The Prince's Intimate Abduction (The Samara Royal Family Series Book 2) (10 page)

As the men ate, Raven sat at the corner of the table, watching all of them.  Some were in the black cargo pants and black tee-shirts, similar to the “uniform” that Turk was currently wearing.  While others were wearing different outfits.  A couple of them looked like camel herders, another group was wearing scruffy clothes with dark, unshaven beards.  If she’d passed any of them on the street, she wouldn’t have thought twice about them, would have thought they were simply villagers out doing their work. 

Except for the eyes.  All the men in this room had a look about them, especially in the eyes, that radiated danger and authority.  It was almost as if they could see into a person’s psyche and know what they were thinking. 

As they spoke, she started to understand that this group was part of an elite unit of men that answered directly to Turk.  They weren’t his personal bodyguards.  Those men were outside of the house or standing sentry at the doorway.  Nope, the men sitting around the table, devouring all of the sandwiches as well as her precious brownies, were some sort of investigative unit that, as far as she could determine, was tasked with ferreting out the rebels that popped up occasionally to cause trouble for both the government as well as the villagers throughout Kilar.  She supposed they were similar to the FBI in the United States or the National Crime Agency in Great Britain. 

It was fascinating to be on the inside of these conversations, to hear how these men would step into the shadows and discover information.  They all had “sources” and various ways to find clues and she loved hearing how seemingly disparate information formed a cohesive picture of a crime structure. 

When the meeting dispersed, the sandwiches were gone, the platter of brownies was nothing but crumbs and Raven suddenly found herself alone with Turk. 

He walked over to where she was sitting and bent down so she wasn’t straining her neck so badly.  “Thank you for your help and insight.  Your information was very helpful.”

She looked at him warily.  “What are you going to do to the men when you capture them?” she asked carefully.

Turk could see the look in her eyes and chuckled softly.  “I won’t kill them, Raven.  I promise.  I know that would upset you.”

She brightened slightly.  “You won’t?”

“No.  But I will capture them and stop them from hurting others.  They’ve already done a great deal of damage to some farmland and they’ve destroyed other villages when we weren’t close enough to stop them.  They gain power by terrorizing the smaller, border villages, getting the villagers to do their work and threatening their families.  They have to be stopped.”

“But your men are going to be careful?”

“My women as well,” he told her.  He saw the surprise on her lovely features and smiled.  “Believe it or not, we’re a very progressive country.  Some of the smaller villages are more conservative, but yes, we have many women in the military and several in my investigative units.  They are excellent agents who are just as good as the men.  Better in some cases because some of the village residents are more open to a woman’s questions and they can get more information.”

“Good to know,” she said, smiling at him with admiration. 

He stood up, taking her hand and pulling her along with him.  “So now, all of my men have their new assignments, you’ve gotten some sleep and eaten food.”  He tucked her arm onto his elbow.  “What’s there to do for the rest of the afternoon?” he asked, looking as if he might be considering options.

But Raven knew exactly where his mind was going and she shook her head.  “I don’t think we should,” she told him, praying that he would understand. 

“Let’s talk,” he told her, understanding she was hesitant.  He took her into another section of the house and this area looked much more “home” like.  There were sofas and a flat-screen television in one corner, a bar in another area of the room.  And it was completely empty as well.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked her carefully, moving behind the bar and opening another bottle of wine, pouring two glasses again.

Raven wasn’t sure she wanted to drink another glass of wine.  The first glass had relaxed her significantly.  A second might…

Well, she wasn’t sure what a second glass might do to her because she’d never had two glasses. 

“Turk, you have to understand something about me,” she started off.

Turk sat down in one of the large, leather chairs and looked up at her.  “Go on,” he encouraged, sipping his wine and waiting for her to tell him whatever was on her mind.

She set her wine glass down on a table and started pacing the length of the area.  Thankfully, it was nice and spacious, lots of room for pacing.  Much better than her clinic had been!  She could really get a good steam going in this room.  “You see; I’ve been pretty single-minded all my life.”

“You knew you wanted to be a doctor all your life?” he asked.

She stopped and looked at him, considering his question.  “I don’t know about all my life.  I remember using scissors to cut open my stuffed animals to see what was inside of them.”

He chuckled softly. “What did you find?” he asked.

She grimaced.  “It was very unsatisfying to discover fluff,” she told him, then started pacing again.  “No, I don’t think I had it in my mind to be a doctor but maybe by middle school, or perhaps earlier than that, I knew that I wanted to help people.  I was always good at science and math.  The logic of those subjects in school just made sense to me while history and grammar, they were annoying.  I learned them, but only so that I could go play in the science labs more often.”

He laughed again.  “Your childhood must have been a challenge for your parents to keep up with, eh?”

