This book is a sequel to Khalifa and cannot be read as a standalone. To avoid spoilers, description and excerpt are added inside the book.
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Started: May 2, 2022.
Completed: December 3, 2022.
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cover by @xniftykayx
You laughed like a metaphor I've been trying to write down for years.
— Rudy Francisco
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Him
The months of separation were years of eternity. The longing for her burns in his bones. Each day was the day reason no more mattered. Each second he wanted to run back to her. Her arms are his resting place. He hasn't found solace since forever. Her eyes are his salvation. He hasn't been alive since their departure.
The color of henna on her hands stabs his heart. He seethes in mad fury. How can she give his place to another man? Which man would dare to even glance at his woman? To waste lives and spill blood isn't what he desires. But if heads have to fall then be it so, but none shall be spared when she is involved.
"Tell me, zawjati (my wife), in whose name do you wear this henna?"
She gasps and he loosens the dagger against her throat, allowing her to tilt back her head and let their gazes collide. Something between them explodes. Something catches fire. He melts like hot iron, he burns, he's ashen to the wind. He seeks rebirth in the vehemence of her blazing eyes.
"Adam," she utters in a stunned breath, and he smirks underneath his mask.
"As it should be Adam alone for Noura, always. Always."
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Her
Those eyes of his are murky nights. Those eyes of his traps of darkness. She'll roam there and be lost. She'll still let him be her hero than a villain. How he disarms her. How he tangles her intellect into a mush. She can but only stare into those black orbs she had been yearning for ever since.
He flicks the dagger away from her throat and his fingers replace it upon her neck, applying gently pressure to hold her head against his shoulder. Noura remains motionless, letting him do his way with her, not fighting back like once upon a time. It's different now than then. He has long ceased to pretend and she's still yet to learn.
"What is this arrangement for?" he asks, an almost growl escaping him, and she shivers against him.
She cannot touch him because of the henna on her hands, keeping them away from him, and his arm that has been encircling her waist pulls away to grasp her below her elbow where the henna is not painted.
"Why are you wearing this, Noura?"
She wants to step away. She wants to answer. She wants to question him for putting her through the torment of separation. But her heart wants to forget all the grief and stay in his arms. Her heart begs to forgive his sins and take him into her arms. Her heart likes the folly.
When she keeps giving him the dazed look and doesn't say anything in response, it only seems to add fuel to the flames in his eyes and he releases her neck. Spinning her around and holding both her wrists in his fists, disregarding the henna staining his skin, his presses her palms to his chest, dragging them down and wiping them clean against the front of his cloak. Noura gapes at him in disbelief.
