“If her goal is so important to her and to you, why have you allowed it to be delayed by her challenge loss? She says you could have intervened to prevent it from occurring.”
“Sure I could have, but it wouldn’t have seen to a goal of mine, which was to give her something she’s needed for a long time, her own wishes in the matter notwithstanding. Sometimes I must help her despite herself, stubborn and contrary as she is. And I’ve already told you that you’re the ‘something’ she needed.”
“But you knew not my mettle, computer. You knew not the character of the warrior you left her to.”
“Are you kidding?” There was laughter here. “You accepted her challenge and let her pound all over you without returning a single bruise. That told me all I needed to know about you. Besides, her sexual libido went crazy at her first sight of you. That alone decided the matter as far as I was concerned. Now, your restraint puzzled the hell out of me, and why you didn’t breach her immediately. Probables tells me you weren’t yourself that day, any more than you were last night. And that concludes you were on the same ‘something’ you admitted to taking yesterday, or a similar agent.”
He thought to deny it, but saw no point. “Yes.”
“Does she know that?”
“No.”
“Stars, how I’d love to be there when she finds out, but that’s another scenario. Do we have a deal on this one? I still need your word you won’t abuse her if things get out of hand. And I still want her back if she’s now dead set against you.”
“The giving of my word is unnecessary. Warriors do not abuse women for any reason. And I will do the deciding if I must give her up.”
“Fair enough. Then you’d better get back to see if you have a decision to make.”
“How do I-send you away?”
Chuckling came up at him again. “And here I thought you were going to blunder by forgetting about that. Very well, press the round button just below the monitor and I’m gone. Press it again and I’m back. And don’t forget I want some progress reports, at your convenience, of course. But before you turn me off, I should warn you that you’re in danger of taking a long time to get back to Tedra if you don’t slide the safety on on the phazor-that’s the rectangle that moves up and down. My readings show me the phazor is still on max, the setting Tedra last dialed, since she wasn’t going to take any more chances with you that day. If you accidentally stun yourself, you’ll be out of commission for a good ten hours. And accidents are very probable when the safety isn’t on and the user doesn’t know what he’s doing. Have you got all that?”
“Yes.”
“Then good luck, warrior. You’re definitely going to need it, if I know my Tedra. And I do.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Are you comfortable, mistress?”
“Sitting in water? Getting wet? Am I supposed to be comfortable?”
The sarcasm was unmistakable, but it didn’t bring the miserable expression to Jalla’s face. That had been there since the girl arrived with more food, and stayed to draw Tedra’s bath and urge her into it.
“A bath is said to be soothing after certain punishments,” Jalla offered.
That brought a rigid frown from Tedra. “Does everyone know I was punished?”
She realized that was a stupid question when she recalled how loudly she had screamed with frustration during the worst of it. But Jalla nodded anyway, and that made Tedra glower even more.
“That’s just great, just what I needed to know, that I’m more humiliated than I realized. And you’re no help, Jalla, so why don’t you absent yourself? You’re good at doing that, aren’t you?”
The miserable expression got worse, causing Jalla to drop some genuine tears. “I know it was my fault, mistress. You may punish me if you wish.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tedra snapped, further annoyed that she’d been taking her anger out on the girl. “My actions are my own responsibility. If I didn’t venture out yesterday, I’d have done it sooner or later. So stop giving me that hangdog look. It doesn’t help to know you feel guilty. But why did you take off yesterday? Were you afraid you’d lose your dinner, too?”
“Lowden Ly-San-Ter would not have been as lenient as the shodan if the matter were brought to his attention. For no less than seven risings, I would have been assigned the chores I most dislike the doing of.”
“Is that all?”
“You scoff, mistress, but it is no pleasure being driven from your bed in the middle of the darkness to bake the bread for the first meal. Before the sun rising you have wilted from the heat of the great ovens, and your arms feel as if they will fall off, they are so sore from so much grinding and kneading. There are Darasha with thick muscles who love the baking of bread. To them go chores they do not love when punishment comes to them. Master Lowden is wise in knowing what chores are most hated and by whom.”
Tedra could only shake her head. Barbarian reasoning was so fascinating. Trust them to find such harmless yet despised means for discipline.
She could not help grinning as a sudden thought hit her. “What happens if there’s a chore everyone hates doing? Does it ever get done?”
“There are many Darasha in the castle, mistress, as well as many women under protection of the shodan. Thus is there always someone or other in need of punishment.”
“Almost guaranteeing that the one thing barbarians won’t want to trade for is robocleaners.” And that idea made Tedra laugh out loud.
Which was how Challen found her when he entered the room. This was not exactly what he had been expecting, but he got the expected the moment she noticed him. Her humor vanished instantly, and worse, she turned her back on him without the slightest acknowledgment of his presence.
