QAIS

Chapter 15: Run Away With Me

She jolted in bed, sweat dripping down her forehead as she gazed out of the window where rain poured heavily and thunder roared in the sky. 

The rain splattered against the glass, the loudness stealing away any bits of slumber that dazed her. 

She didn’t care if anyone saw her, or how freezing cold it was, she ran barefoot into her balcony like a thirsty man towards an oasis. She had once heard that prayers in the rain were always answered. And right now she was in desperate need.

Shutting her eyes and clasping her hands tight she pleaded earnestly, “Please, please, please.” 

Tears ran down her face amid the raindrops as she begged her lord in the pitch black of the night. For only one person. Her Zaviyar.

She was unaware that out there, there was someone else, someone rotten to the core, whose only prayers held her. 
She was the only thing that had made even a heathen like him pray.
She was a saint, and he was a sinner. He wished for her and she wished for another. Their prayers raced against each other to the sky. Against the clouds and stars. His, in obedient love, let hers through first. And it had his crash into pieces, falling back, rejected.

On the other side of the country, in the safehouse under a sky clear and full of stars, the young lord  woke up in discomfort. His black hair fell over his furrowed eyes, the antique lamp carving a breathtaking shadow over his lean form.

He laid back, ocean eyes looking at the gilded ceiling. He was surrounded by extravagance. Whether it was the bed, or the lightening, or the heating, it was all crafted to perfection for his comfort. Yet he still felt at unease. The place was surrounded by more security than possibly the castle itself, but how would it protect him from his own thoughts?
It was like a gnawing void inside him that only seem to gape it's vicious claws open when he was alone.

His nights were restless regardless of where he was. The only thing that lessened his sleeplessness was the presence of another person. But ever since Layla had entered his life, anyone else simply felt wrong. And infuriating. 

“Just–"

“Shut your mouth.” Qais had seethed. She had a pretty voice, but it wasn’t the one he wanted.

The woman had quietened almost instantly, the dark blue eyes had that authorizing effect. She whimpered and shut her eyes as his fingers treaded in her hair gently, but the next moment his hand grabbed at the hair on her nape pulling them firmly to make her eyes shoot open.

“I said, keep your eyes open.” His low voice rumbled.

And she did as he said, making his grip soften instantly at the sight of those hazel orbs. He kept studying her eyes. But he wasn’t looking at her. It was like he was searching for someone else in them. She had been under enough men to know what went in those lustful minds. And in Qais’s eyes, Layla was present as clear as the sun in a summer sky.

She felt something ripple in her at the intensity of his dark blue eyes. It wasn’t even directed to her and she couldn’t bear it, God have mercy on the one it was actually meant for.

His free hand extended to her face, holding her chin and caressing his thumb over her lower lip. Pressing them almost painfully, as if punishing them for not being the ones he wanted. Instead of capturing them, he leant towards her exposed neck instead. The woman shuddered as his warm lips came in contact with her cold skin. It was getting out of control. His unholy lips and hands that ravaged her, heading for places they shouldn’t be. Her body that reacted more than it should, on the verge of being undone.

But it was wrong. Wrong because she didn’t want it. Wrong because he didn’t either. Wrong because he was pretending she was someone else. It was always wrong all those countless times with countless men, but even if she could right it one time she would try her all.