The Sultan and the Storyteller by Lichelle Slater

Eleven

Zayne closed the bedroom door behind us and I noticed my nightgown spread on one side of the bed and Zayne’s was left out on the other side. The day had been a rollercoaster of emotions from meeting Telama and spending the afternoon with Zayne, to eating dinner with Gerard and Ismae and trying not to hint to Zayne I was trying to figure out what was happening in the palace.

I was exhausted.

“I’m glad they finally realize we can dress ourselves,” I said with a teasing smile.

That earned a chuckle out of Zayne and he headed to the bathroom. “Perhaps we should wash off the sea before bed.” He glanced over his shoulder at me, and my breath hitched.

It was an invitation to join him.

Drawing a deep breath and holding my head high, I walked across the hand-woven colorful rug and into the bathroom. My hair definitely needed attention, but I gripped my hands in front of me. I had suspected something like this might happen, but I still hadn’t thought it would.

Zayne had already removed his shirt and had just removed his pants when I entered. He paused with his back toward me and I looked away, my cheeks blushing.

“I—I thought, maybe, you were asking me to join you,” I stammered.

“I was. But I see this makes you uncomfortable.”

The thought of making love to my husband didn’t make me uncomfortable, but I had one question first—“Did you really not consummate any of your other marriages?”

Zayne remained quiet for so long I actually looked at him again. He was staring at me, his brows slightly pinched, but he held a towel in front of himself to cover his lower half. “No. None of them.” He looked down and wrapped the towel around his hips. “I must add, your father reminded me today that marriages aren’t recognized by law without being consummated.”

I looked away to keep myself from staring any longer. My father hadtold him our marriage must be consummated? “Did you tell him we hadn’t done this yet?”

“Yes. I tell him everything.”

I got a sour taste in my mouth. “Do you think my father would request your removal from the throne?”

“I have a feeling you don’t know your father very well,” Zayne muttered.

He was wrong. I knew my father best.

What Zayne didn’t know was just how cruel my father could be. I’d witnessed firsthand his ability to manipulate my mother—shouting at her one moment, comforting her the next. He’d done the same thing, or worse, to me after my mother died.

“It’s not that you make me uncomfortable, Zayne. It’s that . . . affection was never part of my life, aside from my mother. And since she died, I’ve only had Kiara. I don’t want to disrespect you.” My stomach churned.

“I will respect your desire for privacy tonight.” I didn’t hear him move, but he was suddenly close enough to lift my chin. Zayne’s touch ignited fire in my heart and down to my toes. “As I spent time with you today, I remembered what peace feels like. Happiness. And you make me feel those things whenever I’m around you.” He brushed his lips against mine too briefly for me to react and I was left blinking.

“Zayne—” I whispered.

“Will you tell me another story tonight? I think it put me to sleep so deeply that I didn’t wake to kill you. If your stories will do that for me . . . will you please tell me one each night for . . . a thousand and one nights?”

I nodded dumbly at him and he leaned down to kiss my forehead. As if the fire couldn’t burn any harder, it spread through my limbs and I felt bumps spread across my arms and legs. I found myself longing for him to continue the touch and when he pulled back, I slid my hand up his arm and peered into his breathtaking amber eyes. A part of me wished he would demand I join him.

“You may bathe first.” He wrapped the towel around himself properly and exited the bathroom, leaving my head reeling.

Zayne’s tenderness continued to catch me off guard.

That softness had to be his real personality, the real man trapped inside.

I bathed as quickly as I could, scrubbing out my long black hair and rubbing all the salt from my body before I climbed out. Once my hair was wrapped in a towel, I found a sheer robe and tied it around my waist. Zayne was sitting on the bench built in front of the windows when I exited the bathroom and he had his elbow resting on the sill as he surveyed our city below.

“I’m done,” I said, announcing my presence.

He straightened his back and looked at me.

I suddenly felt immodest and pulled at the fabric. I should have thought about how it would look, walking out practically naked in front of a man, so I snatched my nightgown from the bed.

Zayne smiled at me. “Shahira, don’t be embarrassed. You’ve said plenty of times before, we are married.” He stood and closed the gap between us. Odd, I’d been brave enough to face death but I was nervous to face Zayne as my husband. He reached out and stroked my cheek with his fingertips. “You truly are beautiful. I find myself watching you, wondering if you could open yourself up to me.”

Blushing in spite of my internal voice begging me not to, I reached up and pushed his hand away. “There is more to me than beauty.”

“I know. And if you survive to tomorrow, I will tell you everything I know.”

I pinched my brows. “There is more you aren’t telling me?”

He winked and lingered close.

I found myself drawn to him. There was something about Zayne that made me feel as if we'd known each other our whole lives. When he touched my cheek again, I closed my eyes, longing to tell him everything would be okay, and wishing I could discover how to help him.

He stepped around me and I could breathe again.

How could he be so comfortable to be around, be so peaceful, and yet be so dangerous?

While Zayne washed, I sat at the window and did my best to towel dry my hair. From this view, the city glowed. The night sky stretched far above and beyond my line of sight and I got the familiar sensation that I was very small, a tiny pebble on a beach of pebbles—insignificant and one of millions.

Zayne exited wearing his nightgown. “I want to show you the library, and tomorrow you can spend all the time you want there.”

Kiara and I hadn’t found the library while wandering the palace the first day. As Zayne led me through the hallway, in our nightgowns, and to the doors, I understood why. Instead of fancy doors painted with bright colors, they were dark wood. I must have believed them to lead to an area for the servants.

“Ishta’il,” Zayne said as he stepped in, and all of the lamps lit simultaneously.

The room was painted blue with white designs along the arches and corners of the ceiling where the lamps hung. The shelves, however, were the same beautiful dark wood as the door, and the one wall without shelves had floor-to-ceiling windows. The window in the middle was a door and led out to a small patio.

I’d never seen so many books in one location in my entire life. I couldn’t help but walk along the bookshelves and touch the leather spines and parchments. It smelled like ironwood and different worlds, magic and memories, and somewhere in one of these stories could be the answer to how I could help Zayne.

“Do you want to choose one of them to read tonight?”

Absently, I grabbed a book and flipped through it. It had multiple short stories, hundreds of them that I could easily tell to Zayne each night to help sink him into sleep. “I think this will do.”

That night I told him a story about a man who fell asleep and dreamt of fairies that protected him from the shadows at night.

Zayne fell asleep as soon as my story was done and almost instantly, the dark presence filled the room again. As it had the night before, it went directly to Zayne, but this time I could see it hovering over him and trying to touch him. My brows furrowed.

There was no herb or poison making Zayne kill.

Anger filled the room and then the shadow disappeared. I curled up against Zayne’s side.

The shadow had a part in it. I just didn’t know how much.