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Driven by the pain of his abrupt rejection of her, held deep in the grip of a primitive urge, an emotional, immediate reaction to his cruel taunting words she couldn’t control, Petra lashed out at him, her hand raised.
And when, more by accident than anything, her hand hit the side of his jaw his own shock was mirrored by the expression in her eyes as they rounded and darkened. She shuddered convulsively, as though he had been the one to hit her.
She felt him release her and her feet hit the ground. She knew she must have moved, because suddenly she was in her own bedroom, lying curled up in the centre of the lavish bed whilst her whole body trembled with shock and pain, but she had no awareness of having got there—no awareness of anything since that awful moment when she had felt as well as heard the crack of her open palm against his skin.
How could she have done such a thing? She was totally opposed to all forms of violence. It disgusted her to the point where she felt physically sick that she had acted in such a way, but her dry aching eyes refused to provide her with the comfort of cleansing tears to wash away her guilt.
CHAPTER SEVEN
PAINFULLY Petra stared into the emptiness surrounding her. It was barely twenty minutes or so since Blaize had left her, but to Petra each one of those minutes had felt like an hour as she fought to come to terms with the shock of her own uncharacteristic behaviour. She was being tormented—not just by her unwanted love for Blaize, but by her guilt at the way she had behaved as well.
No matter how righteous her cause or how much provocation she believed she had been made to suffer, she still could not excuse or forgive herself for what she had done. To have been so driven by her own demons that she had resorted to physical violence! A shudder of self-loathing and moral outrage gripped her body.
According to the code by which she had been brought up by her parents, she owed Blaize an apology. Never mind that his own behaviour was open to question—his behaviour was something she was not responsible for. Her own was a different matter.
Apologise to him? After what he had said? After what he had done? After the way he had inflamed her senses, her body, until she had ached so feverishly for him that her longing overwhelmed everything else and then rejected her! Never, never. Never, not even on pain of torture, Petra swore dramatically to herself.
But five minutes later, with her conscience digging into her painfully, refusing to be ignored no matter how tightly she cocooned herself in her righteous indignation and tried to smother its nagging little voice, Petra finally gave in. If she waited too much longer she would be disturbing Blaize in the middle of his night’s sleep!
Nervously, she reached for her robe and took a deep breath.
In the outer room the oil lamps had burned low, casting soft long shadows against the darkness.
Surely her apology could wait until morning? a craven little voice urged her. Blaize might well already be asleep. But Petra refused to allow herself to listen to it. She had done something wrong and now she must make amends!
Taking a deep breath, Petra lifted back the entrance fabric to Blaize’s bedroom. In the few seconds it took her eyes to adjust to the darkness she could hear the noisy, anxious slam of her own heart against her ribs, and instinctively she placed one hand against it, as though trying to silence it.
The full moon outside lifted the darkness just enough for her to be able to make out Blaize’s sleeping form beneath the bedcovers. He was lying on his side, with his face towards her, but turned into the pillow so that she could not tell whether he was awake or not. Tentatively she whispered his name, but there was no response. Was he asleep?
If she left now he would never even know she had been here. Longingly she looked back towards the exit, but the stubborn pride her father had always teased her about, that she had inherited from her grandfather, refused to allow her to make a craven escape without first checking that he was actually sleeping.
Head held high, she walked over to the bed. Like her own it was easily wide enough for two people. Uncertainly she looked at Blaize. Was he asleep? He certainly wasn’t moving. Quietly she crept a little closer, automatically balancing one knee on the bed as she did so in order to get a closer look at him.
Tentatively she whispered his name. If he didn’t respond and was asleep then she could return to her own bed with a clear conscience and save her apology until the morning, knowing that she had at least tried to deliver it!
He hadn’t uttered a sound. Exhaling softly in relief, Petra started to back away—and then froze as with shocking speed he reached out and gripped her wrist, demanding tauntingly, ‘Sleepwalking Petra?’
His fingers burned against her skin, and as though he had guessed his thumb probed the uncoordinated thud of her pulse as though he was monitoring her reaction to him.
‘Your blood is racing through your body like a gazelle fleeing from the hunter.’
‘You… you startled me. I thought you were asleep!’
She winced a little as he released her, gritting a soft expletive under his breath. Moving with the swift stealth of a panther, throwing back the bedclothes, he reached out to relight the oil lamp on the table beside the bed, taunting her softly, ‘If you thought I was asleep then what exactly are you doing here?’
Far from being asleep, he sounded dangerously alert, Petra recognised.
As she gave a small nervous shudder his expression changed abruptly. Frowningly he questioned her, ‘What is it? What’s wrong? Don’t you feel well? The desert air can sometimes…’
‘I’m fine,’ Petra assured him quickly. ‘It isn’t…’ Catching her bottom lip between her teeth, she struggled to drag her distracted… besotted gaze away from his naked torso. Like her, he obviously did not favour pyjamas. But unlike her, she suspected, from the brief glimpse she had just had of one lean muscular hip and the telltale dark shadowing of hair running down over his taut flat stomach, Blaize did not even adopt the modesty of wearing briefs to sleep in!
‘Fine?’ he repeated. ‘Then what…?’
He looked fully awake now. And fully alert too, Petra recognised with a sinking, almost queasy sensation gripping her stomach. Thinking about delivering a short but noble speech of apology in the privacy of her own bed was one thing: actually doing it whilst she was poised semi-crouched on the edge of Blaize’s bed, with her mind more on the fact that he was undoubtedly naked beneath the silky throw than on what she was supposed to be doing, was very much another! And if she wasn’t careful… if she wasn’t very, very careful indeed… she might just be in grave danger of totally ignoring what she had come here to do…
The scratches on Blaize’s upper arm caught her attention. They had stopped bleeding but they still looked raw, and even slightly inflamed.
As she dragged her gaze away it met Blaize’s, and was held there trapped… hypnotised…
‘For your information, they were not caused by Shara… the dancer,’ he told her quietly. ‘The falconer had a new young bird he was training and it became over-excited. I offered to help him.’ He gave a small shrug. ‘As I told him, once she matures she will make an enviably loyal bird. She resented being handled by someone who was not her master and she let me know it.’
‘A falcon scratched you?’ Petra breathed, her face flooding with guilty colour. Now she owed him not one but two apologies.
Helplessly she looked back to his arm, and then, unable to stop herself, she leaned forward and gently caressed the broken skin with her lips, tenderly kissing the line of each scratch.
As she kissed the last one she felt Blaize’s body quiver. Sombrely she turned her head and looked into his eyes.
‘I came to apologise,’ she told him quietly. ‘I should not have… have done what I did.’
There was a small tense pause through which she could feel her own emotions pulsing, as though