The Sheik's Command by Loreth Anne White Read Free Book Online Page B

your orphans?”
    “That’s correct.”
    “And this is when they told you about the coup?”
    “Yes. They told me that they call you the Dark King.”
    His jaw tightened at the irony. The Dark King, destined for a future of darkness…little did they know.
    “And they warned me to be very careful, that you could be dangerous….” She hesitated, as if weighing whether to speak the next words.
    “All of it,” he demanded. “Tell me everything they said.”
    She inhaled deeply. “They said you might have orchestrated the coup yourself, using elements in your father’s military.”
    “So that’s why you accused me of doing this?”
    “The Berbers fear the legacy your rule might bring, Zakir. They know nothing about you because you have been living abroad.”
    Her words sparked a frenzy of ideas in his mind, and suddenly Zakir knew what he must do—how he could hide from the members of the King’s Council until he could come up with a strategy to deal with his rapidly failing vision. He also needed to contact his emissary in Europe to hasten the search for a wife. He had to marry before he lost his sight.
    “I’m coming to the Rahm Hills with you,” he stated. “I will meet with the tribesmen, speak to them myself. Since you’ve earned their trust, you will introduce me, be an escort to me and my men.”
    After he’d met with the sheik of the Berber village, Zakir and a few of his Gurkhas could continue on to the Al Arif Summer Palace, not far from the Rahm range. It would be an ideal place to lie low while he arranged his marriage.
    The palace had traditionally served as a refuge for the royal family during the hot summer months. Situated high in the north mountains, it was well fortified, and it enjoyed the cooler winds that blew up from the Atlantic. It also had a much smaller staff.
    He could govern from there for a short while, using envoys and telecommunications. He’d send for more security personnel and inform his Council once he’d arrived.
    He raised his hand high in the air, snapping his fingers sharply, and his secretary rushed to his side. “Change of plan,” he said. “I will personally accompany Ms. Hunt into the Rahm Hills. Repack the supplies from the royal Humvee fleet into two camouflaged army vehicles. I want to travel under the radar. I will take only my top five trusted bodyguards.”
    Zakir spun away from Nikki, barking further orders in rapid-fire Arabic. Staff, guards, soldiers scattered in all directions as if he’d kicked an ant heap. He donned a pair of sunglasses handed to him by an aide as a modified military Humvee drew into the courtyard, followed by a second one. Both were the color of desert sand and shadows. The aideopened the door of the first vehicle, and Zakir gestured to the backseat. “Please get in, Nikki.”
    She hesitated, watching Zakir with interest. Nikki had just witnessed him stumble and grasp for his dog. Then when a shaft of reflected sunlight had moved across his eyes, Nikki saw what she knew as a Marcus Gunn pupil—a pupillary defect indicating a lack of response to light in his left eye.
    She knew eyes intimately—she’d been a top ophthalmic surgeon.
    A normal response to bright light would be equal constriction of both pupils. Zakir clearly had some kind of damage to the optic nerve of his left eye and quite possibly his right as well, judging by the way he’d then stumbled, as if totally blinded for a moment.
    She thought again of Dr. Tariq Al Arif and the very specific questions he’d asked after at that medical convention nine years ago. The conversation had stuck in Nikki’s mind because of his interest in a very rare hereditary disorder called Naveed’s Hereditary Optic Neuropathy—named after Dr. Anwar Naveed, the Iranian-born German ophthalmologist who first described the condition.
    This genetic disorder was passed only through a mother’s DNA, but the degeneration of retinal ganglion cells and their axons affected only males and