Jafar

The fig was beautiful.

Ripe beyond comprehension.

It sat among a neat row of identical figs on a pristine silver tray for the tutor’s lesson on proper court etiquette.

“Princess Jasmine,” the tutor kept droning, pacing before us, “one must never lift the fig directly to the mouth. One must present it first. Bow the head. Lower the gaze. Then—”

I stopped listening.

Because figs were not meant to be bowed to. They were meant to be eaten. Preferably with juice running down your chin. And with no witnesses.

I snuck a glance over my shoulder.

Layla, my cousin, sat behind me in her perfect knees‑folded posture, back straight as a spear, eyes dutifully lowered. She looked every bit the model princess the court wished I would become.

I caught her eye and she looked up. I winked at her. Then I tilted my chin toward the figs.

Her eyes widened in horror. She shook her head once — a tiny, frantic no.

I nodded harder, a grin tugging at my mouth.

Her head shook faster. Please No.

“Now,” the tutor continued, lifting a fig between two delicate fingers, “observe the correct grip. One must never—Princess Jasmine, are you paying attention?”

“Always,” I said sweetly.

Then I reached.

My fingers grazed the soft fig and before Layla could gasp or the tutor could scold, my hand closed around it.

I stood.

And then I ran.

“Princess Jasmine!” the tutor shrieked behind me. “That is not the proper handling of royal produce!”

Layla’s muffled laugh followed me out the door.

I tore down the marble corridor, robe gathered in one hand, the stolen fig in the other, heart pounding with the kind of exhilaration that came only from breaking rules written centuries before I was born.

The laughter tore from my throat like a rebellion.

I darted down the corridor, slippers slapping against cool marble, the stolen fig clutched triumphantly in one hand while juice already ran sticky down my wrist.

Behind me, Layla’s breathless giggles chased me like bells, and Rajah, my tiger, bounded along with a low, playful growl, his massive paws thundering in time with our mischief.

And behind us, came the royal tutor’s horrified shriek from the lesson hall: “Princess Jasmine! Return that fig this instant! That fruit is for demonstration, not—NOT consumption at a dead sprint!”

I didn’t slow.

His voice cracked. “Decorum! Dignity! A princess of Agrabah does not flee with produce! You are to present the fig, Princess! Present it! Not—good heavens—devour it!”

Freedom, for one wild, glittering moment.

With Father buried in court, the palace felt alive in a different way. Looser. Hungrier. Like the walls themselves wanted to sin.

Then I slammed into a wall that hadn’t been there a second earlier.

No, it was not a wall.

A man.

A large hand seized my wrist before I could stumble. Another arm snaked around my waist with shocking speed and strength, hauling me flush against a hard, heated body.

My breasts crushed against a broad chest wrapped in dark silk and embroidered velvet. The impact drove the air from my lungs in a soft, humiliating gasp.

The laughter died instantly.

Scorching heat poured off him, sinking through my thin layers until I felt branded. Dark spice, smoldering incense, and something richer, almost animalistic, wrapped around me. My pulse hammered against the fingers locked around my wrist.

Jafar.

Of course it was him.

Layla’s voice cut off mid-giggle. I heard her retreating footsteps and Rajah’s uncertain huff, but I couldn’t look away. Jafar’s grip tightened at my waist, a silent command: Stay.

His head lowered. Warm breath ghosted the shell of my ear, sending an unwanted shiver racing down my spine straight to my core.

“Running through the palace like a common little thief,” he murmured, voice low. “How very… undignified, Princess.”

His fingers flexed against the small of my back, pressing me more firmly into him so I could feel the solid ridge of muscle.

I swallowed hard, hating the way my body answered with my own heat.

“I didn’t realize the halls were yours to patrol, Vizier,” I said forcing my voice steady even as my knees buckled under me.

A soft, dangerous chuckle vibrated through him. “They belong to the Sultan. And therefore…” His hand slid slowly, possessively, down the curve of my waist to rest just above the swell of my butt, “they belong to me when he is occupied.”

Those eyes—black as midnight oil, sharp as the scimitar at his side—devoured me slowly. They traced the flush on my cheeks, the rapid rise and fall of my breasts, the way my lips had parted. A slow, filthy smile curved his mouth.

His free hand rose, catching my chin between thumb and forefinger, tilting my face up to his.

“Tell me, Princess,” Jafar purred, eyes gleaming with dark promise, “when you run wild through these halls, laughing like you own them… do you ever imagine what would happen if someone finally caught you?”

He leaned in until his lips nearly touched mine, voice dropping to a filthy whisper.

“Because I have. Many times.”

I twisted in his hold enough to glare up at him.

That was a mistake. He was far too close.

The torchlight caught sharp bronze angles of his face, the black and gold robes draped over his broad frame, the heavy rings glittering against the hand still wrapped around my wrist.

“You are not my keeper,” I snapped.

One dark eyebrow lifted.

“No?”

The single word wrapped around me.

Behind me, Layla made the tiniest nervous sound.

Jafar finally looked past me toward my friends. “Leave us.”

Not loud. Not angry. But immediate.

Layla vanished without argument. Traitor. Rajah however stayed.

“You dismiss people rather confidently for a man who is not Sultan.” I spat.

“And you disobey rather confidently for a woman who will someday be Sultana.”

My stomach tightened. There it was again. That assumption. That certainty. As though my future had already been decided and signed in ink without my permission.

“You speak as though I have no choice in the matter.”

At that, something flickered in his eyes. Something dark.

“Princess,” he said, “you have been given every choice imaginable…And yet you insist on behaving like a child testing the height of palace walls.”

I hated when he spoke to me that way. Calm. Controlled. Like every word had already won before I answered.

