Two

 

Anahita knew the very moment she lost her sense of fear. One moment, she was screaming, her broken arm splintering into a million needles of pain to the unholy delight of her new husband, and the next, the whole world went silent.

He would beat her to death tonight, whether by accident or design, her dreamy mind told her. She should have been afraid, but death would be an improvement over the endless round of beatings that inevitably ended in rape. Her father had given her to this man in an attempt to bring peace, but Sheikh Fakhri did not understand the meaning of the word. He attacked her father's people to capture women to replace his dwindling number of wives, and he beat her every time her father's men fought back.

The only way to end this was to stop him.

The sheikh cupped his hardening manhood and grinned.

No. She would not submit to him tonight, or any other night. If she was going to die, she would do so without that final indignity.

Anahita dragged herself to her feet. "You're a coward, a man whose only courage comes from beating women. I hope when my father's men cut you down, they feed your body to pigs. Female pigs," she said.

He shouted for his guards, and two enormous men rushed into the tent.

Anahita knew them both – men the sheikh had assigned to watch her so that she did not run away.

"Hold her down, so that I can cut out her lying tongue," he ordered, and the men moved toward her.

Anahita had one chance. "Don't touch my arm. It's broken," she implored, cradling it to her chest. Her husband might be a monster, but these two were merely men.

The guards looked uncertain. A moment's hesitation was all she needed. She crumpled forward, righting herself just before she fell, feeling the leather hilt of her salvation in her good hand.

She might die tonight, but she would not die alone. She lunged.

The guard's blade pierced Fakhri's throat, and Anahita thrust it in deeper, before ripping it out. Fakhri fell to his knees, clutching his gaping throat, but the lifeblood sheeting down his chest told the tale's end for him as he gasped his last.

When the light went out of his eyes, he pitched over sideways, his limp dick flopping onto the tent floor.

He would violate no houris in the afterlife, either, Anahita vowed, putting her borrowed blade to work again. She threw the pieces of hacked-off gristle onto a brazier, while blood leaked sluggishly from his groin.

Only then did she turn to face the guards. Without fear, for if she died tonight, she died victorious. She held out the bloodied blade, but it slipped from her hand, to land point-down in the sand.

Powerless. That's what she was now. That's all she had ever been.

"Do your worst," she said, falling to her knees. But she kept on falling, into darkness that rose up to claim her.