“Heads up, doll, you’re about to meet the new in-laws,” Martha said next.
” Huh?”
Brittany stopped short, forcing Dalden, who’d been leading her along by the hand, to turn to see what was wrong. He smiled reassuringly. He’d seen the couple up ahead also, standing at the end of the wide corridor.
The man was huge, as big as Dalden and just as golden, just as handsome, too, for that matter. And after spending three months with fifty warriors, she’d already figured out that they all preferred those leather pants they called bracs and the wraparound tunics. The woman was nearly as tall as Brittany, with long black hair pulled up into a high ponytail, and wearing a strange outfit that seemed to be made of sheer green scarves, a lot of them not actually see-through, the points reaching her sandaled feet, with a white cloak attached at the shoulders. She was beautiful, no doubt about it. And young, too young to be a grown man’s mother.
Dalden did some explaining now. “Be at ease, kerima. Martha has been in contact with Brock since the last rising. So my parents expected us and due to our long absence, could not wait until we reached home. She would have told them all about you, is that not right, Martha?”
“You betcha.”
Shanelle had already run forward, was embracing the couple.
The warriors with them were filing past and continuing on, leaving the family to their reunion.
“Go ahead. Give me a moment to compose myself,” Brittany told Dalden.
She smiled for his benefit, though it was an effort. He seemed somewhat nervous, too, a normal reaction, to worry if his parents would like her-if this was for real. Damn, he was good, sneaking in those little subtleties that she might have missed if she weren’t already so attuned to him.
But the moment he was out of hearing she hissed at Martha, “You could have at least gotten someone old enough to play the part of his mother. If you’re going to try to convince me that she is Dalden’s mother, don’t bother. She’s not much older than I am Neither is he, for that matter.”
A short round of chuckles. “Tedra has aged very well in comparison to average humanoids. The Sha-Ka’ani do also, due to their healthy environment, but Tedra has the added benefit of her Sec 1 training that she keeps up, grueling exercises that have honed her body into a lethal weapon-well, considered lethal on other worlds. But she’s forty-four. I should know, she belongs to me.”
“I thought that was the other way around and you belong to her?”
“Matter of opinion,” Martha muttered.
Brittany didn’t believe the handsome couple up ahead were Dalden’s real parents, so what was she suddenly nervous about? Because the second phase of “convince at no expense” had begun, apparently. A spaceship hadn’t done it. So now new actors and a make-believe whole planet were supposed to. She should be relieved. Her greatest fear before leaving the ship had been that she’d be back in her own bed by tonight, with the space next to her empty. But that wasn’t on the agenda yet.
“Showtime,” Martha said as the group up ahead stopped waiting for her to join them and approached her instead.
Martha was being cute, but that was too close to how Brittany viewed all of this. A show for her exclusive benefit, just actors following a basic script and improvising where needed.
“Welcome to Sha-Ka’an, Brittany Callaghan, and welcome to my family “
Oh, God, that sounded really nice. Her own family had grown apart and rarely saw each other anymore. They kept in touch, but she missed that closeness of when they’d all lived together. One of her lessons on the journey had included that Sha-Ka’ani families usually stayed together, that when children reached adulthood they stayed in the same town, some in the same house. A few females might end up with a lifemate in another town or country, but that was a rare exception, since warriors tended to pick their mates from women known to them in their own town.
Following Tedra’s welcome, she got a tight hug and a whisper by her ear. “Relax, kiddo, we don’t judge here. When a warrior makes his choice there’s no reversing it, so he gets wished happy. Some take a long time to decide, some know instantly. Either way, it’s something they know. Too bad women never gain that kind of certainty.”
Was that a joke? Tedra was grinning when she stepped back. Yet what she’d just said was kind of the reverse of the way Brittany knew things to be. Women knew right off when they were in love. It usually took the recipient of that love a heck of a long time to figure the same thing out. There were exceptions, surely, but on the average, women won hands-down in the instant-decision-making category.
