“This I am pleased to hear you say, but you will be bound again to enter Sha-Ka-Ra.”
Tedra’s eyes narrowed angrily. She had a real urge to sock him one, but since her hand was likely to come out the loser, she restrained herself—just.
“You really ought to work on your strategy, barbarian,” she said contemptuously. “A smart man would have waited until tomorrow to tell me that little gem.”
He seemed not the least concerned with her pique. “There will be honesty between us, woman, thus do I tell you now.”
“And give me the whole night to think about a repeat of the humiliation I was put through today? Thanks a lot. I can do without your farden honesty!”
She flounced out of the tent then, but had to stop and wait since she didn’t know in which direction the stream lay. More fuel to grit her teeth on. She couldn’t even make a decent exit in this place.
Chapter Fourteen
The promised stream Tedra was led to was reached through a stand of trees and down a short, brush-laden path. A moon had risen, a large yellow thing that gave a hazy light through a mist of clouds. The water glittered and bubbled softly between two grassy banks, each set with small white flowers that looked silvery gold in the moonlight.
It was a romantic spot, secluded, perfumed by flowers, the stream providing a tinkling serenade, a perfect spot for sex-sharing, but all Tedra could think about just then was cutting her escort up into little chunks and feeding him to the fish, if there were fish. But if her mind had turned toward amorous thoughts, they would have been wasted, since the barbarian tactfully left her alone to her ablutions, which she made short work of. Roughing it was for the birds.
“If you’re picking up any of this, Martha, I hope you blow a fuse laughing. Water. They actually wash with water here. And I’ll wager there’s not one single toilet on the whole farden planet. If I wasn’t a history buff and knew a smattering of how our own primitives managed this sort of wilderness living back on the mother planet, I’d really be embarrassed right about now.”
She didn’t get an answer, nor would she without her phazor unit. But if Martha was listening, then she had a fix on her and could have Transferred her out of there. Since Tedra remained where she was, Martha either was still playing games or hadn’t found her yet. She hoped it was the former. She seriously doubted she could take more than a month of this.
She made her way back to the camp without incident, since there was no one else about, and back to the tent she had spent the afternoon in. The big barbarian was there waiting for her, stretched out on his fur blanket, his arms behind his head, perfectly relaxed.
“You took a big chance that I’d come back after that little bomb you dropped on me about tomorrow,” Tedra said abrasively, but her look alone would have told him she was still in a slow simmer about it.
“I have decided to trust in your honor. It is a rare thing in a woman, but a quality you have shown you possess.”
She hated that bubble of calm he was cocooned in. She hated his magnanimous gesture at the moment, too. So what if he trusted her to abide by the terms of her defeat? Fat lot of good it would do her tomorrow, when she was being gawked at by a whole town of barbarians.
“Is that why you’ve sent the beasty away? I didn’t appreciate having him for a guard dog today.”
“Sharm has grown lazy living with me. He stalks his food during moonrise, when most of it sleeps.”
“How nice for him,” she retorted.
He chuckled at her expression. “You grow more womanly by the moment, kerima. ”
“Why? Because I object to being trussed up and put on display for the amusement of your people?”
“Because you sulk over what you cannot change. A warrior does not expect a woman to behave otherwise.”
“Doesn’t he?” she snarled. “And you call it sulking? I’d call it killing mad, at least in my case, and since I’m a Sec 1 and trained to demolish people with my bare hands, I wouldn’t exactly call what I’m feeling right now womanly.”
“But so it is when you have no control over it. Or can you control it—as a warrior would?”
“Of course I can. I’m not stomping all over your body, am I? What is that, if not perfect control?”
“Wise restraint, for which I commend you. But can you practice it while you give me service?”
“Service?” She stared at him blankly for a moment, then hissed through her teeth, recalling the massage he had requested. “You must be joking. I’m in no mood to give you service—of any kind.”
“But you will,” he said simply. “And you may begin now.”
She watched incredulously as he turned over and rested his tawny head on his folded arms. He actually expected her to go to him and put her hands on his body, to gently knead the soreness from his muscles. And what if she didn’t? Would she be punished again? She shivered, recalling his kind of punishment. She wasn’t ready to tempt that again, not when she wasn’t guaranteed relief anytime soon.
She slowly approached him and knelt down at his side, but so he wouldn’t have any doubt that this was definitely service under protest, she said, “There are massages, warrior, and then there are massages. The one you get isn’t likely to be the one you were expecting.”
“Then you may begin with the one you now wish to give me, but you will end with the one you say I was expecting; thus will I know the difference.”
Why the farden hell had she given him warning? Talk about spoiling some perfectly subtle revenge.
And he’d made it an order to be obeyed. She wished she’d never heard of the word “honor.”
But she had his permission to have at him for a while, his golden back there for her to work her frustration out on. This she did, pounding, gouging, and giving anything but a soothing, pleasurable massage. The trouble was, her hands didn’t last very long giving out that kind of punishment, yet she heard not a single grunt of discomfort from her victim. He should have at least tensed up when she worked over the areas where her blows had landed that morning during the challenge.
