THIRTY-THREE
Sleepy servants showed Aladdin and Maram to an audience chamber, promising to tell the Sultan of their arrival. Time ticked by with no sign of the Sultan, as Maram dozed in Aladdin's arms and he found he didn't mind being kept waiting. No matter how many times Aladdin told himself he wasn't worthy of any princess, let alone Maram, the rightness of her body against his was undeniable. And the way her body had responded to him last night...she genuinely wanted him. Him, Aladdin the humble spinner's son, briefly the master of a lamp and its djinn, but now...now he was just a man in love, waiting to beg the Sultan to spare his life so that he might marry the man's favourite daughter.
The first rays of sunlight entered the audience chamber before the Sultan marched in, his brow
