“I get the picture, warrior. It’s called depression.”
“I care not if it has a name. I wish to know its cause.”
“And naturally you think I’m the cause?”
He didn’t mince words, but came out with a resounding “Yes,” his expression daring her to deny it.
Tedra shrugged to show an indifference she wasn’t actually feeling. Her memories of last night were mostly vague around the edges, but those she did have weren’t pleasant. What she had wanted to happen had happened. But Challen’s expression, when he finally realized she had absolutely no desire for him, almost killed her. If that was supposed to be getting even, it had backfired in the worst way. And yet she was justified in what she’d done. So feeling bad about it was annoying, to say the least. It put her on the defensive as nothing else could.
“You want to know what I did?” She glared at the warrior. “Well, all I did was take some of your dhaya juice. Of course, I didn’t bother to tell Challen that, any more than he ever saw fit to inform me of the help he was getting to resist me. He, in fact, let me think the control it gave him was all his own. He lied to me!”
“Lied, when every woman knows the use of dhaya? He but teased you, assuming you would know he teased. It is a common joke that a warrior will claim dhaya control as his own. It tells a woman that he has not the power to resist her without it.”
“And she’s supposed to feel complimented, I suppose? Give me a break, warrior. There is no compliment that can make that kind of punishment easier to take.”
“For you, but you are not Kan-is-Tran.”
“No, I’m Kystrani, and I’d never heard of your farden dhaya juice. And I won’t apologize for what I did. If you men can make use of that stuff, you deserve to find out what it’s like being on the receiving end of it at least once.”
“So you thought to punish me?”
Tedra turned toward the new voice, to find that Challen had quietly come to stand in another archway. Her chin went up, her defenses rising even more, especially since he wasn’t trying to hide his displeasure with her any more than Tamiron had.
“Now how do you figure that?” she demanded, coming to stand in front of him. “All I did was give you a taste of indifference, the same kind you gave me the day we met. That can’t be construed as punishment no matter how you look at it, for the simple reason that there’s no comparison. Indifference for you turns off the whole farden machine, so nothing can be done. For me, it merely turns the motors down. But that doesn’t prevent you from still having fun, does it?”
“This I would not do to you.”
She knew it. Deep down, she’d known it all along, that he’d never make love to her unless she wanted him to. So in a way she had actually punished him, and he had every right to be angry about it, was angry about it. He’d also spent the night thinking she didn’t want him anymore, and that was what was choking her up inside.
“I will not feel guilty about this! I won’t! You let me think you were an emotionless, inhuman jerk, with the ability to turn off your feelings at the blink of an eye. So you got a little tit for tat, and the operative word is ‘little.’ You weren’t made to cry or plead like I was. I didn’t even try to turn you on. So what’s the farden big deal?”
“You feel no remorse at all?”
“I’m not apologizing, if that’s what you mean,” she maintained stubbornly.
“Then there is no more to say here.”
He turned away, leaving her with the guilt she’d denied, leaving her to suffer because she was too proud to admit she might have done wrong, especially if his control claiming had been only teasing, as Tamiron had suggested. He turned away, when he could have forced her to say she was sorry, forced the guilt out of her like he forced her to do everything else around here. But not this time. No, when she wanted him to force her, he played Kystrani and gave her rights and courtesies that she couldn’t care less about at the moment.
Tedra’s reaction to that was pure impulse. She attacked. The running leap put her in position, the neck hold was secure. With the momentum gained, the barbarian should have gone crashing to the floor, and she would have skillfully rolled out of the way. Of course, nothing was going right for her this morning, and this was no exception. Despite there being no warning, despite the perfect execution of the move, Challen wasn’t budged, and the momentum gained ended up carrying Tedra right over his shoulder.
She landed flat on her back. By the time breath had seeped back into her lungs and she opened her eyes, Challen was very casually lowering his big body to cover hers.
“Thus are you defeated.”
Tedra blinked. He was no longer looking angry or disappointed in her. He was looking rather smug, as if something he’d done had worked out exactly as he’d hoped it would. She didn’t have to beat her brains to figure out what.
“Very clever,” she said, but her lip curled to taunt, “But you won’t be here to collect, will you? Or are you going to keep all those shodani waiting for you indefinitely?”
“You assume I mean to demand another month of the same service? This is not my thought at all, chemar. No, I will instead have of you women’s duties of the more laborious kind, and enough to keep you so busy, you will not have time to even think of new ways to bedevil me—nor will you have time to cause any other mischief. The while I am gone, you will be under my uncle’s direction. You will follow his orders, and do you disobey him, it will be his lot to punish you. This will be your new challenge loss service, to continue until such time as I return. Is this understood by you?”
“But you could be gone for weeks!”
“That is indeed possible.”
“So I’m to be punished the whole time you’re away? Do you call that fair?”
“You will be punished only do you disobey my uncle, woman. Your labors, Darasha labors to be sure, are no more than the service you just lost to me. I see no unfairness in that, since the service is mine to name, yours to do. Is that not so?”
