CHAPTER ONE

      KASIA SALAH SQUINTED at the heat haze on the horizon and the ominous cloud of dust that shimmered above it, then glared at her mobile phone.

      No service.

      She breathed the swear word she’d learned during her years at Cambridge University as sweat collected on her upper lip and trickled down her back beneath her T-shirt and the voluminous robe she wore to stave off the heat and dust of the desert landscape. It was the sort of swear word she would have been punished by her grandmother for even knowing—let alone saying—once upon a time. She tucked her smartphone into the back pocket of her shorts, taking several more frustrating moments to locate it under the miles of fabric. Then transferred her glare to the engine of the black SUV—and swore again, louder this time. After all, there was no one within a fifty-mile radius to hear her—and it felt empowering, even if it wasn’t going to help.

      Why hadn’t she thought to take a satellite phone with her before leaving the palace for this research trip? Or a companion? Preferably one who knew a bit more than she did about car mechanics? She sighed and kicked the tyre of the broken-down Jeep.

      It had been reckless, over-confident and overly optimistic…her three favourite flaws.

      Then again, she hadn’t intended to break down in the middle of nowhere with no phone signal.

      Sheikh Zane Ali Nawari Khan, her best friend Catherine’s husband, the ruler of Narabia and, nominally, her boss, had worked long and hard to bring internet connectivity and a cellphone network to large parts of the kingdom. But she suspected she was too close to the borderlands here—an undeveloped desert, flanked by the mountain region in the south, populated only by the Kholadi nomads. From what she could remember, the Kholadi didn’t even have running water, so the chances of them needing a phone signal were fairly slim.

      Using the robe to cover her hands, so she didn’t burn them on the hot metal, she unhooked the defunct vehicle’s bonnet. It slammed down, the sound echoing in the febrile air. Luckily, she had given Cat and her assistant Nadia a detailed itinerary of her day trip, so when she didn’t return this evening they would send out a search party.

      But that still meant spending a night in the Jeep.

      Wasn’t that going to be fun, especially when the temperature plummeted as soon as the sun dipped below the desert floor.

      The hot, dry wind swept a sprinkle of sand into her face. Tugging the robe’s head scarf over her nose and mouth so she didn’t inhale the gritty swirls, she peered towards the horizon. The cloud she had spotted earlier had grown, spreading across the land in both directions and blotting out the shimmering heat haze like a malevolent force.

      Adrenaline kicked at her ribs like one of Zane’s thoroughbred Arabian stallions. And the anxiety she’d been keeping a tight rein on rippled down her spine.

      Was that a sandstorm?

      And was it headed her way?

      She’d never experienced one before, having been cloistered in the luxurious safety of the Golden Palace’s women’s quarters for most of her life.

      But she’d heard about the sandstorms. The carnage they wrought could strike terror into the hearts of grown men and women. Her grandmother had whispered about them in hushed reverential tones; how the worst of them had laid waste to the kingdom, turning farmland back into desert and causing numerous fatalities.

      She swallowed down the panic threatening to overwhelm her.

       Stop being a drama queen.

      It was another one of her flaws. Seeing everything too vividly.

      Her grandmother, for all her innate wisdom, had been a drama queen, too. Kasia had been only four years old when she’d gone to live with her, eventually becoming part of the palace staff herself when the old Sheikh had died, and the new Sheikh, Zane, had hired Catherine Smith, a Cambridge scholar, to write a book on the kingdom.

      Getting a job as Catherine’s personal assistant at the age of nineteen had changed her life—especially when Cat had married Zane and become Narabia’s Queen, opening Kasia’s eyes to an exciting world beyond the palace walls. She wasn’t that over-eager, over-imaginative and overly romantic teenager any more—hiding all her insecurities behind a veil of unfulfillable dreams. She was a grown woman now with dreams she was already achieving of becoming an environmental scientist who would save Narabia’s agricultural land from the desert that threatened to consume it.

      Some sand and a night in a Jeep wasn’t going to faze her…much. In fact, a night spent in the desert might afford her some useful research data.

      And who said this was even a sandstorm? There had been no reports of any adverse weather, because she’d checked both the local and the satellite reports before she’d left the palace. She might be reckless, but she was not an idiot.

      She repeated the reassuring words, but her gaze remained superglued to the horizon.

      The dark, impenetrable cloud grew, blocking out the sun. It had to be at least thirty or forty miles wide, and although it was still a mile away it was advancing fast. The noise cut through the desert silence. Tiny creatures—a lizard, a snake, a rodent—scurried