“Did I really hurt you today?” she wondered aloud.
“No.”
Tedra sat back on her heels, her hands going to her hips, and glared at the back of his head. “Then would you mind telling me why I’m doing this?”
He rolled easily onto his back, and those dark eyes held amusement as they locked with hers. “Why you did what you have been doing is because you are still upset with me. Why I requested a massage was so you would the sooner become accustomed to my body. Do you now show me the difference.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. The massage had been for her benefit. That was really considerate on his part—if she were leery and intimidated by his size, which he probably thought she was. He couldn’t know that his very bigness was one of the things she found so to her liking.
She felt rather petty at the moment for taking her frustration with his customs out on him. He didn’t personally make the rules that governed how challenge losers were to be treated, after all. And what was a little humiliation, anyway, if she could eventually get an army of these warriors back to Kystran?
“I’m sorry,” she said, willing to make it up to him. “You want the difference, you got it. If you’ll just turn over—”
“No.”
“No?”
“You will use my chest to show me.”
“Oh.”
Her cheeks began to heat as she glanced at his massive chest. Before she even touched it, she could feel that same heat coiling down into her belly. When she did touch it, her arousal came so swiftly, she nearly groaned. His skin was so warm, yet gave little under her gentle kneading; was so silky to her fingertips, yet so muscle-hard. Stars, she wanted to lean forward and kiss his chest, to rub her face over it, to bite it, but he gave no indication that he wanted anything other than the massage. She was so hot for him she should have gone up in smoke, but his eyes were calmness itself as he watched her, his body relaxed,
without tension—without arousal.
She leaned back slowly to meet his eyes with bewilderment in hers. “Was I wrong in thinking service in your bedchamber meant we would be sharing sex?”
“Sharing sex?”
He didn’t know what she was talking about. “What did those warriors call it?” she asked herself. “Oh, yes, use.” But he still didn’t comprehend, and it dawned on her that the Sha-Ka’ari, being slaveholders and accustomed to taking their pleasure without giving any back, would have a different name for sexsharing than these warriors would. “What do you call it when a man and woman come together intimately?”
“Fun.” He grinned, finally understanding.
“I’ll buy that.” She grinned back. “But is that your only word for it?”
“There is joining, mating, giving pleasure. You would call it making love.”
“I would, but you wouldn’t? Why is that?”
“Enough questions for this rising, kerima. Now do we sleep.”
Stars, even talking about it didn’t get him interested. Obviously she was not going to get breached today no matter what she did.
She sighed. “All right, friend, just point me to my bed and I’ll—”
“Your bed is here with me. Did you think it would be otherwise?”
“With as little interest as you’ve shown in wanting to have ‘fun’ with me, yes, actually, I did think it would be otherwise.”
She could have bitten her tongue off for letting that out, especially when it sounded so much like a complaint—and in fact was. But the barbarian chose to ignore it and simply moved over some to make room for her on the fur. There was nothing for it but to lie down beside him, though she wasn’t likely to get much sleep with him so close. She wished he would have the same problem, but that was her problem, that it wouldn’t bother him at all.
“Put your arms around me, kerima. ”
She looked at him askance. “Have you changed your mind about sleeping?”
“No.”
“Then I’d rather not touch you anymore if it’s all the same to you.”
“But you will.”
Stars, how she was starting to hate those three words. “Am I being punished, Challen?”
“You are being shown the manner in which you will sleep each night. Because it is not yet the time for joining does not mean I do not want you close to me. Do you now do as you were instructed.”
Not yet time for joining? Were there customs that must be adhered to in this, too, so many days maybe, that he couldn’t take advantage of his challenge win? It made her feel better to think so, which was why she didn’t come right out and ask. At least it meant he wasn’t oblivious to her charms, that he was only practicing his miraculous warrior’s control.
She scooted over and tucked one arm to his side, draping the other over his chest. One of his own arms came around her to hold her there.
“Do you now kiss me.”
Tedra closed her eyes as those words sent a thrill down her spine. “Is that to be part of the nightly ritual, too?”
“It is.”
“All right, you asked for it.”
She squirmed upward until she could reach his mouth, then plastered hers to it, but that was not what he’d had in mind. He stopped her so quickly she barely got a taste of him.
“This was to be a kiss for sleep, woman, not for joining,” he chided her.
“I never thought I’d contemplate rape,” Tedra growled, but she said it in Kystrani, didn’t care if that annoyed him or not, and turned around to give him her back. If he insisted she put her arms around him again, he’d have a war on his hands. He must have sensed that, for he didn’t insist. He didn’t say another word. But his big hand came to rest on her hip. He was still keeping her close.
