Free Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

I leaned back against the weak wooden frame.
    â€œMarry me.” He said it so suddenly, for a second I just stared at him with my jaw still moving.
    Then I burst out laughing.
    I couldn’t help it. He looked so damn pleased with himself. Like he really expected me to say yes. “Well, paint me purple and call me a Djinni, if that isn’t the dumbest thing I’ve heard all day.” I shoved bloody hair off my face.
    He was still grinning. “You’ve got nice eyes, you know. There was someone else with eyes like yours out in Deadshot last night. Blue-Eyed Bandit, they called him. Got me thinking, not many people in this desert with eyes like that.”
    Of all the times for him to grow some brains. “You saying I’ve got a long-lost brother?”
    â€œYou know what I’m saying, Amani.” He stepped toward me, and I fought everything in me telling me to step back. Only a few feet away the commotion over the Buraqi was still making a racket, but just then it felt like the world had narrowed to Fazim and me. “And you’re going to marry me so that no one else finds out.”
    â€œAnd what’s the next part?” My eyes darted to the opening between the two houses. I saw a flash of colorful khalat as someone rushed by. I willed the next person to look our way. “You tell me you’re in love with me and these months with Shira have been a big ruse while you were waiting for my mother to be dead a year?”
    Fazim grinned. Like he’d just been waiting for me to ask. “Well, until you caught that Buraqi, Shira was my best shot in town to get me on the way to rich.”
    â€œAnd she’ll get you even further that way once my uncle sells it.” Was that why Shira had flung herself into the fray? To get this idiot to marry her, for love or money?
    â€œSee, I’ve thought it all out, though.” He tapped his head. He was pretty dumb to be acting like he was the smartest man ever born. “Sure, if I marry Shira I’d get a little bit of that money. But seeing as you caught it, if you were to get married, the Buraqi wouldn’t belong to your uncle no more.”
    It would belong to my husband.
    Damn him. He wasn’t clever, but he was right. And worse, he was serious. Here was the moment I’d been trying to outrun, only it wasn’t coming at my uncle’s hand.
    Anger burned my fear straight out of me. “I’d rather shoot myself.”
I’d rather shoot you
.
    â€œYou wouldn’t have to.” He was still smiling, his teeth looking too big for his handsome face. “The army will probably do it for you once I tell them you were with that foreigner they’re after.” His gaze stripped me all the way from my blue eyes to my boots. “Of course, they’ll probably torture you first.”
    I smiled at him sweetly instead of knocking his teeth in. “Still sounds better than a lifetime married to you.”
    Fazim’s hand slammed into the wall behind my head, scaring the smirk straight off me. “You know, I don’t have to wed you first.” His voice was low, his smile still fixed, like he thought he was charming me. “I can make you worthless. Then you’d have no choice. You could marry me or hang. If you’re anything like your mama, you’ve got a fine neck for hanging.” His free hand traced a line along my throat. I could best just about any man in this desert if I had a gun. But now I was unarmed and helpless.
    â€œFazim.” Shira’s voice saved me. “What are you doing?”
    Fazim pulled away, just far enough for me to see Shira standing in the narrow opening between the two houses. Her mouth was pressed together in that way I remembered from when we were little, when she was trying not to cry. I pulled away from him and scrambled back toward the street. My pace slowed just as I passed Shira. I thought she might stop me, stick an arm out and