The palace woke beneath a sun that bled gold into the desert.
The sand outside shimmered in waves, and the call of distant birds drifted through the carved windows. Inside, the palace was quiet. The harem chamber lay empty. The gardens still smelled of roses. But Amira wasn’t in the harem anymore.
She was in his bed.
The silk sheets still clung to her bare skin, warm and damp from the night before. The faint bruises on her thighs were proof of everything he had taken from her in the Forbidden Garden. Her lips were swollen. Her wrists tingled with ghost-chains. And around her throat, the golden collar shone like a brand.
She stared at the ceiling for a long time. The mosaics there told the stories of other women before her. Women kneeling at the feet of sultans. Women with veils. Women