Chapter Fifteen
Challen woke with the woman’s movement. He had lost count of the number of times she had disturbed his sleep with her sighs, mumblings, and turnings, but fortunately, each time his sleep had easily resumed. He doubted that she had gotten much herself, though. Such was to be expected of a captive or newly claimed woman, but not for the reason that bothered his little challenge loser. She had not lost sleep through anxiety, tears, or simple fear of a new warrior she must obey, but because her need was upon her. He had gone to sleep with the smell of her arousal strong in his nostrils.
Long did he debate whether to ease her need without joining. Such could be done easily. But did she not know this, he would prefer she remain in ignorance of it for now, so he did nothing. Also, she could only benefit by her need still being great when he did join with her. Better a slight discomfort through the night than true pain, were she not ready for him when the effects of the dhaya juice wore off.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the sun had begun its rising already. When he turned to find the woman was facing him again, he also discovered, instantly, that the last of the dhaya juice had, in fact, worn off even while he had thought about it. His loins filled with need, and as was expected when denied with dhaya juice, that need was now so powerful it was painful. It was also worse than it had ever been before, for he had the previous rising’s memories to goad him, clear and concise, memories of his touching the Kystrani, of her touching him, of every burning, passion-filled look she gave him from those fascinating aquamarine eyes.
He groaned, closing his eyes again, fighting down the need to draw the woman beneath him and end the pain immediately. He had bragged to her of a warrior’s control. Where was it now?
He concentrated on the pain rather than on his need, opening his mind to it so that it surrounded him. It was not intense enough to put him into the trance-induced state that would ignore all feeling, but it was enough to give him a measure of calm, to return some of the normal control a warrior possessed when not influenced by dhaya. The urgency was still there, but it was no longer the crazed wildness of a mindlessly driven beast.
Again he looked at the woman still in the deep sleep of exhaustion. Even with dark smudges beneath her eyes to attest to her unpleasant night, he found her incredibly beautiful. She was using his arm as a pillow, but both her hands were wrapped around it, too, as if she felt in sleep what he had also felt, a need to hold tight to what he had found, a fear it might be lost otherwise.
The fear was not unfounded on his part, not that he thought the woman would flee him. He had spoken true when he told her he trusted in her honor. There was not another woman he would have said that to, for Kan-is-Tran women could claim honor, but were known to overlook it when it suited them. He was certain this was not so with the Kystrani, for she was, in fact, a warrior woman. Her every action claimed this to be so, even the arrogance she professed to be as great as his.
No, the fear stemmed from another source, one not imminent, but there nonetheless. He had bound this woman to him for no more than a month, and a month was a very short time. It had seemed the ideal solution at the time, to use her unwise challenge against her, but now he was not so sure. True, he had sensed her strength of will, had known it would be set against him for as long as she resisted his claiming, and he suspected that resistance would be like nothing he had ever encountered before. Not even her attraction to him, which was clear in her bold, warriorlike manner of looking at him, would surmount that resistance. And yet he had decided from the moment he had gotten a closer look at her that she would be his. Had a protector appeared suddenly to prevent his claiming of her, he would have fought for her, such was his desire to have her bound to him. But he did not want her to fight him, so the challenge had indeed seemed ideally suited to his needs, except that it was a temporary solution.
If he could not make her want his claiming within the time the challenge loss had given him, then it was her right to seek protection elsewhere at the end of her service, and that did not please him at all. Already she was thinking of doing just that, if her questions were any indication. And already he had begun thinking of ways to get around it, even if he must trick her into challenging him a
gain. To challenge her himself would unfortunately not have the same effect. She would see it for what it was, an attempt on his part to make her his claimed woman without limitations, which was what she so strongly objected to. It was the nonpermanence of the challenge loss that allowed her to accept it. Of this he was certain.
His gaze moved slowly over her face, noting things that the brilliance of her eyes and vitality and boldness of her expressions had kept him from noticing before. There was color on her cheeks that did not belong there, a very subtle rose tint that was barely discernible. Surrounding both of her eyes was a thin line of black that was not natural. He touched it at the corner of one eye without waking her, but nothing appeared on his finger. He had heard that the women of Malnik in the north sought to enhance their beauty with face-coloring, but with colors that did not fade or smear?
His little warrior was not of Malnik, but from where did she come? This he would not think of, for what he suspected he did not want to be true. And right now his body was telling him that his control was slipping, soon to be gone entirely. Did he not wake her now, she was going to miss their joining, it would be over and done with so quickly. Coming off dhaya juice was the one time a warrior lost his arrogance and pride in the skills that never failed to satisfy his woman, for those skills were most times forgotten in the wildness of need. Such must not happen with this woman.
In moments Challen had removed his bracs, then had to fight again not to bury himself immediately in the warm, sleeping body beside him. The scent she wore was still strong, filling his nostrils with floral sweetness. But it was the scent of arousal he wanted to smell now, and with that in mind, he made short work of removing her covering, bringing her half awake. His kiss completed the process, deep and compelling, demanding the desire she had known so frequently and with such swiftness on the previous rising.
When he leaned back to judge her reaction, her eyes were droopy but open, her lips smiling at him. “I thought you’d never get around to this,” she said with a sigh.