Seeing her close up, Brittany still couldn’t believe that Tedra was forty-four years old. “Aged well” was a definite understatement. She’d probably make a really cool mother-in-law, though. Brittany wasn’t so sure about Challen, who was very intimidating with his size and his look that seemed to be analyzing, but was otherwise inscrutable.
Tedra now turned a stern expression on Dalden. “Six months’ absence, never again, Dalden. Contrary to the Ancients’ adage, absence does not make the heart grow fonder, it’s farden well painful. Never again. And your father agrees with me-for once.”
“Do not give the impression that I never agree with you, woman,” Challen rumbled curtly. “That would be an untruth of the size you call whopper.”
Tedra snorted. “You only agree when it suits you, never when it suits me.”
That caused a grin from the big guy. A yank to him that had to have hurt when Tedra collided with that big body. A slap on the backside that had to hurt even more.
“We will agree to discuss the matter of disagreeing later,” Challen warned.
“Wanna bet?” Tedra shot back.
She then pushed away from him, grabbed Shanelle’s arm, and marched off toward the front of the building. Challen and Falon followed more slowly. Dalden took Brittany’s hand again to bring up the rear.
At her hip, Martha suggested in a cheerful tone, “Don’t mind them, kiddo. Their way of joking around takes getting used to.”
“Joking, huh? Sure.”
Dalden gave her a glance. “Martha is correct, but it is my mother who will take getting used to. She does not behave as a Sha-Ka’ani woman should.”
Brittany stopped, demanded, “And just how would a Sha-Ka’ani woman have acted? Smiled and thanked her lifemate for banging her around?”
Dalden looked confused, but Martha wasn’t, and said instantly, “Put the brakes on, girl. Tedra’s body is conditioned to take damage and not feel it. She wasn’t hurt; if she even felt that love tap, I’d be surprised. Challen would cut off his hand before he’d actually hurt her. Most warriors feel the same way about their women.”
“Do you?” Brittany asked Dalden.
“Certainly,” he replied, somewhat indignant that she’d needed that reassurance.
Certainly, she repeated dryly in her mind. But he was talking about physical pain, not the mental kind that could sometimes be just as excruciating-What would a warrior’s philosophy be about that? As long as it didn’t leave a bruise, it couldn’t hurt?
She got the sneaky suspicion that phase two was going to be more emotional than visual. Bog her down with anxieties and uncertainties so she didn’t notice when she started believing it all?
39
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BRITTANY BEGAN TO RELAX ON THE SHORT RIDE TO Sha-Ka-Ra, Dalden’s hometown. They weren’t showing her things anymore, had perhaps finally concluded that it was a waste of their time and effort. She got flimsy excuses for this new tack, but she didn’t really care.
There had been nothing outside the building to see except the front of the building they just left, and a hill on the other side was close enough to kill any views. It could have been an illusion; she wasn’t allowed close enough to it to check it out. There were three vehicles there to transport the lot of them, and they an piled in.
Airobuses, they called them. They could have been remodeled normal buses. Remove the wheels, mak
e the front streamlined instead of flat, extend the length to twice normal size, and voil�� a space-age weird-looking vehicle.
There were cushy chairs in the first section behind the pilot’s pit, but most of the vehicle was just a cargo bay. They were supposedly used to collect and deliver trade goods to the outer reaches of the planet, but they had to remain more or less invisible, so they had preset routes that took them high enough above the clouds to not be visible from the ground. They required pilots, even though there was nothing for the pilot to see other than a large monitor. No windows, even up front, the excuse being that if a warrior had to be brought to the Center on one for some reason, they made it as painless as possible for him by giving him no visible reminder that he was flying while he was in the air. There was no sound, either, no feeling of lift-off, no feeling of any movement at all, for that matter, just a low, steady hum barely heard. The landing points for these buses were called stations, all of them located far enough from the major towns, again, to keep the people from being reminded of their existence. It didn’t dawn on Brittany until they arrived at their station just what that was going to mean.
