Page 7 of Star Crossed Delta

His eyes narrowed, raking over her, running a tongue over his gleaming canines.

She had to admit she was getting intrigued by them, especially when he played with them in a sensuous lick that sent jolts of desire through her.

She shivered, wondering what he thought of when he gazed at her.

A certain disappointment.

For the ?ar was out of luck with her when it came to the looks department.

With a slender figure and delicate features, Shiloh was the one who’d turned heads and caused gasps of admiration.

While she had lengthy, dark hair and bright green eyes framed by long lashes, Saba’s tresses were a boring brown, and her eyes plain hazel with stunted, stubby fringes.

Shiloh’s voice and her laughter were like music, light and lyrical, filling the room with joy and happiness.

Compared to Saba’s husky, almost raw tone and chuckles.

Shiloh radiated a dainty grace and charm that seemed otherworldly next to her twin’s fuller, rounded profile.

Saba felt like a solitary dandelion in a field of exotic flowers. Her features were unremarkable, and her presence was often overlooked.

Her appearance was simple, a dull canvas lacking the vibrant colors of her sister’s beauty.

She raised her chin in defiance. ‘I may be plain, but I have more to offer than my looks or lack thereof.’

He cocked a brow and huffed at her boldness.

During their teens, she’d sometimes been envious of Shiloh’s attractiveness.

However, as an adult, she discovered the potency of her mind. She became enamored with learning, libraries, finding literature, knowledge, science, and math, and losing herself in the discourse of words and numbers.

‘How so?’ he challenged with a twist to his lips.

‘I’ve always loved books, reading, calculus, puzzles, and poetry. I’ve studied engineering systems analysis and energy extrapolation. I’m a researcher at heart.’

Most people found her boring.

She didn’t give a fokk , content to spend hours lost on the planets created by authors, delving into the depths of knowledge and imagination within the pages.

While Shiloh had captured suitors’ hearts with her beauty, Saba preferred books over people.

Shiloh enjoyed flitting from one social event to the next. In contrast, Saba immersed herself in academia, finding solace and purpose in the parchments of thick texts and scientific journals.

‘I love every freakin’ moment of it,’ she added with insolence.

As she spoke, a flicker of curiosity crossed his eyes, mingled with a hint of respect.

It’s a look she never received, overshadowed most of the time by her sister’s radiant presence.

She jolted, for in that split second, she felt seen for who she was, his gaze piercing past the shadows of physical comparison and expectation.

Seconds later, his expression flickered, his eyes sliced to the left, pulling down a memory as his mood suddenly shifted.

‘Impressive,’ he ground out through bitter, snarling lips.

‘Yet that means fokk all to me. All I care for is that I once offered Suri all the wealth of my Order for her love. She rejected me. Now it seems like a second Lisade sister has jilted me, too. I won’t let a third one, nor your uncle’s charm, deceive me. Ever again.’

He leaned back in his seat, his gaze hard, loaded with contempt.

The flickering candlelight cast shifting shadows across his features, accentuating the lines of weariness that etched his face.

Saba hastened to dissuade him of the fact. ‘While my uncle might be a greedy, rapacious son of a bitch, this time it was not he who crossed you.’

Mak’s lips twitched at her characterization of Tewa. ‘All is not well under the Lisades’ roof, I see.’

Saba inhaled. Tewa might have been off the hook, but it was his subterfuge in the first place that led to her paying for her family’s sins.

Years ago, her uncle had promised her eldest sister, Suri, to the ?ar in marriage.

The alliance between the two dominant families of Akkadian genealogy in the flotilla was designed to avert war. One that had once raged across the Mediterranean, on the island of Melilla.

Instead of handing Suri over, Tewa had hedged on the bride price.

He’d attempted to manipulate Mak during his grief to get a better dowry of more diamonds.

He delayed the engagement one too many times, and Suri, already fragile of mind, lost it altogether and reneged on marrying the ?ar .

Blindsided, her uncle promised Shiloh to the jilted Sauvage leader and made considerable overtures to compensate, resulting in Saba’s current reality.

