Though her flesh was desirable only to buzzards at this point, Dawud, her third man and native guide, often gently reminded her to keep her head and face covered. At one time, his kindly meant reproof would have rankled. Now she didn’t mind wearing the head covering. Before they had left the known routes, it saved her questions from passing caravans. It also provided an unspoken barrier. She’d come from a modern world, full of the ideals of equal rights and independence for women. Yet in this culture a woman who demonstrated modesty, who respectfully kept herself covered, sent out a signal that she was deserving of respect.

Didn’t always work, of course, because the world was also full of those who did as they pleased, took what they wanted. But to survive to her final goal she’d utilize any protections the world offered, no matter how flimsy.

She liked young Dawud very much, besides. He hoped to use the funds to bring irrigation and education to his village, and she wanted him to have that. For him specifically, she made it clear to the other two that the bank would not be giving Dawud the jewels directly upon successful completion of their task, but handling the liquidation and management of funds for the village in trust.

Mel and Harry could plan to rob and kill each other as they saw fit after they got their share, but she wasn’t risking an innocent.

In fact, she could have done with just Dawud, except he was a guide and interpreter, not hired muscle. Plus, it would take two strong men to shift the obelisk. Dawud might not be willing to touch it, because of carved warnings on the stone: another way Farida’s lover had protected her body, though he’d been unable to save her life.

The sun was setting now, the stars starting to appear, one by one. She watched them like beads on a rosary, a mantra of hope said over each one. She was so tired. Of course, she didn’t remember what not being tired was, or sick. But it was almost over.

Would Jack, her murdered fiancé, have understood why this had become so important to her? If so, he’d have known her better than she knew herself back then. Until all this had happened, she’d had a laughable understanding of what sacrifice and true determination meant.

The two of them had been given so little time to know each other, but he’d been willing to die for her. When not a split-second instinct, such a premeditated sacrifice was too precious a gift to ever explain, a deep, soul-level treasure that she liked to think foretold what would have grown between them. Why Heaven dangled a precious gem like that and then took it away was anyone’s guess—perhaps Heaven flip-flopped with Hell, like the Sahara, from giver to taker.

Harry was moving about now, helping Mel make their dinner. Jess picked up the bound diary, rubbed her hands over it. Though she knew the men thought her obsession with the book was odd, she needed the comfort of those words to stave off the unease the deepening night always brought. But when the full canopy of stars shone above this evening, she’d be able to locate the obelisk.

Persephone’s constellation would show her the way.

Opening the carefully preserved but well-read pages, she began to read her favorite passages. While she knew them by heart, enough to mumble them as she rocked along on top of her camel during the day, she liked to see the words, pass her fingers over the ink. Connect with Farida, as if that touch between paper and flesh could draw Jessica fully into her world, and out of this one.

Three centuries ago, Prince Haytham came to the aid of Farida’s father against another warring faction. Riding at his side was a man who’d fought and adventured with the prince, a man he referred to as Lord Mason. Her information suggested he was British aristocracy, likely a second or third son who’d become a traveling soldier seeking his fortune, a common enough tale. Though according to Farida’s words, there’d been nothing common about him at all.

If Jess could paint a picture of Heaven, that would be hers. A world where she could be Farida, their merged souls belonging to Lord Mason for all eternity. Closing her eyes, she let her fading mind take her to the one place she still had clarity, a place that existed only in her imagination . . .

2

The Sahara Eighteenth Century

JOURNAL ENTRY 1, PAGE 1

Farida bint Asim

I was behind the screen when Prince Haytham entered the tent to speak with my father. My father valued my counsel and often allowed me to do this, perhaps because he knew how very restless I became in a woman’s world. Why does Allah create dreams and ap-I petites, the desire to live free and fierce as a man does, if those things are to be denied a woman’s soul? I have often wondered this.

Then I saw the man with the prince. Those longings, banked always against my responsibilities as my father’s daughter, exploded inside me like the brightness of stars, such that they couldn’t be contained. I bit down so hard on my lip I drew blood, though I knew I must fly, sing, dance . . . all for him.

He had to be a djinn spun from the desert sand, for never has a man been so beautifully made. Face carved with the sculpted beauty of the dunes, but smooth as watered stone, as if a goddess had created him and then lovingly stroked him, over and over.