Views. Incredible, far-reaching views of the majestic sort. The station sat at the base of a mountain they called Mount Raik, a mass so tall its point was capped with ice even though the climate was tropical. Mostly flat land spread before it, some cultivated with grains and vegetables. Forests were in the distance, with multi-colored trees, reds, greens, yellows, blues-blue?-and every shade in between. She saw long purple shadows on the horizon that could have been other mountain ranges, too far distant to define. She saw what might be a small lake in a field of wildflowers.
No telephone poles, no roads other than dirt paths, no buildings yet, no airplanes flying overhead to blow it for this look of Eden. And the air was clean, no smoke or pollutants floating on any of the horizons. Where on earth had they found such a place?
And then she saw the three airobuses, sitting on a paved landing pad, and what looked like a winding road leading up the mountain. They were too close to the mountain to see the town of Sha-Ka-Ra, which sat halfway up it, or so she was told.
“Are we going to walk up it?” she asked.
“My father has arranged transportation.”
“Where?”
He took her hand and led her around the airobus that had been blocking a bit of the view. A small herd of hataari were now visible, about forty of them standing placidly off to the side of the pad. Some of the warriors were already mounting them; others standing there showed her just how big the beasts were, when their heads were barely a foot above the animals’ backs, which meant those backs had to be as high off the ground as Brittany was tall. They were shaggy-haired, most of them black, a few brown, one tan, but all with white manes and tails that nearly reached the ground. Thin legs, extra-wide bodies, too wide to be horses-perhaps what prehistoric horses might have looked like? But even that was pushing it. They were like horses, but nothing like horses.
They were so funny-looking with their long shaggy coats, she started to laugh. They had to be made-up, Clydesdale horses probably-didn’t they get that tall? But someone’s imagination had really gone wild in the creation of their costumes. The padding for the extra-wide trunks was a weird touch; it just made them look silly.
“What amuses you?” Dalden asked as he led her to one of the hataar and tossed her up on its back.
The suddenness of being on top of one of those things ended her amusement. There was no saddle, just a blanket covering its back and a harness contraption with reins and a post for gripping, which she did now while Dalden mounted behind her.
“Sure,” she said, disgruntled. “Don’t give me a chance to find the zipper on this costume.”
His arms came around her, pulled her back against him. That easily did she relax and put aside her brief annoyance. He didn’t ask her to explain, though if he were for real, he wouldn’t have understood her remark. Martha did.
“I’m disappointed in you, doll,” came the voice at her hip.
“You know you’re reaching now, grabbing at crumbs to explain away the obvious.”
“Your obvious is so far-fetched, it’s gone beyond silly now. If anyone’s disappointed, I am. I expected better after such meticulous details on your spaceship.”
“Hasn’t it occurred to you that there’s no choice in the matter of what’s real? Yes, they are visually silly-looking. I’ve seen the animals you have in comparison that are sleek and beautiful. Not every world is so lucky in their beasts of burden. Believe it or not some worlds have hataar-like creatures even more silly-looking than these.”
“Sure, and I own a fantastic bridge I’ll be glad to sell you.”
“This habit you have of saying things you do not mean must end, kerima.”
Brittany stiffened at Dalden’s serious tone, but she caught her breath when Martha said, “Heads up, girl. He’s home now and starting to sound like a warrior.”
Brittany swung around to give Dalden a hard look. “What’d she mean by that?” No answer from him. “Martha, why’d you make warrior sound like a bad name?” No answer from that quarter, either, which caused her temper to erupt. “Damnit upside and down, don’t you people dare spring any surprises on me at this late date! Have I fallen in love with a man who’s only shown me half of himself? Is the other half some monster I’m going to hate?”