I shoved against his chest. “Perhaps because everyone in this palace insists on treating me like property.”

His hand slid from my wrist slowly, deliberately, down the length of my arm until his fingers closed around my hand instead. The intimacy of it startled me more than restraint had.

“You mistake protection for possession,” he said.

“And you mistake command for affection!”

His thumb brushed once across my knuckles. And my entire body noticed.

His eyes lowered to my hand in his before he spoke again.

“When you disappear into the city at night,” he said, “when you run through dark corridors with no guards, no attendants, no thought for consequence—”

His gaze lifted back to mine. “Do you know what I feel?”

I opened my mouth to say I do not care what you feel.

But the lock in his jaw stopped me, like he was about to snap his own jaw with bite alone.

“You are precious to this kingdom,” he said. “And I will not watch you throw yourself into danger simply because you are too stubborn to recognize it.”

The warmth in my chest infuriated me instantly. So I did what I always did when Jafar cornered me. I attacked.

“There is no danger! You do not own me! You speak as though you own me, as though I am yours! But I am not!”

It came back to me in a single breath — not a gentle recollection, but a memory that struck deep withing my heart.

I was younger then. But old enough to be paraded before visiting dignitaries, too young to understand the games they played.

It was the night of the Mid‑Summer Court Gathering, a suffocating affair. All robes, jeweled turbans, polished smiles. Musicians played softly in the alcoves, servants glided like shadows, and every noble in Agrabah seemed determined to out‑compliment the next.

I remember standing beside my father, stiff in a gown that felt too big. Courtiers approached in waves, bowing, praising, assessing. Their words were honeyed, but their eyes were sharp.

I didn’t know where to look.

Who to trust.

How to stand without feeling like a child pretending to be a princess.

And then Jafar appeared at my side.

Not close enough to draw attention. Just close enough that I could hear him.

“Watch their eyes,” he murmured, his voice low enough that only I could catch it. “Not their mouths. People lie with their words. Their eyes betray what they want.”

I swallowed, trying to follow his instruction.

A nobleman approached, smiling too widely, bowing too deeply. His compliments spilled like syrup.

Jafar leaned in a fraction.

“See how he glances at your father’s ring on your finger? He wants something. He will flatter you to get it.”

He was right.

“Your Highness,” the nobleman said, bowing again—too low, too eager. “Radiance such as yours humbles even the sun.”

The nobleman straightened, hands clasped, posture deferential. But his gaze—Jafar was right—kept darting to the heavy ring on my hand. The Sultan’s seal. Power. Access. Influence.

“Your beauty is matched only by your grace,” the nobleman continued. “I would be honored to—”

Jafar stepped forward.

“My lord,” Jafar said smoothly, “Her Highness is occupied.”

The nobleman blinked, startled. “I—I only wished to offer my admiration.”

“And you have,” Jafar replied. “Now you may go.”

The nobleman hesitated, eyes flicking between me and Jafar.

“I meant no offense.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Jafar said, smiling without warmth. “And now you will leave without causing any.”

The nobleman bowed again—shorter this time, stiffer—and retreated.

I exhaled.

Jafar didn’t move away.

“Did you see it?” he murmured.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “He wanted something.”

A soft hum of approval. “Good. You’re learning.”

Later, when the crowd thickened and I stiffened under the weight of so many eyes, Jafar’s hand brushed lightly against my elbow — a correction, subtle and precise.

“Lift your chin,” he said quietly. “Never let them see you unsure.”

I obeyed.

And the strangest thing happened — the courtiers shifted. Their gazes changed. They treated me differently, as if confidence itself were a crown.

Jafar didn’t smile. He rarely did. But there was a flicker of approval in his eyes. A silent good.

That was the moment I learned how to stand in a room full of predators and not feel like prey. And now, years later, standing before Jafar that memory rose in me like a tide.

The same man who taught me to see through flattery.

The same man who taught me to hold my ground.

The same man who had always been there, steady in the shadows.

Jafar.

His fingers tightened around mine. “If I intended to own you, Princess,” he murmured near my ear again, “you would know it.”

I tried to wrench free. He didn’t let me. Instead, he spun us smoothly, pinning me against the cool marble wall with his much larger body. One thigh slid between mine, pressing just enough to make me gasp. The position was scandalous. Dominating. Perfectly calculated.

“Careful,” he warned softly, lips brushing my temple. “Keep squirming like that and I’ll forget we’re in the middle of the corridor. I’ll forget you’re the Sultan’s precious daughter. And I’ll remember exactly what a spoiled, untouched little princess needs.”

His voice, his touch, his words—they all sank beneath my skin like dark magic. A helpless shiver rolled through me, tightening my nipples against the silk of my top and drawing a rush of slick heat between my thighs. I couldn’t stop it. I never could with him.

And the worst part was the way his gaze dragged slowly over my body, drinking in every curve, every tremor, as if he knew exactly what he did to me.

He knew.

Jafar’s lips curved into a slow, arrogant smirk that made my stomach clench with equal parts fury and unwanted desire.

“Your father is calling for you in the throne room, Princess,” he murmured, voice still low and intimate, as though we were lovers sharing secrets instead of standing in a palace corridor.

I narrowed my eyes. “You’re lying.”

His smirk only deepened, dark amusement flickering in those obsidian eyes. Then a guard’s voice rang out from the far end of the hall.

“Princess Jasmine! The Sultan summons you at once!”

The words struck me like a slap.

Jafar stepped back with deliberate grace, releasing me from the cage of his body. He crossed his powerful arms over his broad chest, tilting his chin. The look on his face wasn’t merely smug, it was victorious. He had just been proven right.

I glared at him, cheeks burning.

Without another word, I spun on my heel and stormed toward the throne room, my slippers slapping angrily against the marble.