Thief of Hearts (Elders and Welders Chronicles Book 3) (8 page)

Miss Bartholomew met Rowan’s puzzled glance with a skeptical one of her own, obviously still suspicious of the sheikh’s intentions.

“That sounds…reasonable,” she allowed grudgingly.

The sheikh fixed his attention onto Rowan expectantly, and Rowan nodded in agreement.

“It’s more of a dilemma, really,” the sheikh continued, rolling out one of the papers and filling it with loose tobacco. “And I can ask no one else for advice on the matter, as it involves someone…close to me.”

“Is it a tribal matter?” Rowan hazarded.

The sheikh’s mouth quirked. “Precisely. A
tribal
matter. It concerns my brother. He is in a dangerous predicament, one that I must resolve for him. Yet it can only have two outcomes, and both of them are...intolerable.”

“What are these outcomes?” Rowan asked.

“On the one hand, I risk the death of my entire tribe should I hesitate to act. On the other hand, I risk…no, I
ensure
the death of my brother’s two children, at the very least, if I
do
act. But how do I choose? How
can
I choose, the many over the few?”

The sheikh’s voice was earnest by the end, his hand even trembling a little as he lit the end of his cheroot with a taper from his bowl of incense. Rowan’s stomach dipped with sympathy and a little bit of dread as the sheikh’s eyes bored into his own, as if willing an answer from him. As if his opinion mattered.

“Why are you asking us this?” Miss Bartholomew demanded with her usual directness.

“I’ve no one else to ask,” the sheikh murmured.

“It’s an impossible question—” Miss Bartholomew began.

“Why must
you
make the decision?” Rowan interrupted.

The sheikh’s attention fixed back on him.

“It is your brother’s choice to make, is it not?” Rowan continued, trying not to fidget under all of that concentrated focus.

“He is…unreachable at the moment,” the sheikh said carefully.

“At the moment, but not forever?”

The sheikh looked thoughtful, but unconvinced. “Even now, every moment I hesitate, another life is endangered, the risk to everything grows. I could end it, so easily, so quickly now, even if the timing is not…ideal.”

“It is not your choice, though, it is his,” Rowan said firmly.

Something profoundly painful flickered over the sheikh’s expression as he took in Rowan’s conviction as his own. “I know you must be right. I just wish I could take away the pain he will endure no matter what course is taken. It is my fault he is in this predicament, you see.”

The sheikh’s voice was raw by the end, and for some reason it made the incipient dread that Rowan had begun to feel blossom into something nearly suffocating. It was as if the whole of the universe were pressing down on him, visible just at the edges of his vision. As if it teased him with all of the answers to all of the questions teeming in his battered brain, held them just out of his reach. He had a feeling that if only he could remember, all of this strange day would make sense.

“He will not thank you to interfere further, then,” Miss Bartholomew said flatly, putting an end to the fraught moment between them and snapping Rowan back to the present moment.

“I think you’re right, Miss Bartholomew,” the sheikh said, finishing his cheroot and standing up. He was even taller than Rowan and quite formidable in his long robes. “Thank you for answering my question.”

“Your second request?” she prompted impatiently.

“Take him with you, Miss Bartholomew,” he said simply, nodding in Rowan’s direction.

She was silent for a long time, but at length she nodded grudgingly, though she refused to look at either of them. The sheikh’s eyes narrowed on her, but he didn’t call her out on her unenthusiastic response. Neither did Rowan. He couldn’t blame her for being reluctant to take him on.

“And the third?” she bit out impatiently.

The sheikh smiled wolfishly and stared straight at Rowan. “Ah, yes. That I shall present to you later.”

Rowan didn’t like the sound of that, or the way the sheikh seemed to address his answer solely in his direction. But he took his cue from Miss Bartholomew, who finally seemed to have decided to keep her mouth shut, and didn’t ask any of the thousands of questions swirling in his mind. He had a feeling he’d only get more cryptic half-answers anyway.

