over her.

Surrender, she told herself fiercely, did not have a scent.

Still, she was certain she could feel their eyes upon her even as she walked off down the gleaming corridor, fighting to make her legs work the way they were meant to do. To keep herself upright. Not to slump against the nearest wall the way she wanted to.

Shona didn’t think she pulled in a full breath until she rounded the corner.

She had learned her way around the palace in these weeks she’d been trapped here, but that didn’t make it feel any more familiar to her. She wasn’t certain she could ever really get used to all the luxury on conspicuous display at every turn. The marble. The gold. Statues and fine art in every alcove. Mosaics on the floors and the walls.

It was exactly what a palace ought to be, she supposed—but it wasn’t home.

It wasn’t her home.

Shona stopped next to one of the fountains and dipped her fingers into the cool water. Far above, the ceiling opened up to let in the night, and the moon was silvery as it danced down into the water.

She wanted to cry.

She knew there were eyes on her regardless of whether she could see them or not. Everywhere she went, everything she did, she was watched. Gossiped about. Discussed and dissected. Her advisors had made that clear to her every day, in case she hadn’t noticed it on her own as she’d tried to go about her business here, such as it was. The simple truth of the matter was that Shona no longer belonged to herself. Whether she decided to become Malak’s queen—assuming that was a decision she was even allowed to make, of course, and wasn’t simply tossed a crown and made to wear it—or refused, she would always be tied to this place. These people.

Because Miles was.

That had been bad enough. That unpleasant realization that never seemed to get easier no matter how many times she told herself to get over it. To accept it. To move on from the things she couldn’t change, because to do anything else was to ask to feel crazy. And to set herself up for more of the same.

Miles was Malak’s son. If she left here tomorrow, that wouldn’t change. And little as she might like to think about it, that simple truth meant that Miles would always belong here. One day he would rule this kingdom as surely as his father did.

She didn’t have to like it. It didn’t matter if she liked it. It was the truth either way.

It was one thing to have her son used against her.

It was something else entirely to have her body used in the exact same manner.

Whether she liked it or not, her own cries seemed to echo in her ears. There was no sound in the atrium where she stood save the splashing of the water, but still, all she heard was her own voice. Her own loss of control.

Her total and complete surrender.

She sat on the lip of the fountain and moved her fingers through the water. This way, then that. She stared fiercely at the place where the fountain met the pool beneath it, hoping that would keep her own tears from falling.

And in her head, all she could hear—all she could see—was what had happened on Malak’s balcony.

She could still see him kneeling down before her, his wide shoulders keeping her legs apart and his hard hands holding her hips where he wanted them.

His mouth against the part of her that yearned the most.

Out here in this atrium, all by herself, she was still slick. Melting hot.

And ashamed of herself.

She didn’t know how long she sat there. It could have been moments or hours.

But she heard the scuff of a foot against the marble behind her before she heard a voice. The same voice she always heard.

“Mistress?” Yadira called from the shadows that lined the atrium. “Are you unwell?”