Three sisters, so much anguish, for all of them and the man before her.

However, this time, the blame was not on the Don of the Lisade clan.

‘It was Shiloh and I who thought of this.’

Mak studied her for a long moment, eyes still hard, yet understanding dawned in his eyes. ‘You mean to tell me you brokered a deal with her, sacrificing all your happiness for your sister?’

He was halfway to the truth.

‘I’ve always relinquished my desires,’ she quipped with an offhand shrug laced with bitterness. ‘This is no different.’

For many years, she endured being overlooked as her uncle and aunt spent more money on their children and her more beautiful sisters, ensuring they would be well-married.

As the plainest of them all, she was relegated to the sidelines.

Tewa and Sylvana lavished the small fortune Saba’s father had left behind for the three sisters on a series of arranged marriage introductions.

Her uncle had often stressed to the trio how their sacrifice would mean uplifting their family’s troubles.

Tewa hid their genteel poverty well from the rest of the flotilla.

Few grasped how destitute the Lisades’ ark ship, The Light Nautilus , in particular, had become.

Food, resources, and fuel were becoming a hardship. Their engines were struggling without regular maintenance, and their energy cells were depleting fast.

This meant that less sustenance was available from the failing hydroponic farms due to a lack of efficient energy to run them.

Schools and facilities were shut down as the Lisades’ vessel experienced a significant brain drain when their residents jumped ship to find better living standards.

Thank the heavens for the flotilla’s online education portals, courtesy of Signet, and accessible for free to all travelers on the journey.

Saba had taken the opportunity and love for knowledge to gain a degree, refusing to let the circumstances of her life sap the life from her.

She’d decided to focus on other aspects of her life that brought her joy, such as her intellectual pursuits.

Enjoying a good book helped her shift her mindset away from the tediousness of her existence.

Until Shiloh came running to her in frightful panic and begged her to save her life and honor.

‘Still, you lied and participated in a veiled cover-up, to put it mildly.’

Mak’s resonant rumble thrust her back to the present.

She stumbled over her words. ‘My uncle was adamant during the bridal negotiations about the punishment that would befall our family if we reneged on the deal, given the scandal that Suri wrought so many years ago. All you had was a photo of Shiloh, and you hadn’t even met her.

So we chanced on going ahead with the wedding without my uncle’s knowledge as he too would have been livid, as you witnessed he was. ’

‘You still haven’t answered me. Where the hell is Shiloh?’ he demanded.

She faced the icy, angry eyes of the ?ar and lifted her chin high in defiance. ‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

She bit her lip before responding. ‘Can’t. She refused to tell me where she was going.’

However, she had a good idea where she had been headed.

‘Do you understand how fokked up this is?’ he rumbled.

For a long moment, silence hung between them, heavy with unspoken thoughts and unvoiced emotions.

When he spoke, his words were cold and savage. ‘Lies have a way of unraveling, weaving a tangled web that ensnares all they touch. You’re Suri’s sister, you should know.’

A pang of guilt hit her at his words, a reminder of the consequences of her actions. ‘I never wanted to deceive you,’ she whispered, her voice barely above a breath. ‘But circumstances forced my hand, and I had to do it for my twin.’

He regarded her with a penetrating glare, his fury still palpable. ‘You know there’s only one reason I haven’t torn that veil from your head and tossed you out on your ass yet?’

She nodded, touching the mantilla still on her head, her fingers rolling one of its rare pure diamonds between her fingers.

She met his stare with a cool one, hiding the tremors still arcing through her body.

‘I’m well aware, ?ar . You have a deal with Tewa.

One where you hand these gems in exchange for his unequivocal support in the Syndicate commission.

It’s the price I have to pay for saving our family, for to thwart you this time might have meant our deaths.

The other key factor as to why I agreed to Shiloh’s mad request.’

‘Your ballsiness does you credit,’ he murmured. ‘But the foundation of our union is built on deceit. I’m not sure if I can handle starting on an exceptionally bad foot like we have. Neither should you. Can you see a future with a man who was meant for another?’