The sheikh dismissed them with an imperious wave of his hand, and they stumbled their way back into the sunlight.

As they were led back to the tent by the same guards, Rowan caught sight of an unpleasant-looking man with a bad sunburn lurking near the edge of the mercenaries’ encampment. He was glowering in their direction but seemed reluctant to come any nearer.

“That’s Janus,” Miss Bartholomew said when she noticed where he was looking.

“He seems…nice,” Rowan murmured.

She snorted with amusement, as if he’d caught her off guard with his sarcasm.

“Trust me, you do not want to end up in his clutches,” she said.

Trust her? He wasn’t sure he could, considering she’d essentially used him as a bargaining chip with the sheikh.

She must have read something in his expression, for she rounded on him and waited until he met her eyes. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Rowan. Take what the sheikh has offered, what
I
have offered, and get the hell out of here while you can,” she said.

Speaking of trust…

“The sheikh is hiding something,” Rowan said. “I think he knows more than he’s saying about me.”

“Whatever he knows, he’s not going to tell you,” she said dismissively. “And you’re not going to find your answers out here in the middle of nowhere.”

He wasn’t so sure of that, but it was hard to argue with her. He gazed around the endless tan dunes, the pale eggshell sky and bright yellow sun—the unvarying
nothingness
of it all—and that pervasive dread in his gut intensified. How had he ended up out here, of all places on earth? What the hell had happened to him?

“Where am I going to find them, then?” he asked.

She shook her head helplessly, her brow furrowed. “I don’t even know what questions to ask where you’re concerned,” she said.

He followed her back to the tent in silence, fighting down his growing despair. She settled by the table and continued to eat, carefully ignoring him. He took the hint and resumed his place on the cot without further engaging her, suddenly exhausted from just the few hours he’d been awake. He soon drifted back to sleep, half hoping that the next time he awoke this would have all been a horrible dream.

WHEN HE NEXT
opened his eyes, it was pitch black outside and Hex was hovering over him, her freckled skin and bright blue eyes illuminated by a flickering steam lamp. He sat up with a gasp, jerked out of dreams he couldn’t quite remember but knew instinctively had been unpleasant, judging from his racing pulse and sweat-slick skin.

The sheikh came into view, gripping his shoulder and unceremoniously hauling him to his feet. The man had finally shed his sun spectacles, and strange, wolf-like eyes glinted amber in the dim light. Rowan’s head pounded at the sight of them.

“There is no time to wait,” the sheikh whispered, shoving a long knife into Rowan’s hand. “Five minutes, and my men attack Janus’s camp. You must be quick and reach the ship before Janus has time to regroup. Do you have a way of contacting your compatriot aboard your ship, Miss Bartholomew?”

Her eyes narrowed in suspicion at the sheikh, but she nodded grimly, tucking the dagger he offered her into her belt. “My father?”

“He and his associate will be waiting for you under the ship.”

“And if they’re not?” she pressed.

“Then do what you will, Miss Bartholomew. Janus stands between you and your ship, and if you can think of a better way to do this, by all means, share it with me,” the sheikh returned in a harsh whisper.

Miss Bartholomew didn’t bother to answer, just turned her back to them and began moving toward the door. Rowan started to follow her.

The sheikh stepped into Rowan’s path, halting him with a hand on his arm, his amber eyes grave. “Don’t make me regret this, Rowan,” he said, voice low and soft, for Rowan’s ears only.

“I never told you my name,” Rowan murmured, all of his internal alarms ringing. Who was this man? What would he regret?

“You didn’t need to. Take this,” the sheikh said, slipping a folded piece of paper into Rowan’s hand.

“What is this?”

“My third request, of a sort.”

“If you know something about me, about who I am, tell me now!” he hissed.

The sheikh speared him with an intense look that drew Rowan up short. “I know you are the most honorable man I know, and that you will fulfill my final request when the time comes.”

