She stepped back cautiously as he took another step forward, his fists clenching and unclenching spasmodically as she breathed in deeply.
“Azir, this isn’t a good idea.” She was wasting her breath and she knew it. “Come on, I know many of your nephews and nieces. Several of your king’s great granddaughters are friends of mine. Protests are already being filed with your government over this, if I know my parents and if Abram finds out you harmed me, he won’t be happy, and you know Khalid will go crazy on you.”
She could see the hatred in Azir’s face as she said his son’s name. Khalid had killed his two sons, but only to protect himself as well as Marty when they attacked him in his home.
Paige watched him warily as she tried to maneuver closer to the door, only to have him block her attempt to slide around a chaise and run for the exit.
He smiled in anticipation.
“If you die, then he will not risk God’s displeasure, nor the retaliation of the Matawa for his perversions with you,” he murmured. “You were seen, spreading your thighs, speaking the filth and begging for more.”
She flushed, not in shame or in embarrassment, but in anger. Maybe, if she screamed for Abram, he would hear her? But if he were that close, he would have been here.
“Tell me, Paige, how is my bastard, traitorous son and his whore doing these days?” His lips curled in disgust. “I was actually surprised his brother Abram wasn’t present in the bed with him and his little Jezebel, rather than that ineffective agent to your FBI that was fucking her instead.”
How in God’s name did Azir know these things?
Shane Conner, the FBI agent, was Khalid’s third, that was the truth. He was also working with Daniel Conover’s security firm to upgrade the electronic security on Khalid’s estate.
But Azir’s men hadn’t managed to kidnap her from Khalid’s estate.
Oh yeah, that’s right, she was too fucking stupid to stay there. Azir’s men had caught her in her own home.
Azir knew things that were going on in that house that no one should have known about. Shane Connor’s role as Khalid’s third wasn’t a well known fact, even among the few friends Paige knew they had, who shared that little sexual taste.
“You’re not answering me.” Malice flashed in Azir’s face. “Did your mother not teach you to respect your elders, you little bitch? Or did she only teach you to be the whore she is as well?”
“My mother is no whore!” The words jumped from her lips as though they had a mind of her own.
He could have her tongue at this point. She wouldn’t stand to hear her mother called such names. “I did not ask your opinion on whether or not she was the whore we both know she is. I asked you how that bastard brother and his Jezebel are doing. A simple enough request I thought, or are you too stupid to understand even that much?”
“Sorry, I don’t know a bastard brother or anyone called Jezebel.” Brief. To the point. She had to fight the need to tell the dirty son of a bitch exactly where he could get off at.
His lips twisted in satisfaction. “Punishing you will be a pleasure.”
“I have no doubt you’ll find it the highlight of your old and wasted life,” she muttered. “So why don’t you tell me why I’m here rather than threatening me all day?”
He grunted at what she considered a very clear order.
“What of the less than charming Mr. Connor? Is he still fucking Khalid’s trash up the ass or has he fulfilled his depravity and Khalid’s, by actually taking Khalid like the animals they both are?” Azir watched her like a hungry wolf.
Paige could feel a chill of dread race up her spine as her skin crawled with distaste at the lustful interest in his gaze. Each time he mentioned Khalid and Shane sharing Marty, or any reference to their sexual activities, hunger flashed across his face.
She shook her head warily. “You must have the Shane Connor I know confused with someone else, not to mention the Khalid andrty I know. Are you sure you haven’t been sniffing the camel glue a little too often?.”
Azir snorted sarcastically, his lips curling in disgust. “I should have killed him and his whoring mother when I had the chance. When I realized she was as faithless as the wind.”
“All women are just whores to you, aren’t they, Azir?” Good common sense was overridden by the continued insults to her gentle, compassionate mother.
Despite the time she had been locked in these rooms, raped nightly and forced to conceive the child of her rapist, still, she had adored her son and lavished him with love, just as she had her daughter.
“Your mother is a whore,” he snarled. “She shares herself as her son shares the diseased flesh of his women. She corrupted my son’s mind and his soul and turned him into a depraved animal.”
“After you kidnapped and raped her, and forced her to marry you I’d say you’re the monster and the animal, not my mother or my brother,” Paige retorted scathingly. She could practically feel the knife against her tongue now.
“Your father stole what was mine. He is the kidnapper, the criminal. From my very home he tore my wife from my arms and turned her against me.” He raged, his arms lifting, fingers curling to fists as he brought them to his chest as though in supplication. “Do you not understand what they did to me? To my child? They destroyed us.”
“She was running for her life when my uncle and my father found her,” she argued desperately. “She risked death to escape you, Azir. No one had to tear her from your arms because she had already done it for herself. She risked her life and that of her baby to get away from you, Mustafa!”
Hatred.
It was like a disease.
It overrode terror just enough to keep her from shutting her mouth and being prudent. Her temper was getting the best of her. It was her curse. She was a nice person, she really was, until someone ignorant decided to force that ignorance in her face, and then she just couldn’t hold back.
“She belongs to me!” he screamed, his eyes widening, becoming crazed as he surged forward before she could escape him.
He caught her off guard as he backhanded her with what she was certain had to be the full force he possessed. It was enough force to make her feel as if the blow had disintegrated every bone in her head.
Lights exploded before her eyes as she felt herself all but fly across the room to collapse against the stone floor. Her head was ringing with a thousand cymbals, her gaze dizzy as she lost her breath. She felt herself trying to pass out from the coppery taste of her own blood.
The taste filled her mouth, and in a distant, horror-filled part of her mind Paige realized that this was the first time in her life that she had ever been struck.
“You are a disrespectful little harlot, just as your mother was. But she learned her place, and you will learn yours. Or you will die as I should have killed her.”
He stood over her, raging down at her like a maniac.
“She escaped you though, didn’t she?” She wheezed as she fought to breathe through the pain, her arms shaking as she tried to brace them under her. “She hates you, Azir. She hates you so much she’d kill you herself if she could.”
If she was going to die, then she would be damned if she wouldn’t inflict just as many insults as she could drag out of her ringing, pain-dazed mind.
“I could break you!” He sounded like a wild animal as she tried to focus on him. “I should show you how easy it is to break a little whore such as yourself. I could make you beg to die. Beg to call your mother a whore to her face just to make the pain cease.”
“I’d kill myself first,” she snarled back at him. She tried to brace herself against the floor, her arm losing strength and giving up on her as she fell to the floor once again.
A second later vicious fingers were curling into her hair, dragging her to her knees as she screamed.