Raven smiled slightly.  “They were pulling their hair out at times.  I didn’t like Barbie dolls except to cut them open and find out what was inside of them.  I wanted to dissect bugs and frogs but I didn’t want to kill them.”

“Quite a dilemma for you, I’m guessing.”

She nodded her head.  “It was a difficult challenge to my childish mind.”

“What did you finally decide?”

She sighed.  “That the frogs and bugs deserved to live more than I deserved to find out what was inside of them, even though I was pretty sure that their innards were more interesting than the fluff in the teddy bears or the plastic inside of the dolls.”

“Your parents were relieved?”

She nodded.  “My point is, I’m a doctor.  And I’ve worked very hard for a very long time in order to become a doctor.  I love being a doctor.  I love healing people and helping them feel better.  Sometimes it is just a band aid and a kiss on the knee.  Other times, it is more involved.”

“Like what you did for me.  You saved my life, Raven.”

She briefly smiled, but she didn’t like remembering the night he’d been brought into her clinic.  She didn’t like thinking about that horrible wound or the worry she’d felt when he was slower to recover than she’d thought should happen.  “Yes, well, exactly like that.”

“What’s your point, love?”

She turned her back to him when he said that word.  “My point is, that I want to continue to be a doctor.  I want to go back to that small village and help the people who live there and the ones that come in from the more rural areas, needing help.”

He’d suspected this was where she was going with her comments, but that didn’t make his next statement any easier to deliver.  “Raven, you can’t go back there.”

She didn’t say anything for a long moment, her mind absorbing his words.  Never?” she asked, her eyes wide with the horror of his declaration. 

“Never.  It is too dangerous now.”

Raven stared at him, not really sure what to do or say. 

He walked over to her and took her hands in his.  “How about if you stay here?  With me.  We could get to know each other.”  His hand lifted, smoothing a finger down her cheek.  “I’d certainly love to get to know you better.”

Raven looked up into his dark eyes, wondering what she was going to do.  She couldn’t go back to her home? It wasn’t much, just a single room in a clinic where she tended to the health of the villagers, but it was her home!  It was what she knew! 

Turk recognized the fear in her eyes.  He understood slightly what she was thinking but couldn’t really relate since he’d always known where he would live and what he would do.  From the moment of his birth, his life had been preordained.  She was trying to figure out where to go after a major upheaval.  It wasn’t fair and he’d done all of this to her.  But he didn’t regret a single moment of any of it. 

“How about if we take this one day at a time?  I have to be here for a few days to get some business accomplished.  You can stay here with me, catch up on your sleep,” he suggested, his finger running gently along the dark circles under her eyes from days without a good night’s sleep, “and we’ll figure out where to go once this is all finished.  Deal?”

She looked up into his dark eyes and something told her that she should accept his offer.  She hadn’t had a vacation in…well, ever, she suddenly realized.  Why not take a few days to relax, be with a man that fascinated her and who obviously could teach her more about this curious feminine side of herself, a part of herself that she’d never really understood anything about. 

“Okay,” she replied, agreeing to his offer.  “For a while,” she clarified.  “But I still need to get back to being a doctor at some point.”

“Deal,” he agreed. 

The scream caught her by surprise.  Sitting up in the chair, she looked around at the others in the room.  Sure enough, they’d heard the cry as well. 

“Someone is hurt,” she said out loud. 

Standing up, she raced out the front door, not even realizing that the three men who had been working at the computers were trying to catch her and stop her.  The guards outside were able to stop her though and she came to a skidding halt.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the one that appeared to be in charge said, raising his hands up into the air. 

“What are you doing?” she questioned sharply.  “Someone is hurt.  It sounds as if a child is crying.”

The man simply shook his head.  “My orders are to keep you safe indoors, ma’am.”

Raven stared up at the man.  He was tall, but not nearly as tall as Turk so his height didn’t bother her.  She was confident that she could get around him if she needed to.  Three of them though, that might pose more of a challenge. 

Thinking that logic would win out more effectively than just barreling through the men, she took a deep breath.  “Okay, here’s the deal.  There’s a child out there who is hurt and in pain.  I’m a doctor who can help that child.  If you don’t get out of my way, I will make sure that you spend the rest of your life knowing what happened to that child and how you prevented me from helping him or her.  Are you really willing to deal with that on your conscience?” she asked him.

She could see him wavering, feeling guilty even as the child screamed again, obviously hurt.  “Look, I know cries and that one isn’t truly serious.  It sounds as if she’s just scared.  How about if we compromise?  Send one of your men out there to check on her.  He can come back and let me know if something is truly wrong or if she’s just scraped her knee and is in pain.  Deal?”

The man hesitated for another moment before he nodded his head.  “Fine,” and he turned to the man on the right.  “Get Madrood to head out there in jeans and a tee-shirt.  Fast.  Report back as soon as he finds out what is going on.”