“So you do hold us in your debt,” Rowan whispered harshly.

The sheikh shook his head. “Just you. As I said, many of my men will lose their lives for your freedom tonight. I will rely upon your honor to see that debt repaid. And when it is, you’ll have all of your answers, I promise you.”

“But…”

The sheikh cut off Rowan’s arguments with a shove to his back that sent him stumbling. “There is no time, and I dare not say anything more. Stay near Miss Bartholomew, and when you’re ready, I’ll be waiting.”

Rowan shook off the man’s hand and stalked after Miss Bartholomew. He was growing damned weary of riddles. It seemed that was all he’d been given since he’d awoken into this nightmare. The sheikh obviously knew who he was. He wished the man would just tell him, but clearly that was not going to happen.

Even if he tried to stay behind and demand answers now, he knew the sheikh would never cooperate. The man had his own baffling agenda. But Rowan couldn’t bring himself to even consider such a course of action if there was a chance of aiding Miss Bartholomew. Like the sheikh had said, he needed to stay close to the woman. He felt it in his gut.

After one last enigmatic glance Rowan’s way, the sheikh extinguished the torch and strode ahead of them, unsheathing a long, curved blade with one hand and a long-barreled, antique revolver with the other. He gestured with the blade to follow him.

Rowan did so at a very safe distance. That thing looked wickedly sharp.

The night was deep, but the stars in the sky provided enough illumination for Rowan to make out the outline of Janus’s camp. It was still and quiet, the cook fires burning low and a bare handful of guards wandering around.

But just a few seconds into their journey toward the dirigible, the shadows around the camp seemed to come alive, revealing the shapes of Bedouin men, their metal blades flickering in the moonlight. A few seconds later, the grunts and cries of men in the throes of combat carried to them on the wind, followed by the deafening blast of a shotgun, the muzzle flash momentarily illuminating the chaos of the battle.

The fleeting, tintype image of a Bedouin slashing the stomach of one of Janus’s men burned into Rowan’s distressed retinas, and he froze in shock as a flood of shrouded half-memories—just as violent, just as bloody—filled his head. Somehow he didn’t think violence was anything new to him, but he also knew that he didn’t like it—had never liked it.

The sound of the sheikh’s angry voice pulled him from his stupor, and he stumbled onward, stomach churning and head aching anew.

The fierce glare from the flames of a tent fire finally caught out Rowan and his companions as they attempted sneak around the edges of the skirmish. Several of Janus’s men spotted them and sprinted in their direction, guns pointed straight at Miss Bartholomew. Rowan reacted without thought and stepped in front of her just as the blast of one of their guns flashed across his vision, temporarily blinding him. Barely a second later, he nearly fell to his knees as a searing pain ripped through the front of his left shoulder and exploded out the back. He’d been shot. There was no doubt about it this time.

The sheikh roared in anger, raised his revolver, and delivered two neat shots to the mercenaries’ heads, felling them instantly. Rowan heard Miss Bartholomew shouting furiously behind him, tugging on his uninjured arm as another round of Janus’s men closed in on them.

The sheikh glared at him when he continued to stand there dazedly, clutching at his shoulder. The pain had quickly faded, but he couldn’t seem to make his feet work despite the approaching danger. He felt as if he were deep underwater, all of his senses muted from shock.

“Go now, damn you,” the sheikh growled out, shoving him toward Miss Bartholomew. “Get the hell out of here before I change my mind.” With that, the sheikh turned away and ran toward the approaching mercenaries, gleaming sword raised and ready for battle.

Miss Bartholomew gave him one last sharp tug, and he reluctantly tore his eyes away from the sheikh, who’d begun to cut his way through Janus’s men with a precision and speed that was extremely disturbing. He fell into step beside her, and they ran until the hull of the ship blocked out the stars above. When they finally slowed down, Miss Bartholomew turned her attention to her strange wristwatch and adjusted a few dials on its sides, causing it to momentarily click and pulse with a red light.