“If you think I don’t know I’m being punished for last night, you’re nuts. So don’t think I’ll be waiting here with open arms for you to come back.”
“You will be here, woman—”
“Sure I will,” she cut in, giving him a tight little smile. “But my first service to you will be over by the time you return, or just about. And you can bet your farden weight in gold that I won’t be challenging you anymore, so you can forget about all future service, of any kind. I’m getting my rights back and keeping them, and that includes the right to tell you to—”
He shut her up the way he’d found to be the easiest. After a few minutes of having her lips pleasantly mashed along with the rest of her body, she was no longer thinking of her rights.
“I hope that was a preview of what’s on the morning’s agenda before departure. If it is, shouldn’t you tell our audience to leave?”
“He has already gone. Does this mean you want me again?”
“I always want you, babe. It was only your damned dhaya juice that temporarily changed the program, for which ... I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that to you, but doing it, I should have told you about it last night.”
He kissed her again, then picked her up and carried her to his bed. Her apology didn’t get her new service changed, but the taunting she’d done before it almost guaranteed the barbarian would hurry home.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Tedra would never have admitted it to a soul, but she was having a great good time performing her new service. Challen’s uncle, like her, had assumed she wasn’t to particularly enjoy her labors, so he didn’t set her to easy tasks like serving meals or even cooking, though she’d have made a nice mess of that if he’d insisted she try. No, he set her to more strenuous work like washing dishes all day, or scrubbing down walls and floors—there were enough in the castle that she could have worked for a month and not finished— or beating rugs, or cleaning leathers.
Oh, she got tired after a full
day of doing everything she was supposed to, but it was a good tired. What Lowden uncle didn’t know was that there wasn’t anything he could come up with that would be more strenuous than the kind of exercises she had put herself through for most of her life, exercise she had been missing since meeting up with the barbarian.
It did confound him, however, and that really gave her a kick. Some of his expressions were priceless, like the day he’d told her to rearrange some heavy furniture so it could be cleaned under. He’d come back after about a half hour, probably thinking he’d gone too far this time—the furniture really was heavy—only to find everything moved and the floor already cleaned.
She hadn’t wilted over the hot sink as he’d expected. She hadn’t balked at having to go up and down ladders to wash the high walls, or getting on her knees to scrub the floors. She’d caused such a dust cloud in the back court from beating the great oval carpets that everyone at the front gate was coughing from it, and Lowden had to find someone else for the job who didn’t put so much effort into it.
But no matter what he had her do, he wasn’t getting the results he was looking for, which were some complaints, at least some signs of exhaustion. And then he thought he’d hit on something she’d really object to: getting her delicate hands dirty working in the vegetable gardens. Stars love him, she certainly did after that one. But she’d never tell.
Even her status dropping several notches with the women, Tedra found amusing. They, too, thought she was being punished with Darasha labors, and Marel, for one, figured to have some fun while she had the chance. She waited until Tedra was scrubbing the hall outside the women’s gathering rooms before she came out with some of her cronies.
Tedra would have ignored them altogether, except that Marel was carrying a long switch. Tedra had no doubt any longer that women here weren’t switched, for punishment or otherwise. Neither were Darasha. There was no need for that kind of discipline when there were so many other kinds. But when Marel started complaining loudly that Tedra wasn’t working fast enough, Tedra knew what direction this scenario was supposed to take, and she was having none of it.
Before the young girl could get up the nerve to actually hit her with that switch, Tedra took it away from her and broke it, not just in half but into little pieces, no easy task since it was green wood. Marel, of course, started screaming for Master Lowden. By the time he arrived, the rest of the ladies had come into the hall to watch, but only Marel was making any noise. She was in for a surprise, however, when she made her complaints to Challen’s uncle. What could the man do, after all, regarding the charge that Tedra had been slacking off in her work, when she was nearly finished with what should have taken her all day to do? As to the charge that she had then attacked Marel, Tedra was the one surprised upon hearing a good many of the ladies take her side by denying it. And since not one of Marel’s cronies supported her in the claim, the poor girl got herself punished for causing trouble—back in the kitchen peeling the falaa she hated.
That was the day Challen returned. That he was back in only five days surprised everyone except Tedra. She’d figured that he wouldn’t drag his feet at the meeting, and now she still had two weeks remaining on her first service to him. But hearing that he was approaching the castle ended her second service, and she quit what she was doing to go with everyone else to the courtyard to greet him.
But her first sight of him coming through the gate ended the good humor she’d retained in his absence. Sitting in front of him on his hataar was a very pretty blonde wearing—nothing. And from what Tedra could see around the shoulders of the warriors in front of her, the woman seemed to be crawling all over Challen, and he didn’t appear to be doing anything to stop her from making such a spectacle of them both.
“Another captive, shodan?” Lowden asked in greeting.
Challen laughed at his long-suffering look. “You need see to this one only until Tamiron returns, uncle. Since it was his suggestion I steal her, I have decided he may have her.”
“But, shodan—” the girl in question began to complain.
