He lay facedown, head and ribs burning with pain, the rest of him merely battered. Slowly he forced his eyelids open. He was in a dark room, lightened only by a spill of moonlight through a small, high window.

Then came rough voices using an obscure local dialect. Three men, he counted, walking away. He strained to hear over the merciless hammering in his head.

They’d kill him tomorrow. After Qadri arrived to enjoy the spectacle and pay them for the successful kidnap.

Ashraf gritted his jaw, ignoring the spike of pain in the back of his skull.

Of course Qadri was behind this. Who else would dare? The bandit leader had even begun to style himself as a provincial chief in the last years of Ashraf’s father’s rule.

The old Sheikh had moved slowly when dealing with problems in this remote province, the poorest and most backward in the country. He’d left Qadri alone as long as the bandit preyed only on his own people.

But Ashraf wasn’t cut from the same cloth as his father. The old Sheikh was dead and Ashraf had introduced changes that would see Qadri dispossessed.

He could expect no mercy from his captors.

Ashraf wasn’t naïve enough to believe Qadri would negotiate his release. The man would fight for his fiefdom the only way he knew: with violence.

What better way to intimidate poor villagers than to execute the new Sheikh? To prove that modernisation and the rule of law had no place in the mountains that had only known Qadri’s authority for two decades?

Ashraf cursed his eagerness to see a new irrigation project, accepting the invitation to ride out with just a local guide and a single bodyguard into an area that was supposedly now completely safe.

Safe!

His belly clenched as he thought of his bodyguard, Basim, thrown from his horse by a tripwire rigged between two boulders.

Ashraf had vaulted from his horse to go to him, only to be felled by attackers. There was little satisfaction in knowing they hadn’t overpowered him easily.

Was Basim alive? Ashraf’s gut clenched at the thought of his faithful guard abandoned where he’d fallen.

Fury scoured his belly. But fury wouldn’t help now. Only cold calculation. He had to find a way out. Or a way to convey his location to those searching for him.

His father had always said he had the devil’s own luck. It had been a sneering accusation, not a fond appraisal, but for the first time Ashraf found himself hoping the old man had been right. He could do with some luck. And the energy to move.

A slight scuffling broke his train of thought.

He wasn’t alone.

Ashraf refused to lie there waiting for another knockout blow.

Ignoring the pain that exploded through him at the movement, he rolled over and up onto his feet, only to stop abruptly, his right arm yanked back.

Spinning round, Ashraf discovered he was chained to a wall. Another turn, so swift his bruised head swam and pain seared his ribs. But with his back to the wall, his feet wide, he was ready to take on any assailant.

‘Come on. Show yourself.’

Nothing. No movement. No sound.

Then, out of the darkness, something gleamed. Something pale that shone in the faint moonlight.

His guard was blond?

Ashraf blinked. It wasn’t an hallucination.

Whoever it was, he wasn’t local.

‘Who are you?’ He switched to French, then English, and heard an answering hiss of breath.

English, then.

The silence grew, ratcheting his tension higher.

‘You don’t know?’ It was a whisper, as if the speaker feared being overheard.

Ashraf frowned. Had the blow to his head damaged his hearing? It couldn’t be, yet it sounded like—

‘You’re a woman?’

‘You’re not one of them, then.’ Her voice was flat, yet taut, as if produced by vocal cords under stress.

Stress he could understand.

‘By “one of them” you mean...?’

‘The men who brought me here. The men who...’ Ashraf heard a shudder in her voice ‘...kidnapped me.’

‘Definitely not one of them. They kidnapped me too.’

For which they’d pay. Ashraf had no intention of dying in what he guessed was a shepherd’s hut, from the smell of livestock. Though the sturdy chain and handcuff indicated that the place was used for other, sinister purposes. He’d heard whispers that Qadri was involved in people-smuggling. That women in particular sometimes vanished without a trace, sold to unscrupulous buyers across the border.

The pale glow came closer. Ashraf saw her now. Silvery hair, pale skin and eyes that looked hollow in the shadows. She swallowed and he made out the convulsive movement of her throat. Calm overlying panic. At least she wasn’t hysterical.

‘Are you hurt?’ he asked.

A tiny huff of amusement greeted his question. ‘That’s my line. You’re the one who’s bleeding.’

Ashraf looked down. Parting his torn shirt, he discovered a long cut, no longer bleeding. A knife wound, he guessed, but not deep.

‘I’ll live.’

Despite the playboy

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