Raven thought that was the best she was going to get but she still paced back and forth in that front room, her hands clasped together as if she needed to hold herself back in some way.  That wasn’t far off the mark though.  She hated to hear someone in pain and not be able to alleviate that pain.  She loved helping people.  It’s what she did and she was darn good at it.  These men were just being obnoxious about Turk’s commands and not letting her go outside.  It was ridiculous! 

The guards were good, though.  She kept waiting for one of them to become distracted so she could dart between their bodies and sneak out of the compound but they were attentive until the man in the jeans ran back. 

After only a few minutes, Madrood came back through the gate.  He’d obviously been running since he was slightly out of breath.  “It looks as if the child might have a broken arm.  She fell off of her bike.  Lots of scrapes but I can’t be sure.”

Raven’s stomach clenched with worry for the unknown child.  “Send me out there!” Raven hissed, feeling furious that a child would be in that kind of pain and she couldn’t get out there to do something. 

The captain still hesitated.  “Fine!” she snapped.  “You’d better keep an eye on me because I’m going out there one way or another.”

The man sighed and nodded his head.  “Give us thirty seconds to change, ma’am.  We can’t let them know about this house.  We can’t compromise the integrity of the safe-house.”

She nodded her head, accepting that national security might need to delay the child’s care.  She didn’t have to like it though. 

It actually took the men about two minutes to change and hide their weapons in their clothing.  And only one man accompanied her to where the child was still laying in the rocks, her mother on the phone with tears in her eyes. 

Raven wasn’t sure where the other men had gone, but she suspected they’d fanned out along the perimeter of the street, watching out for her.  She wished she could understand what was going on, but as soon as her eyes caught sight of the child, all of her attention was focused on the girl and her pain. 

“I’m a doctor,” she said in Arabic.  “May I take a look?” she asked the mother.

The child whimpered and the mother, obviously relieved to have someone to help, eagerly nodded her head.  Raven bent down onto the sand and rocks, unconcerned about the linen slacks she’d donned this morning.  The tan linen with her sleeveless, white shirt would be ruined out here in the desert environment, but she didn’t care about the delicate material. 

Turning back to the man next to her, she asked, “Is there a first aid kit in the house?” she asked.  When the man nodded, she said, “Get it for me, okay?”

“It isn’t bad,” she assured the mother who was crying for her daughter.  “Nothing is broken but she has some bad scrapes.  I think she only sprained her wrist.”  Raven’s fingers carefully checked all the bones but it seemed that the wrist was the only part that was tender other than one gash where a rock had cut the arm.  The girl could move her fingers which was an excellent indication that nothing was broken.  The cut on her upper arm was a more serious issue though. 

Looking at the mother, she tried to make her expression reassuring.  “I think she might need stitches on this cut, but we can numb the arm so that it won’t hurt, okay?”

The mother started crying in relief.  “Thank you,” she said and held her daughter’s hand tightly. 

“Let’s get her inside your house so she’s not in the sun, okay?”

It took less than thirty minutes to clean up the girl’s arm, immobilize the wrist with a bandage to compress the area and stitch up the cut.  In the end, the child was laughing, delighted with her new “cast” and stitches, eager to show her friends. 

“Thank you,” the mother said, holding Raven’s hand tightly.  “Thank you!  I was on the phone with her father but a hospital is very far from here.  You are an angel,” she said, kissing Raven’s cheek.

Raven waved the praise way, embarrassed by the mother’s thanks.  “Oh no, just a doctor.  Angels are far more important,” she laughed.  “I’ll come by to check on her stitches soon, okay?  Just keep it dry for at least forty-eight hours.”

The guard who had been standing by the window heard those words and hurried over to Raven, urging her back.  “We need to get back home, honey.  You were expecting that call.”

Raven realized what he was saying and hurried out the door.  “You’re right.  Good luck with your daughter,” Raven said to the woman who was still trying to thank Raven. 

The man’s eyes, covered by sunglasses, were moving around the area as if he were watching out for a threat.  Raven hurried as fast as she could back to the house that was really an enormous compound.  The guards immediately surrounded her and the captain put a hand to her back, hurrying her into the safety of the house. 

“Prince Turk is on his way, ma’am,” he said and closed the door to the house. 

The three men who were sitting at the computer terminals looked back at her warily, then one by one, they got up and walked out of the house. 

Raven took that as a bad sign! 

Raven looked down at her stained slacks.  There was even a bit of blood on her white shirt.  She should probably change so that Turk didn’t know that she’d left the house.  Hurrying back up the stairs, she quickly washed up and changed into a pair of navy slacks and a happy, yellow blouse.  She added a bit more makeup this time, hoping to soothe his temper.  She had no idea why he would be angry, except that she’d left the house, but she wasn’t going to provoke the man either. 