She met his gaze, the gravity of his question settling in the space between them like an unspoken challenge.

‘I may not have been the one intended for this marriage,’ she began, each word chosen with care. ‘However, I’m here now, bound to you by circumstance and duty. Perhaps in time, we can foster mutual respect beyond the constraints of our present predicament?’

He scoffed, his mouth curved in bitter humor. ‘The fokk ? Mutual respect? You’ve got the nerve.’

‘I had the honor of my family at stake,’ she replied.

At this, he tilted his head and nodded, with a begrudging esteem in his eyes. ‘I know the feeling. Your name? Other than Shakhete , your formal moniker.’

The snarl was a demand, revealing a flash of those menacing, gleaming canines.

She jolted, realizing he had no idea of her everyday name.

‘Saba. By tradition, since we are fraternal twins, we go by the same first title, Shakhete, and then our different middle names.’

‘Saba,’ he growled, leaning in. ‘I don’t like being crossed, and I make a sinister enemy.’

She met his gaze without hesitation as his threat hung in the air, despite the dread that coiled in the pit of her stomach.

‘I did not come here to be your foe. I’m not Suri, nor am I Shiloh.

I came here to honor the agreement made by our families and to make the best of the situation we find ourselves in. ’

His glowing eyes swept hers, searching for any sign of weakness or deceit.

After a moment that stretched into eternity, he reclined back in his seat, a ghost of a bitter smile on his lips. ‘You have spirit, woman,’ he growled. ‘I will admit, your honesty surprises me.’

She met his gaze with defiance, letting him see into her soul.

His eyes narrowed, then he cursed and tore his eyes from her face. ‘ Fokk me.’

His words hung in the strained ambiance, his ire reverberating through the room.

Without another word, he surged to his feet and prowled to the door from where he studied her as she rose to his side.

They walked in silence back to the reception, through the moonlit gardens, the night alive with the sounds of nature.

The air was filled with the sweet scent of blooming flowers and the distant murmur of a waterfall from the lake beyond.

Just before they stepped into the well-lit wedding pergola, he took her arm and stopped her, his fingers gripping her hard, almost to the edge of causing pain.

‘Saba,’ he rasped. ‘Make no mistake, your family’s deception will also not go unpunished. They will need to pay for your choices today.’

She sighed and met his unrelenting gaze. ‘Please, I beg you, it’s all me.’

‘What of Shiloh?’

‘Her too. But don’t harm her. She made a foolish decision.’

‘And you didn’t?’

She stared up at him with defiance. ‘I’m too jaded for foolishness.’

He eyed her for a long moment, even as his guards shifted somewhere in the dark behind them.

He tugged her closer and angled his face so he hovered above her until she shrank and blanched at the fire in his eyes.

‘As for your deception,’ he snarled, ‘I’ll think on it and decide what to do with you.

In the meantime, keep out of my way. I’m not good company, and I don’t do charm and smiles when I’ve been crossed.

Truth be told, I am beyond my patience. Know this, however, I will not tolerate more lies between us. ’

She nodded, acknowledging the gravity of his threat and the fragility of the trust they were building.

‘Any further discretion, and I’ll flay you and your family before the entire view of the flotilla. So watch your every fokkin ’ step. Never lie to me ever again. Claro ?’ he warned, even with a twist to his sensual lips.

She jolted, thinking how true it was that there was often the look of an angel on the devil himself.

They stared at each other as his words hung in the air, a savage warning, an unforeseen promise shrouded with terror.

With a slight nod, she met his eyes with a steady gaze and squeezed his hand, affirming their unspoken pact.

‘Let’s get the fokk back in there,’ he murmured, an emotion she had difficulty discerning flashing in his eyes.

He released her and pushed the same hand through his hair, striding before her.

She exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, relief flooding her like a rushing tide. She had expected his judgment to be far worse than this.

She glanced at his side profile as they stepped back into the warm glow of the wedding marquee, reading the weariness, rage, and despondency lingering in his expression.

She understood at that moment that perhaps the punishment she’d been dreading had probably not even begun.