“Blackwell!”
He finally realized that someone was shouting his name. He did not care—but the voice had been urgent and the accent familiar in spite of the noise of the crowd. Xavier looked up.
And met Neilsen’s wide, urgent gaze.
Immediately he knew that something was afoot.
Jebal gripped her wrist. Alex knew he was bruising her, but she could not care. She had eyes only for Blackwell.
How could he be so calm in the face of death? And would he die? Clearly Murad, God bless him, had arranged an escape attempt. But how? And at this eleventh hour, how could it possibly succeed?
Her heart was lodged unpleasantly in her throat. She was ill, nauseated, breathless, and afraid. So deathly afraid for Blackwell.
And she felt Jebal’s eyes burning upon her. He was eager to have her watch Blackwell die.
If Alex had to watch his head roll off that block, she knew she herself would die. She could never bear it.
Alex finally tore her gaze from him. She glanced around the crowd, which was vicious and eager for blood. There were soldiers milling about everywhere. Alex despaired. It seemed impossible that Blackwell could escape, much less herself, but she would be prepared to react to anything that came her way. She prayed.
And across the crowd she glimpsed Murad. She bit off a gasp.
Murad held her gaze, then bowed his head, disappearing from view. He was, of course, wearing bedouin robes. Alex saw him a moment later—he was threading his way through the crowd, moving slowly toward her.
The crowd roared.
Alex jerked and saw the bashaw riding forward toward the bloodstained stone block on his bejeweled, pristinely white Arabian horse, Jovar beside him. Worse, she saw the executioner striding forward, a huge man in flowing robes carrying an unusually large, glinting scimitar with a heavy ivory handle.
Jebal jerked her forward. “Come.”
Alex was propelled toward the center of the square, toward the block where Blackwell stood with four guards. He must have sensed her immediately, because his head whipped around.
Their gazes met.
Alex wanted to rush headlong into his arms, to hold him one last time, to tell him how much she loved him—to tell him good-bye.
As if sensing this, Jebal tightened his grip on her bruised wrist. Alex realized she was panting.
They paused in front of the crowd; Jebal surely wished for her to have a perfect view. The bashaw and Jovar remained mounted on Blackwell’s right, the block where prisoners were beheaded exactly in the center between them.
The crowd saw her and began to cheer and jeer. It took Alex a moment to realize that she had become the focus of their taunts. Her heart, already beating overtime, raced more wildly. How ill and faint she felt.Please, God,she prayed again.Don’t let him die!
“They all know you are a whore,” Jebal spat. “They want your blood as well as his.”
“I don’t care,” Alex said, straightening her shoulders, her back. Blackwell’s gaze held hers again. It was incredibly tender, incredibly soft.
Oh my God.She was bowled over by what she saw in his eyes, and her own closed.He is telling me that he loves me,she thought, and she could not bear it. Grief overwhelmed her.
“Let us proceed,” the bashaw shouted. “Off with his head!”
The crowd cheered.
Blackwell was jerked forward. In another moment he would be pushed to his knees, his cheek pressed to the rough, reddish brown stone.
He was really going to die. Alex was terrified.
And suddenly wild shouts rang out.
Alex had heard these shouts before—in modem movies. They were bloodcurdling Arabic war cries.
