Set to Flame (Flame Series) Read Online Free Page B

cheek.  He froze, staring at it.  Who would mar such a face of perfection?  He raised his shackled hands, his fingers reaching for her face but she drew away.  He sat there with his hands outstretched before letting them fall back to his lap.  He drank the last of the water then she was gone.
    ~   ~   ~
     
    Alena stared at the woman in front of her.  She had no ready answer for the stain on her white gown, or the smell of the earth that clung to it.  She did know Gulshan, Ghalib’s second wife who stood before her, was the most jealous of all his women.  She would stop at nothing in order to be rid of her husband’s favorite new concubine.  She could have him, Alena thought.  She had no desire to be here, no desire to be anyone’s concubine especially some old goat with cold fingers and feted breath.  The Emir had acquired three more women since one of his guards had taken her from her bed in Jerusalem three years before when the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem fell under the mighty power of her new master.  No matter how many times Ghalib raged at her she could not accept a master, at least not the man who butchered her family.  Yet she remained the man’s favorite despite her resistance, it only seemed to invite his desire all the more.  Or maybe he thought one day she might actually concede. 
    “ Ghalib visited me in the garden,” Alena said spitefully.  “I am surprised it did not get more stains from the grass.”
    The woman turned a fierce glower upon her.  Alena tried to sympathize with the woman.  A second wife did not wield the power of the first and this one received no respect from any of the women.  Despite her wicked nature, Alena thought she was the most beautiful woman she had ever seen with her perfect olive skin and doe brown eyes.  She was intelligent, well educated and was one of the only two people who spoke Alena’s language.  Her heart shaped face and full lips on a curvaceous body made her a stunning woman, but she was vain and cruel, to which Alena could not sympathize at all.  She tried to avoid all the women, wives, concubines, aunts and cousins alike.  Some refused to leave her be, but none of them sought her out for companionship.  When Ghalib entered the privacy of his harem, he looked for Alena, a fact she despised more than any of the other women, she would bet her soul.  Yet, they found fault with her and hated her for it. 
    Now she was grateful for the solitude.  It was the only way she could help the English soldiers in the Emir’s prison.  Ghalib sought answers he would eventually get, the soldiers would die and none of these things she could stop.  She could insure their suffering was less by taking them food and water.  Not much, but all she could do. 
    The door banged open and in strolled the barbarian.  Alena did not know the man’s name after all this time, but he was the one who usually retrieved her, sentencing her to another unpleasant and revolting romp in the Emir’s bed.  He said not a word, she did not even know if he could talk.  The only time she saw him was when he had his hand clamped around her elbow, or was trussing her up in a bag, taking her to her master.  What a bitter taste that word made.
    He flung her veil at her, and she flung it back.  His eyebrow raised, and a small, cold smile crossed his lips.  He gave her one more chance, when she had first come here she had been too ignorant to take that chance, now she did not hesitate.  She gently took the headdress from the man and carefully donned it.  Through the corridors, she was led to the stately rooms of the man she hated beyond all others.  She stood on the threshold her eyes seeking out the man she loathed. 
    “Alena dear,” he said coming out of one room with two of his men swirling about him as they adjusted his robes.  “I must postpone our time,” he said, as if breaking the news to one of his wife’s, who would be crushed.  “But I will make it up