She was cut off sternly. “Enough. I have told you, Laina, that I have a woman, the very one spoken of at the meeting. I need no others, nor would the mother of my children welcome another into our chambers.”
“Your what?” Lowden asked, more than a little surprised.
“Forgive me, uncle, but I had thought to save the telling until my parents returned. Have they yet?”
“No—no, but, Challen, why would you have her punished so harshly if you have taken her to mate?”
“Punished?” Challen became very still. “Uncle—”
But Lowden was in the throes of remorse that had to come out. “Droda, she has been worked hard enough that any child she may have conceived could well be lost,” he said in horror. “If such happens, your mother will never forgive me, she has waited so long for you to choose your life-mate. Why did you give her into my keeping, if not to be punished?”
“Did I tell you to punish her?”
“You told me to keep her busy, yet she is a challenge loser and so not under my care. I could only surmise one reason for—”
“Be easy, uncle.” Challen placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him. “The fault is mine for not explaining more fully. You did not have to—punish her more severely when she complained, did you?”
“Complained?” Lowden snorted. “I wish I had even one Darash who would work as hard and efficiently, and with not a single complaint.”
“No doubt she has saved them all for my ears. Where is she now? Perhaps my good news will take the edge off the anger she has likely reserved for me.”
“This rising she has the scrubbing of the halls.”
But she was not where Lowden had left her, and although this did not surprise him, she could not be found anywhere else in the castle either. Challen was almost beside himself with anxiety when Serren was carried in to him and was able to confess, before passing out from a wound received in his shoulder, that Tedra had convinced him to escort her to the market. There they were set upon by Kar-A-Jel warriors, Serren to be wounded, the woman, captured.
Challen was no longer worried. He was furious.
Chapter Forty
Falder La-Mar-Tel was not the pest Tedra was expecting, after Jalla’s description of him. She had pictured a barbarian gone to pot, slovenly maybe, petulant surely, with a dose of greed and craftiness thrown in. She had not imagined a giant’s giant, a warrior at least seven and a half feet tall, a solid, immovable powerhouse of a man. This was the pest who feared to face her barbarian in challenge?
But she’d seen his town on the way to his house, which was no more than a normal-size dwelling with a large hall. The town was also small in comparison to Sha-Ka-Ra. It could be assumed, then, that the shodan of Kar-A-Jel didn’t have a great many warriors under his leadership. It could also be assumed that he wasn’t very smart, if he kept nipping at the heels of a greater power to no purpose. But Jalla had said that all these two shodani did was raid each other back and forth, neither of them attacking in force that would have the makings of war behind it. They likely just supplied each other with the excuse for some warriorlike fun.
So what was behind her capture? It had been deliberate. The warriors sent after her knew whom they were taking, had heard all about her at the meeting, and she’d made it easy for them to get at her, leaving the castle like that with only one warrior to escort her. Of course, she hadn’t made the actual capture easy. Even though Challen was to have told the council of shodani that she was a warrior in her own right and what he had witnessed of her capabilities, the four warriors who set upon them had been worried only about Serren, not her. Little wonder she walked into Falder’s hall while her escort limped.
But what was behind her capture? Merely a strike at a favored nemesis? Or did the shodan of Kar-A-Jel simply want the distinction to be his of possessing the only alien on the planet? Whatever he wanted, he wasn’t pleased to see four of his mig
hty warriors nearly out of commission.
“Could you not have lured her out of his stronghold?” he demanded when they stood before him, two on either side of her. “Was it necessary to fight his entire—”
“The woman was outside his castle,” the warrior on her right said in their defense. “You told us not to harm her. You did not tell us how to keep from being harmed in the process.”
“Do you tell me she did this to you?”
When he got no answer but chagrined expressions, the big giant threw back his head and laughed uproariously. Tedra, bound only at the wrists, and that not even at her back, just loved how easy it was to surprise these barbarians before they took her seriously. Without even thinking about it, she hooked her foot behind Falder’s and gave him a little push. It sounded like he broke the floor. Likely it was cracked. But he wasn’t laughing anymore. He wasn’t angry either. He just looked up at Tedra from his prone position with a good deal of awe.
“So he spoke true,” Falder said as he got to his feet, slowly dusting off his bracs.
His warriors just looked on smugly as he moved to stand out of Tedra’s reach. She realized then that Challen must have done some exaggerating at that meeting. This giant of giants actually thought she could take him. Well, she’d brought him down while she was tied up and looking helpless, so she couldn’t blame him for making that assumption. And she wasn’t about to disabuse him of it.
And then a thought struck her that should have sneaked up sooner. “That pretty blond captive Challen came home with wouldn’t happen to be yours, would she?”
He heard only what he wanted to hear in that question. “So he has already returned home? Then it will not be long before he joins us.”
“To exchange captives?”
“Not at all.” The big man smiled at her now. “Laina he can keep. It is the Ly-San-Ter gaali mine that will be exchanged does he want back his woman; thus will the sky-flyers come to this warrior to trade.”