He was surrounded. There was no hope. But he had never thought this anything other than a suicide mission. Xavier stopped running, raising his hands high in the air.
And only then did he see Jovar riding forward on a white Arabian mare. Peter Cameron halted his horse, lifting his pistol. And he pointed it directly at Xavier’s head.
Alex stumbled into her bedchamber.
Murad rushed forward. Although it was two-thirty in the morning, her room was fully lit with oil lamps and he had been there pacing, waiting for her. Any reprimand he was about to make died when he saw her torn, dirty clothes, her bleeding face and tangled hair. He gripped her shoulders. “Are you all right?”
Alex choked, collapsing against him. “Oh, God, what will happen to Xavier? I am so afraid! This plan was stupid! To destroy thePearlwithout escaping afterwards.…” she could not finish. Had the soldiers killed him? Alex had stopped running when they were in the alley for one fleeting instant, long enough to see Xavier race into the harbor with the soldiers in hot pursuit and closing in on him from all sides. It had been clear to her that he thought not of evading them, but only of leading them away from her—only of protecting her.
He might have acted differently, but clearly he cared about her.
Murad put his arm around her and guided her to the bed. “He did what he had to do. You yourself told me that he is a man of courage and conviction. You knew as well as he or I that thePearlhad to be destroyed.”
Alex leaned her head on Murad’s shoulder and gave in to her tears. Her chest felt as if it were being ripped apart. “Please don’t let him die,” she prayed.
Murad cradled her against his chest. “The entire palace is awake. Probably all of Tripoli as well. From the courtyard you can see the harbor ablaze. Do you want to look? He did it, Alex.”
Alex shook her head. She would never forget the sight of thePearlaflame. She would never forget the sight of Xavier streaking through the harbor, a dozen fully armed Turks almost on his heels.
“It was a very successful mission, Alex,” Murad said, removing the kaffiyeh and stroking her thick, unbound hair. “Let me get some soap and water to clean your wounds and some salve to help heal them.” He smiled slightly at her. “We don’t want you to scar.”
“I Will die if he dies.” Alex whispered.
“He is strong and capable; do not think the worst.” Murad walked into the bathing room.
Alex paced to her window, shoved open the latticework shutters, and stared across the galleria and over the courtyard. The night sky in the horizon over the harbor was an unholy orange. It had been a successful mission; thePearlhad been destroyed.
But even now, Xavier might be dead, struck down by one of the savage Turks.
Murad returned. “I thought you promised not to interfere,” he said mildly, but his gaze was piercing.
Alex sat down and met his probing regard. “I did not interfere. I helped.”
He made a disparaging sound.
Alex did not bother to defend herself. Murad began washing the dirt from her face, and then from her hands and arms. Alex winced a little, the soap stinging. He ignored her, dabbing salve on her wounds now. “You are a brave woman, Alex, but one day you are going to get yourself into something that you cannot get out of. I worry about that day.”
Alex pulled away from Murad. “What if the soliders killed him? Oh, God! I have to know!” She turned pleading, tearful eyes on her slave.
Murad rose grimly. “All right. I will go see what I can find out.” Then he paused. “But get out of those clothes, Alex, before someone sees you in them and realizes what you were doing tonight.”
Alex swallowed and obediently began to strip.
Murad said, “Even if Jebal wanted to be lenient with you for what you have done, the bashaw would not allow it.”
Alex froze. Her heart pounded. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might one day be at the bashaw’s mercy instead of Jebal’s. The thought was terrifying.
Murad left her room.
“They knocked him down and began kicking him viciously. In the chest and stomach, in the legs and in the head. Xavier curled up into a ball but could not really defend himself. Pain exploded behind his temples and in the back of his head. The air was knocked from his lungs. Someone struck his back with the butt of a musket. Xavier gritted his teeth. His world slipped into fuzzy darkness, the shadows suffused with red-hot pain—but Xavier was determined not to pass out.
“Enough,” came a familiar voice. It was the Scot renegade, Jovar. “Return him to the bagnio with the others. We want him alive—in order to make an example of him.”
Xavier was dragged to his feet. He could barely stand. His head was pounding with pain and he had the urge to vomit. His back felt broken, but clearly that was not the case. He was bleeding everywhere. One of his eyes was, he realized, swollen shut. But with his left eye he saw that they had captured the others, including a drenched, shivering Allen. He also saw thePearlgloriously aflame.
Before, he had been heartsick at the thought of her death. Now triumph seared his veins.
They could kill him, but he had won. He turned his one-eyed gaze on Cameron.
