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“Let me rephrase my question. If I put you on the back of my horse, do you promise not to fall off until we get home?”
“I can make no promises because my home is very far from here,” I informed him, wondering if he had forgotten where I lived. Nine years was clearly a very long time.
“I meant my home,” he explained patiently.
I shook my head more vigorously and forced down the bile that rose in my throat at the sudden movement.
“No! I won’t enter your home.”
Not now. Not ever.
He blew out a short breath and a muscle jumped in his jaw as my meaning struck home.
“You have no choice, Diya. We have to get you to safety before Ayush sends more men after you, and right now, my home is the safest place for you.”
He picked me up like I was a sack of potatoes and set me on his horse sideways.
“Put me down right now,” I yelped.
But Dheer ignored me as he forced my right leg over the edge of the saddle and climbed up behind me. He was facing forward and I was facing him. He reached around me and grabbed the reins.
“Put your arms around me,” he ordered, but I shook my head stubbornly.
He rolled his eyes and I could feel the exasperation in the rigid lines of his body against me.
“Diya, do as I say and put your arms around me, otherwise you’re going to fall off and break your neck,” he snapped.
“My hands… my hands are stained,” I whispered. “With blood.”
He froze in the saddle as he understood my discomfort.
“That’s okay. It’ll wash off,” he replied softly. “Off my clothes and off your hands. I promise.”
“I killed a man, Dheer,” I confessed.
“I know. And if you hadn’t killed him, he would have killed you, Diya. You did well.”
I winced at his praise and raised my head to glare at him. What the hell was wrong with him?
I had just killed a man! There was nothing praiseworthy about it, even if it had been necessary for my safety.
“This isn’t a graphic novel, Dheer. I’m not some sort of superhero, so stop geeking about my killing skills,” I snarled. “I’m a murderer! And I will spend the rest of my life in jail.”
He snorted in derision as he waved a hand at the desert around us.
“There are a lot of bodies and secrets buried in these sands, Diya. You’re not going to jail. My men will see to the cleanup.”
“Ohmigod! What men? What kind of operation are you running here, Dheer? And are we going to ignore the fact that you just Indiana Jones-ed your way across the desert to save my life?”
“Should I have called the police control room instead?” he snapped. “You would have been dead and buried long before they arrived, Diya. I did what I had to do. This is the reality of our lives. We do whatever we need to do to survive in these lands.”
I shuddered in horror at his words. What kind of bizarre alternate reality had I stepped into?
Dheer was one of the most civilised men I knew, so why was he talking like a feudal warlord? And what did he say to those men to scare them off?
We were galloping across the sands by now, and each movement of his horse jolted me closer to Dheer’s body. I tried to hold myself stiff and upright, but it was impossible. Eventually, my neck began to droop and I gave into the temptation of curling up against his broad chest. Only for a minute, I promised myself. His arm tightened around me like a vice and he ran a hand up my back slowly as he held me against him. I looked up into his face, studying it from up close.
He looked so stern and forbidding. This wasn’t the boy who had chased me around the koi pond in my father’s palace before he kissed me for the first time. This also wasn’t the man who had smiled coldly at me as he introduced me to his fiancée. My whole body stiffened at the memory and I bolted upright.
