Captured For The Sultan’s Pleasure

Jamal stretched on his bed to relax his strained muscles and body. After Roksolana had left him and Aabdeen in the morning to discuss, Aabdeen had come clean with him and told him about who he truly was and why he had done everything he did. Of course, Jamal had been very furious with the other man and had even sent him away from his sight but he could understand the other Sultan now that he was alone. The man had just wanted to protect his people and everything else in his sultanate.

But it still hurt him that the man had lied to him. During the period when he had met the man he thought was simply a physician, Jamal had grown fond of the man to the extent that he thinks of him as a friend instead of the mere physician that the man was supposed to be. So, finding out that the man had lied made him feel a little betrayed. Yet, Jamal found out that his thought was not centered on punishing the other man, but instead, it focused on how he could help his friend fight the siege disturbing the Jedi sultanate.

A loud knock sounded from his front door and Jamal growled. What is it with people disturbing him with loud knocks these days? He looked at the little clock by his bedside and saw that it was past 8 at night. Do they give so little disrespect to him now? He got up and went out of his room. By the time he would get to the stairs, the knock he thought was loud before was even louder now. He groaned and thought about how he was going to punish the guards on duty for letting them allow someone to knock on his door this loud when they should have turned the person away in the first place. When he got to the door and saw Roksolana’s friends, Seyyidah and princess Azeezat, he calmed down.

“What are you two doing here?” he asked them. Just because they were Roksolana’s friends doesn’t mean that he would leave them to just get into his house however and whenever they wanted.

“Is Roksolana here with you?” Seyyidah asked, trying to peep into the main hall over his shoulder.

“Why would you be looking for your friend over here? She returned to the harem in the morning after the training,” he explained to the two women. He had even planned to go over to check on her after he had finished the day’s work but he decided against it and thought he would send dirty her instead to come over to spend the night with him.

“She’s not at the harem, Sultan. She hadn’t been back to the harem since she left for the training ground this morning,” Princess Azeezat answered the Sultan .

Jamal let go of the protective hand he had on the doorknob that he used to prevent the women from getting in. When they both looked at him in puzzlement, he urged them both in. As soon as they were in, he spoke up.

“Roksolana left my place this morning after training. So what do you mean by saying that you haven’t seen her since morning? Could she have gone somewhere?” Jamal asked the two friends.

“She would tell one of us if she was going anywhere, Sultan,” the princess said in response.

“Could she have gone over to see her father?” Jamal thought loudly. After he had seen that she was no longer trying to run from him or hating him, Jamal had taken her back to visit her father and brother without masking her face. Ever since then, she would go over their place to pay visits to them. But the princess was right, she never went there without letting him know that that was where she was going.

“Her father is here?” Seyyidah asked the Sultan .

“Long story,” Jamal said and promptly dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

Now was not the time for him to start explaining anything to them. He was worried sick about his woman and where she could have been. He called one of the guards and told him to get two more people with him and set out immediately to look for the harem leader. The guard bowed and set out instantly. Barely ten minutes had passed after the guards went in search of Roksolana before Jamal thought that couldn’t bear it anymore. He told the two friends that he would be with them shortly and rushed out even though he had no idea where he was going.

All through the night, he and every one of his special royal guards combed around the sultanate but they couldn’t find anyone who looked like her, talk less of her. He had even sent a messenger to ask her family if she was with them but the man had returned with a negative report. Jamal was already terribly afraid as he kept remembering how someone had tried to harm her with an arrow not too long ago. All he kept thinking about was what if the person who targeted her had gotten her on her way back to the harem? When he didn’t know what else to do, he thought about mobilizing the army and going over to the Jedi sultanate since it was the only sultanate that had threatened him with war. It doesn’t matter that their Sultan had come clean with him.

For all he even knew, the other man could have come clean with him so that Jamal would not suspect him of kidnapping Roksolana. As he rushed over to the general’s house, Jamal remembered the weird conversation he had with Roksolana the previous day when she had been curious about the general. At that time, Jamal had dismissed it because his mind had been centered on making love with her but now, he found something fishy about the questions she asked and how she had asked them. He sprinted to Sodeeq’s house and rushed in without knocking.

He met the house empty and that gave him an instant red flag about the man he referred to as a best friend. He moved into the room and looked around for things that would give him ideas about where the other man could have gone. Seeing that nothing in the room was out of place, he turned to leave and that was when his eyes fell on a piece of paper peeking from under the general’s bed. Jamal drew it out immediately and he looked at it intently for a few seconds.

