I’m on my knees before him. The sun isn’t what blinds me. It’s his look—so scorching it burns my cornea.
“—I’m innocent, Sheikh Ahmad,” I whisper, incoherent with paralyzing fear of the cruel ruler of Marmarika. “I didn’t steal anything from you…”
He doesn’t let me finish—covering my lips with his thumb, wickedly smearing saliva over them.
“I warned you, Elena…the fairytale-teller. Don’t play around…” His full lips stretch into a languid, wicked smile.
“Maybe you’re innocent, little one… But your father is a thief and a spy. He’s in a dungeon and awaiting execution at dawn.”
“No!” I scream in horror, grabbing the dangerous man by the legs, lowering myself to the very bottom.
“Please… don’t kill him… I’ll do anything to make you prolong his life…”
The man takes my chin and smiles. In that smile there’s a bottomless abyss of vice and lust. My personal hell…
“So you’ll do everything?” he asks. “That might interest me, fairytale-teller.”
A modern fairy tale about the Vicious Sheikh, whose innocent daughter of a Russian archaeologist ends up in captivity.