When they sat for coffee, he removed his robes, showing he wore the brown riding trousers and white shirt of a European. He lounged back on the pillows, a graceful animal. Though he smiled and listened in that relaxed way of men as coffee was prepared, he reminded me of a desert tiger, for his hair was burnished copper, an animal’s pelt. He had it scraped back from his face, so every magnificent plane was emphasized. My fingers wanted to feel that fall of straight silk, tied back from his shoulders.

His eyes were true amber, like the tiger as well, an almost unnatural brilliance to them, as if he carried the fire of the desert within him. A djinn, as I have said. I heard Prince Haytham say later that he suspected Lord Mason was a British spy, for during the time he stayed with us, he was always gone by dawn, and returned at nightfall. He also spoke our language as well as a native, and his accent was not as precisely bitten off as other Englishmen who have met our camp.

The prince said Lord Mason’s purpose was nothing that concerned us, though I imagined him stepping out of view of our camp and dissolving into a tornado of sand, a desert devil spinning across the dunes. He had too much energy to contain in the body of a mortal man. I imagined that he returned to us at night only when his need to exercise his powers was temporarily sated.

But I need to leave off my fancies and go back to that first time I saw him. As I bit down on my lip and tasted my blood, I must have made a sound despite my efforts, for he looked at me, found me behind the screen. Those tiger’s eyes flickered. I saw his nostrils flare, as if he had my scent, knew every shameful thing I wanted. A passing moment, over in a blink. He shifted his attention away, not disrespecting my father by staring at a woman of his house.

But when he raised his hand to perform the salaam, I drew in another unsteady breath, thinking how those hands would feel on my flesh, compelling my surrender, my obedience, my devotion and love throughout eternity. I knew then. From that very first second, Fate tied a gentle but unbreakable tether around my throat and handed the lead to him. I would follow him, no matter what our end would be.

The Sahara Present Day

Jessica knew that end had been tragic, horrific, but she didn’t know how anyone could read about a young girl’s hope, the surge of pure, passionate need, and not believe in it, not be moved by it. Of course, perhaps one had to be half insane, stripped to the level of survival, in order to slough off the veneer of cynicism and sophistication and hear that truth in Farida’s words.

“Just another girl’s romantic fantasy,” Raithe had scoffed, taking a glance at what she’d found in the rare book library he maintained. She’d been a research assistant for the archaeology and history departments at one of Rome’s universities before the vampire abducted her and faked her death, so one of her more mundane tasks for Raithe had been cataloging his library.

It was the binding he’d appreciated, which he told her was valuable for its age and condition. “The text was likely written by some aspiring author later that century, hoping a newspaper would run it as a ladies’ serial. At one time, penning stories of the exotic East was a popular pastime, whether or not they were true.”

Thank God Raithe didn’t pay further attention to her absorption in the book. She took care not to be seen studying or researching it too often, or thinking about it in his presence. It had been an effort beyond description, not escaping to those memories when he’d required her blood, or satiation of his sexual needs, or those of his friends. To satisfy their need for pain, for her screams and tears.

To him it was a trite love story, fictional and typical. Two people had loved each other, wanted nothing more than a life together.

They’d tried and failed. But whether it was her desperate need to believe in the woman’s story, or intuitive scholarship, her desire to confirm what she suspected was a true story, whoever wrote it, became a carefully guarded obsession. Every scrap of information she discovered was another brick in the fortress holding what was left of her mind.

As with most histories, she found more when she focused on authority figures, namely Prince Haytham and Sheikh Asim. She confirmed the sheikh’s eldest daughter was Farida, which didn’t prove anything until she cross-referenced it with the annals of a Polo esque adventurer who’d recorded a brief paragraph during his trip through the Sahara.

Encountered a hostile tribe today, the first that didn’t offer me the sacred protections of a guest. There’ d been a row related to the chief ’s daughter and a supposed British officer. The girl had finally been caught, after managing to run off with the fellow and evading capture for some time. She was killed in a ghastly way. The poor chap was buried alive in a pit of rock. Was able to placate them with my credentials and a hasty leave-taking.

A Romeo and Juliet tale, told a million ways, but with the same tragic ending.

After Raithe’s death, and her flight to Africa, Jess hit dead ends seeking the remains of the couple, until she’d risked contacting the Egyptian consul. She claimed to be a retired American professor preparing a speculative article on authentic events that inspired Middle Eastern and African romantic poetry and prose. She met with him under a full-length abaya that covered her from head to feet.