Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Epilogue

      Prologue

      If it weren’t for Layla, Rose was certain she and her children would be dead.

      Four days earlier, Rose’s Ibrahim Bin Habib El Jeved had been husband and father, and ruler of Sorajhee. Loved, adored, a benevolent ruler who always remembered that he served at the favor of his people.

      To protect his people, Ibrahim had been negotiating a very public political alliance with a neighboring kingdom on the edge of Saudi Arabia, planning for Sorajhee and Balahar to become allies in the troubled Middle East. He’d even gone so far as to secretly pledge that one of his three young sons would one day marry a daughter of King Zakariyya Al Farid, ruler of Balahar.

      Layla’s husband, Ibrahim’s brother, had been very much against the idea. Yes, Azzam was very much against the idea.

      And four days ago, during a well-orchestrated demonstration against the proposed political alliance of Sorajhee and Balahar, Ibrahim had been assassinated.

      Rose had gone into shock at the terrible news, barely able to function. She had come to Sorajhee as a young bride, leaving her American roots behind her to follow the man she loved with all her heart and mind. Now she was alone, and with three young, vulnerable princes to protect.

      Layla had come to her the same day Ibrahim was buried, warning her that Azzam planned to take over the kingdom, first ridding himself of “Ibrahim’s half-breed whelps and their bitch.”

      “He said this? He would kill us? Kill my babies?” Rose asked her sister-in-law, her shock giving way to panic and anger. “Ibrahim had considered this, but I never believed him. You and Azzam have been our friends. Our family.”

      “Azzam wants his brother’s throne, my sister,” Layla told her, “and if he has to crawl over the bodies of his brother and his nephews, he will do it gladly. Sister, he has already begun. I have learned that it was Azzam’s order, if not his hand, that marked the end of Ibrahim.”

      Rose pressed her hands to her cheeks, willing herself past the horror, the anger. She had to set aside her sorrow and pain. She had to consider her children.

      Drying her tears, she sat down to think. Small and blond, and looking very much the American that she was, she knew that Azzam and many others believed her to be young and witless. An easy pawn.

      An easy target, now that her beloved Ibrahim was gone.

      How wrong they were.

      She was queen of Sorajhee, mother of the heirs, widow of the sheikh.

      But even a wise queen knows when preservation means leaving the field, regrouping, gathering her strength. Protecting her young, as a mother lioness would protect her cubs.

      Rose stood and ran to the corner of the room and a small locked chest Ibrahim had shown her months ago, when he had first begun his public negotiations with Balahar. She pulled the slim golden chain from her neck and used the key attached to it to open the chest and retrieve its contents.

      “What