Challen found himself at a sudden loss. He had been prepared to deal with the angry words the computer had promised would be his, not the damning silence it had also predicted. That silence sat on his shoulders, pushing them down in defeat as it continued.
He dismissed Jalla with a nod, but he made no move toward the bath once the girl was gone. Watching Tedra was out of the question. He was fully prepared to see to any remaining need she might have, now that the double dose of dhaya juice had finally worn off. But her need must also be gone, and gaali stones could lose their light before he would force his own need on the woman, with her feelings for him so altered.
Tedra remained in the water, but certainly not because she liked it. It was more that the punishment denying her the use of clothing or even a covering made the bath slightly preferable just then to getting out of it. Or would the barbarian consider the water a covering? Ha! Just let him say so and she’d have an excuse never to get disgustingly wet again.
She had known Challen would show up eventually, and she’d been so afraid he would come before her body was hers again to command. She had thought he would want to take advantage of that, but he’d surprised her. Whether intentionally or not, he’d given her enough time to return to her normal inclinations and urges, instead of those he’d created. Her need for a man was gone. What she hadn’t counted on was its coming right back at the first sight of him. But it was controllable. It had farden well better be controllable.
“Do you intend to spend the whole darkness at your bath, kerima ?”
The question drew her attention no more than to say, “I was considering it.”
There was a silence while she sensed him moving across the room to the table where food and wine awaited him. “I know you dislike the water. Come out.”
“Is that an order, master? If it is, I will certainly obey it. If not…”
She deliberately scooped up two handfuls of water and only cringed a little as the slippery stuff poured over her breasts. But one scoop was enough to get her point across-if he was watching. She wasn’t going to look to find out.
“It was no order, woman. You may do as you please.”
“Well, aren’t we accommodating tonight,” she replied dryly. “In that case, I
’ll get out. I’m not one for making subtle statements anyway, or spiting myself to make them. I much prefer spelling things right out.”
“You are welcome to do so.”
That got her attention, swinging her around so fast, a wave of water hit the side of the sunken tub to splash back at her. “And get myself punished again if I do? No, thank you.”
She watched him warily as he came forward then, but it was only to pick up one of the waiting drying cloths to hand to her. She took it as she stepped out of the tub, damning the fact that she wouldn’t be able to keep the cloth once she was dry. Prancing around naked in front of the barbarian was not her idea of fun, Kystran-style fun, anyway. Now, if it would get him wanting some Sha-ka’ani fun, that’d be another story, worth a little revenge when he found out she didn’t want the same anymore. But he’d proved beyond a doubt last night that her nakedness didn’t affect him. All it was doing was giving her further punishment by the means of embarrassment.
That embarrassment was extreme just now, with Challen simply standing there watching her. And the way he watched her, with an alertness that seemed anticipatory, as if he were waiting for something in particular to happen.
That annoyed the hell out of her. He’d as much as said she could be frank, but she wasn’t buying that. Her frankness would sear his ears off, and she wasn’t forgetting for a minute what such disrespect to warriors would get her. His offer had to be a trap, and that suggested that he’d had such a good time punishing her last night, he was now going to hunt for excuses so he could do it again.
She wouldn’t help him toward that end. She’d keep a lid on her temper if it killed her. But it made her absolutely furious that she had to, enough to throw the drying cloth down before she was completely dry. She walked away, heading toward the closet, refusing to remain in the same room with him unless he ordered her to.
His voice came before she was halfway there. “You will join me for the meal.”
Thank Heaven’s Stars she could say to that, “I’ve already eaten.”
“Then you will sit with me while I do.”
She turned, forcing mere inquiry in her expression. “Is that an order, master?”
His jaw clenched, hearing her call him that again. “It is a request.”
“Then I decline.”
“Then it becomes an order,” he gritted out.
“Then certainly I will obey.”
No matter how sweetly agreeable she sounded, her movements told another story. Stiff and stomping, she stalked to the table. Challen got there first, swinging her around to face him.
“If you are so wishful of obeying, woman, then speak to me your thoughts. I have given you permission to do so.”
Was that frustration in his expression? If it was, it was nothing compared with her own.
“Permission to do so? Very well, you asked for it, warrior, and I’ll start with that. I shouldn’t need permission to speak my mind. Freedom to say what I think and feel has always been mine-until I came here. I don’t even curb my opinions with my boss, and he’s got power over a job which is very important to me. Here all a woman can say is what you want to hear. Well, you can stuff that where the sun won’t reach it, warrior. I’ll never say only what you want me to.”
“I would not ask that of you.”
“Wouldn’t you? Haven’t you? What the farden hell do you call your demand for respect at all times, if not that? Has it never occurred to you beef-witted louts that you can’t force respect, that it has to be earned or it’s worthless?”