The general had mapped two different locations on a map of the Wadai’ sultanate. One was at Lady Miriam’s house, the other was at the old building where Jamal had listed his mother and his only brother to the fire outbreak. When he saw the fire outbreak location, something in his gut told him that Sodeeq held a grudge against him concerning his survival from the fire. He looked at the second location and grimaced. For all he knew, he could be wrong in chasing after Sodeeq when someone else had kidnapped his woman and it would be too late to save her. If even wanted to chase after Sodeeq, he didn’t know which location he might have held Roksolana at. He was still lost in the decision to make when Asleem rushed into the room, dressed in all black.

“Sultan,” he said in greeting and vowed a little. He looked around the room for the general and when didn’t see the man, he turned back to Jamal. “Where’s the general?” He asked in a casual time but Jamal could feel the fear in his voice.

“Missing,” Jamal said grimly and returned back to the map he was looking at to see if he had missed any vital details.

“Oh, no.”Content is property of NôvelDrama.Org.

Jamal heard Asleem say under his breath and looked up instantly.

“What do you mean?” he asked the other man. When Asleem didn’t answer, Jamal screamed at him. “I said, what do you know about the man?”

Asleem sighed when he looked at the Sultan , he knew that at this point, there was no reason to hide what he knew about the general any longer. Roksolana might be in his clutch and they needed to save her. Asleem explained to the Sultan how he had accidentally bumped into the general the night Roksolana had tried to kill Jamal and he was waiting for her to finish her mission. He told Jamal how he had fought with the man and had seen his face. He also explained how he had to kidnap Roksolana back then to protect her from the general after he got to know that the general was planning to hold her hostage to threaten the Sultan for the throne.

He also explained how he had been keeping tabs on the general and training men in secret so that he would be able to help whenever the general revolted. Asleem also confessed to the fact that he had shot the arrow at Roksolana to warn the Sultan about the impending attack on the woman and the kingdom. What he hadn’t expected however was the general getting hold of Roksolana so soon. When he was done, Jamal punched him hard on the cheek and Asleem held the place in pain.

“That is for shooting at my woman. If the arrow had scratched her even a little, I would have killed you,” Jamal yelled at him.

“She’s not your woman. Anyway, let’s go save her first,” Asleem said.

Together, they made a plan. Jamal picked the old building even though he didn’t want to be anywhere near the place but he had no choice since Asleem had volunteered to go to Lady Miriam’s house. That way, they could save time and whoever finds the general first can apprehend him and save Roksolana. By the time they both got out of the house and Jamal saw the number of men Asleem brought over, he gasped loudly. He was sure the men were up to a hundred, if not more than that. It occurred to the Sultan that the other man could have revolted against his sultanate and would have won the fight.

“Why have you never revolted?” Jamal asked him because he couldn’t figure out why.

“Because she chose you. I love her too much to hurt the man she loves,” Asleem said with a shrug. Then, as if he hadn’t just bared his heart out, he spoke again, “We can’t go with this many men. It would alert the enemy.”

Jamal wanted to say something to Asleem but he kept mute instead. As a man, he knew how hard it must have been for the other man to confess his feelings to a rival especially when it was to the one the woman they were both after had chosen. So, the Sultan replied to his suggestion instead.

“You’re right. Only pick about twenty able men to take with you. I’ll get twenty men too from the army. Then, the rest can protect the sultanate from any other form of threat we might not anticipate before,” he confirmed.

Asleem picked the twenty men he wanted and ordered the rest of them to patrol around the sultanate and eliminate any threat. Jamal sent for Hassan to get twenty able men over and the man came back with them within fifteen minutes. Aabdeen, Azeezat, Seyyidah, Khadijat, and the kitchen head were also with the army when they arrived. The moment the Sultan saw Aabdeen and his sister, he felt guilty for thinking about them wrongly the way he had about them but he quickly brushed it off. Jamal left Hassan and Aabdeen in charge of the sultanate after briefing them on the current situation and assuring them that he and Asleem would do all their best to ensure that Roksolana was safe.

“Sultan Aabdeen, can I trust you to help keep my sultanate safe? Just in case all these were just a decoy to distract us while they launch an attack here?” Jamal asked his special advisor.

“On my honor,” Sultan Aabdeen said and hit his fist on his chest.

“Thank you,” Jamal said to him and nodded at him a little. He turned back to Asleem who was still waiting for his order.

“Let’s move out,” he told the man.

Asleem nodded before he turned to the men. “Move out!” he commanded his men.

The two parties going in search of Lady Roksolana moved away from the crowd of people to get to the different marked locations on a rescue mission that there was no assurance that it would be fruitful. As Jamal walked with his men, his heart kept thudding and thudding in his chest. At one point, he had to hold his chest to reassure himself that it was okay. He was fretting over the safety of Roksolana and he wasn’t sure he would be able to until he had found her and held her securely in his arms.