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rock with his weight and strength. Khepri uttered a deep groan. His sudden intensity frightened her, made her feel powerless. Terror replaced her arousal. He would grunt and strain as he violated her body with mindless lust as Fareeq had. And she’d hate him for it ...
    He released her, panting as he looked down. Moonlight and dark desire glinted in his eyes. "You make a man mad with your beauty. I nearly could not stop. If we were married, I would not have," he said hoarsely.
    "You would not have?" she asked, deeply shaken.
    "I’d never let you leave my bed. I would keep you too busy to take walks in the moonlight."
    His words promised old horrors. Badra could not bear to see his gentle, protective manner change as desire darkened his eyes, to wrench away in panic as his powerful body covered hers and he thrust rudely inside her as Fareeq had.
    She realized the horrifying truth: If they married, no pleasured cries would come from their black tent, only her screams of terror. Warriors would look on Khepri with contempt. Whispers would start. She cared too deeply for him to shame him thus. She could not bear to condemn such a virile, passionate man to a marriage as dry as sand. Or to drive him into the arms of another woman to satisfy his body’s needs—as he had done in the past with Najla.
    As they returned to camp, she stifled the haunted sorrow rising in her throat. This presented no real challenge; she had plenty of experience in doing so.
     

     
    Khepri’s past came galloping back the following day.
    Humming happily, thinking of how pliant and soft Badra’s lips had been beneath his, he sat before his tent, carving a new wood loom for her. At the thunder of approaching horses, he looked up. A cloud of dust rose on the horizon. Blood froze in his veins as it drew closer. A party of white-skinned English, escorted by his brethren, approached on sleek Arabians.
    Jabari had warned him about the strangers coming to visit. They’d claimed Khepri might be family. Unease had gripped him, but Khepri joked no Englishman would want him. He was too stubborn, too cocky—too Egyptian to be English.
    Two pale foreigners, one with light brown hair, one much older with a shock of white, dismounted. They wore the strange linen suits English archaeologists preferred. Dry-mouthed, Khepri watched Jabari greet them. The sheikh escorted the pair to Khepri’s tent. With a speed surprising for one so old, the white-haired Englishman raced forward.
    He halted abruptly. Wrinkles carved his face like well-worn rock. Khepri stared into a pair of eyes as blue as his own.
    "Good God, it’s true," the man slowly rasped in English. "It’s Michael, just when he was your age."
    Khepri’s panicked gaze flew to Jabari, but his brother’s face tightened and he looked away.
    "Kenneth, I’m your grandfather. So long I’ve prayed to find you. I am Charles Tristan, duke of Caldwell," the man continued.
    The younger Englishman, with a thick mustache and side-whiskers, his pale brown hair thinning, stepped forward. "Hullo," he said heartily. "I’m Victor Edwards. Second cousin, on your father’s side. Such a relief to find you."
    Khepri reeled with shock. "I have no English family," he croaked in halting English. "They were killed by an enemy tribe years ago. The Al-Hajid murdered my parents and brother."
    "Yes." Sorrow came into the old man’s blue eyes. "But not you. And now I’ve found you. Kenneth Tristan. My heir."
    Heir? What was an heir?
    "I am your grandfather, Kenneth," he stated again.
    Grandfather? His grandfather, Nkosi, was visiting the Al-Hajid with his wife, Elizabeth’s grandmother. Khepri’s frantic gaze pleaded with Jabari, but the sheikh continued gazing stonily into the distance. How could this be? He was a Khamsin, warrior of the wind. Egyptian. He rode the dusky sands. He was brother to the greatest desert sheikh in Egypt. And now a strange Englishman from beyond the seas claimed him? Khepri’s stomach twisted. He must