She was just about to step out of the bedroom when the door slammed open.  He grabbed the door again and it slammed closed, with both of them on the inside. 

Oh my, she thought as she took several steps backwards.  He wasn’t angry.  He was furious.  In fact, she’d never thought to see Turk this livid!  His eyes were firing and, if it were possible, his hair would be standing straight out from his head. 

She knew that he was angry, but she wasn’t exactly sure why.  Sure, he hadn’t wanted her to leave the house.  But what was the big problem?  Why was he so upset about it? 

“You left the house today,” he said with a low, growling voice.

Raven backed up a step cautiously.  “I left only to help a sweet, little girl who was badly hurt after riding her bicycle.”

She watched him take another breath, then another step closer to her.  “I told you not to leave the house, Raven.”

She shook her head and shrugged her shoulder as if to dismiss the issue.  “I couldn’t leave her out there.  She was crying and in pain.  I’m a doctor.  It’s what I do, Turk.”

He shook his head, still coming closer to her.  “You follow my orders, Raven.  You promised to stay in this house.”

She thought about that, but shrugged off his anger.  “I lied,” and then she backed up another step when his eyes flared with increased anger.  “But not intentionally,” she told him, lifting her hands up and pressing them against his massive chest.  “I only went out because a child was hurt.”

His hands dove into her hair, his fingers pulling her head back.  “I told you not to leave the house Raven.”  And with that, he kissed her, pulling her head back to deepen the kiss.

Raven didn’t understand why he was so angry, but with the kiss, her mind fizzled and she wasn’t focusing on trying to defend herself.  She concentrated on enjoying the way he was kissing her.  Her hands slowly slid up his chest and she felt him shudder as she pressed herself against him. 

Turk tried to pull back, worried that he was hurting her but he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t pull back enough.  This was his woman and she’d been out in the open, in danger this afternoon.  No, she had no idea the true danger she was in, and he couldn’t tell her, afraid she would be scared.  But he damn well was going to protect her. 

A part of him wanted to turn her over on his knee and spank her adorable bottom.  But the larger part of his brain was in control now and he needed to touch her, to feel her body and reassure himself that she was still alive and still with him. 

He’d never been so worried as when he’d gotten the call that Raven was demanding to leave the compound.  He’d been furious with his men when he’d heard that they’d allowed her to leave. 

He didn’t want to think about it any longer and so he moved his mouth down her neck, kissing every part of her as he tore her clothes off of her beautiful body.  This was his woman he thought as he pulled her nipple into his mouth, teasing and sucking until she screamed out for him.  But her hands were in his hair, pulling and tugging, making him stop then putting his mouth right back on her breast for more of the same attention.  She writhed against him and her legs curled around his waist.  He lifted her higher as he carried her over to the bed.  Laying her down on the mattress, he stood up and tore off his clothes. 

When they were both naked and his eyes could roam over her delectable body, he couldn’t slow down.  This was life affirming and he needed to feel her, all of her.  She’d put herself in danger, unknowingly, and he needed to prove she was his woman and safe. 

When he pressed into her, he almost groaned with the wet heat surrounding him.  This was his woman and he loved her!  Damn, she couldn’t put herself in danger! Ever again! 

He moved inside of her, trying to prove his dominance over her.  He moved the way she liked it, shifting to the side, moving against that spot that…yes!  When she climaxed and tightened around him, he couldn’t hold back his own reaction and slid into the blissful pleasure himself. 

A long time later, Turk stared up at the ceiling, his body hardening once again as Raven snuggled her soft curves up against him.  “You’re coming with me to the palace, Raven,” he told her, making the decision that would speed up his plans for the two of them. 

He felt her stiffen in his arms but didn’t care.  He had to protect her.  And the only way he could do that now was if she was inside the palace.  Besides, it was the last place the rebels would look and he was confident that, even if they realized she was inside the palace walls, they couldn’t get to her. 

She would be safe.

Raven pushed herself up onto her elbows and looked at him.  “I’m not going to the palace,” she told him firmly. 

“Why not?” he asked as he pushed her thick hair away from her beautiful, expressive eyes.  He could see everything she was thinking from those eyes.  She was open and honest, and the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. 

“Because I don’t like what that implies.”

He laughed softly even as his hand moved up her body, curling around her waist and stopping just underneath her full breast.  “You’re going to marry me, Raven.  That’s a foregone conclusion.”

Raven froze for a long moment after those words.  But when her sex-muddled brain finally processed what he’d just said, she smacked his hand away.  “Not in my mind,” she told him firmly. 

“Why not?”  He rolled over onto her, then kissed her shoulder. 

“Because we’re completely incompatible,” she told him even as she gasped with his kisses along her spine. 

“Not so incompatible in bed,” he told her softly.  And once more, he proved to her that they were uniquely compatible in one very important way.