Dalden’s expression softened, probably because she’d just admitted she loved him for the first time. She hadn’t meant to own up to that yet. She didn’t want it laid on the table if the end of the “project” wasn’t going to be to her liking. But it was too late to take it back. She did love him-at least, she loved the man she’d come to know. But who was that? A man pretending to be an alien? A man so brainwashed he really believed he was an alien? Or a real alien who’d restrained his alien tendencies up until now, but now that he was home was going to release them? Just why were these people called barbarians?
Her barbarian put his hand to her cheek to draw her mouth to his. His kiss was soft, so tender. One of the things she loved so much about him was that despite his incredible size and strength, he was always so gentle with her. He wasn’t a barbarian. No way in hell.
40
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IT HAD BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE BRITTANY HAD BEEN SO embarrassed that all she wanted to do was hide her face. Dalden was almost purring with satisfaction. He’d managed to distract her so thoroughly she forgot what they’d been arguing all bout, forgot that she should be watching things around her, forgot she was on the back of an animal and other people were riding along beside them.
He was proud that he could do that to her. He’d turned that sweet kiss into a raging inferno of passion-at least on her part. She’d turned all the way around to face him, her legs spread and laying over his, clinging to him, devouring him, lost in the moment���
Until Martha’s voice intruded dryly, “I could have sworn you were interested in architecture.”
Kodos, riding next to them, was chuckling at Brittany. Shanelle, on the other side riding double with Falon, rolled her eyes at her. Thank heavens their parents were sharing an hataar up ahead and hadn’t noticed, or her mortification would have been absolute.
She hissed at Dalden, “If I thought that was deliberate, you’d be in big trouble.”
He was seriously amused, if his grin was an indication. “Define big trouble.”
“For starters,” she said, stabbing a finger against his wide chest, “never speaking to you again.”
“That would not be allowed,” he said simply.
“Would not-!” she choked, unable to finish. “To paraphrase Martha, wanna bet? And don’t think you can tease your way around it. They don’t come much more stubborn than an Irish American, which I happen to be. Stubborn is often our middle name.”
“I thought your middle name was Tomboy.”
“Oh, cute, real cute. Pretend you don’t know what the hell I’m talking
about.”
He disagreed. “You are telling me it is your nature to be stubborn. This is the nature of most women, so warriors expect it and find it amusing.”
“Why amusing?”
“Because it is not a thing women succeed at very well-here.”
“You might want to readjust that statement a little bit to include, until now.”
He chuckled, then hugged her, then explained why he was suddenly so pleased with her responses. “You-and Martha-insist that you are different because you were not born here, but truly, kerima, your reaction to an unwanted lesson is no different from that of a Sha-Ka’ani woman.”
She pushed out of his arms, narrowed her eyes on him. “Lesson? just what were you trying to teach me there? That if I do or say something you don’t like, you’ll embarrass the hell out of me?”
“It was not meant to embarrass you.”
“Then what was I meant to feel?”
“Exactly what you did feel.”
What she’d felt was raw passion and a desire to make love with him right then and there. “I don’t get it.”
He didn’t respond, which managed to infuriate her enough to say, “Martha, you and I are going to have a long talk before the end of the day, and you’re coming clean this time.”
But Dalden objected to Martha enlightening her, insisting, “Lessons are better learned by example than in the telling.”
Brittany bristled, but before she could reply, Martha lit into the warrior. “Dalden, did that Sha-Ka’ani pure air muddle your brain all of a sudden? You’ve done fine until now, keeping it in mind that she’s not Sha-Ka’ani. Don’t blow it just because you’re home, and don’t make some assumptions based on one reaction when she’s capable of reactions you’ve never seen before. Some of the things that you see as natural and right and your responsibility, she just isn’t going to tolerate. That cultural difference I warned you about better be ringing a big bell, because it’s real, it’s huge, and it will cause problems of the like no warrior, even your father in dealing with Tedra, has ever faced before.”
Heart of a Warrior l-3 Page 23