“What you say is well known, woman. What is also known is what happens if a woman so angers a warrior with her careless tongue that he loses all control and strikes her to silence. Thus do they both suffer, she with serious hurt, he with the guilt of causing it. Respect demanded of women is for their own protection.”
She wasn’t interested in the sound logic behind that bit of reasoning. “Lose control? Get angry? You’ve got to be joking,” she sneered derisively. “You people have control down to a science. You’ve got about as much emotion as robots, and I speak from experience.”
“Warriors can lose control. They strive not to, but the loss is not beyond their capabilities.”
He was grinning when he said that. And that was all Tedra needed to see for her own control to snap.
“Why don’t you show me, then?” she said just before she slapped him for all she was worth. “Now show me how hurt I’ll get when you hit me back.”
Challen fingered his cheek as he stared down at her. “I am not a callow youth who can be so easily provoked.”
The grin was gone, but there was still something about him that said he was amused, even delighted by what she’d done. Tedra wasn’t positive. She could be reading him quite wrong. But when had that ever stopped her temper when it wanted out?
“Then let me try harder.” And she hit him again, hard enough to turn his face with it. “Wow will you hit me back?”
“You can do this the whole darkness, kerima, and I will not retaliate.”
“Not even if I want you to?”
“What you want is the guilt I would feel if I did so,” he answered softly. “Such is not necessary. There is no room for more guilt to join that which I already possess.”
“Liar!” she all but screamed, and slapped him twice more. And then she was pounding on his chest with both fists. “Damn you for a lying, insensitive jerk! You wouldn’t know what guilt was if it knocked you over. And what could you be guilty about? You were doing your duty! You said so! And don’t touch me!” She pushed out of the arms that had started to close around her. “Do you think I could ever want your touch again?”
“Yes,” he replied with supreme confidence. “You want it now, if for no other need than comforting. It is the stubbornness inside you that denies it.”
“Fat lot you know,” she retorted, but in a more level tone. The first heat of her temper had passed with the pounding she gave him. She was now choking on what was left. “I don’t need comforting. All I need is to get out of here and never see you again.”
“No.”
He didn’t exactly shout it, but there was more feeling in that word than she’d heard from him before. “Oh, don’t worry, warrior. I’m not forgetting the challenge loss. For a while there I thought I could, but honor’s got a way of hanging on with a death’s grip even when you try to shake it off. I’ll stick around until my time’s up. I’ll even jump when you say jump. But I’ll hate every minute of it.”
“No.”
“No, again? What’s with you today?” she demanded in exasperation. “Aren’t I getting my point across? I don’t like you anymore, warrior. Do I have to hit on you some more before that registers?”
“Why have you not used your skills on me instead?”
This inquiry was accompanied by another grin, which had her shouting again. “Because what you did, you did to me, not to a Sec 1-to me!”
“And you are, after all, a woman?”
“I hate you,” was all she could think to reply to that observation, but the words came out with difficulty through the knot in her throat and sounded tepid even to her ears.
“Enough to want my blood?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped automatically. “If I wanted your blood, I’d have had it by now.”
Her eyes widened the moment she said it, the reason dawning on her finally why she was lacking conviction in her words. She still didn’t hate the farden jerk. Damn! Why did the effects of the punishment have to wear off completely, leaving her nothing to support and sustain her fury with? The fact that the effects were gone only proved the punishment had been terrible while it lasted, but nothing to warrant true revenge over.
And yet she wasn’t forgetting that it had been terrible, that he’d made her beg and cry and forfeit her pride totally. The worst of it was that he could remember everything she’d done and said; that every time she looked at him from now on, she’d wonder if he was remembering it
, and gloating over it. But she could view it objectively now, even allowing that what he’d done was normal and acceptable from his standpoint, the Sha-Ka’ani way of doing things. That she couldn’t accept those ways was her problem. That they had ruined what she felt for the warrior was also her problem. She just wished she didn’t regret it so much.
But he wasn’t likely to care one way or the other, as long as he got his service from her. Or would he care? For some reason, she had the feeling he thought she was just blowing off steam, that nothing had really changed between them. That would account for his amusement, and for the fact that he didn’t seem to be taking anything she said seriously.
She didn’t need to convince him. He’d find out the way it was soon enough, when he got only unwilling service from her from now on. But he’d said she could speak her mind, and she hadn’t yet told him even half of what she was feeling. So maybe the rest of it would get through to him, and maybe a calm approach would help.
“Look, warrior, to be honest, I don’t actually hate you. You can’t help being an insensitive brute any more than I can help not liking it. None of us are perfect, and I’d be the first to admit I don’t even come close to the mark. So I still owe you service. Well, I’ll be here for you to take it, but note the key word is ‘take.’ You won’t be getting willing service from me anymore.”
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