With his back to her, the phazor was staring her in the face, and Tedra didn’t even think about hesitating. But the moment her fingers touched it, other fingers grabbed hers and lightly tossed her hand away from it.
“Are you nuts?” she shrieked.
The barbarian only looked down at her, facing her again, his expression inscrutable. To the side of him, she saw the beast, still in a lope coming toward them and just ten feet away now. And it roared—loudly.
“Oh, Staaaarrrs!” Tedra cried and ran for the nearest tree.
She heard the laughter before she even reached the limb which spread out about twelve feet off the ground, though that didn’t stop her from gaining a perch on it. It was sturdy enough to support her, but she still gripped it for dear life, tree climbing as alien to her as trees were. Only when she was lying down flat on it and was sure she wasn’t in danger of sliding off did she look down to see what the laughter was all about.
It was the barbarian, of course, and he wasn’t just laughing, but having a fit of it. She kind of figured out why when she saw the huge feline beast sitting on the ground right next to the barbarian, like a damned tamed pet, which Tedra concluded it likely was. She could hear its loud purring over the noise the barbarian was still making as his laughter wound down to chuckles. And the animal was staring up at her with great blue eyes, as if she were a mere curiosity. She was that indeed, naked and up a tree. She was also feeling so foolish and ridiculous that she was hot pink with it.
“That tree you seem so fond of, kerima, would not have served,” she was told as her amused companion approached.
“Oh?”
“The fembair plays in trees. Had he wanted you on his menu, he would have joined you on that limb.”
So that was what a fembair looked like. She had gathered from the Sublims that it was some sort of wild animal to be avoided, yet this one no longer looked so wild, just still scary as all hell. It had followed the barbarian, its body as high as his chest when it was up on all fours, and they both now looked up at her from beneath the tree.
“Come down, woman, and we will be on our way.”
That was all? No apology for the rotten trick he’d played on her?
“Actually, the view’s great from up here,” she replied testily.
He ignored her tone and her words. “Drop down and I will catch you.”
With the bark on the tree limb irritating the tender skin of her belly and her inner thighs, Tedra didn’t offer any more lip. She gripped the limb with both hands, then lowered her body slowly until she was dangling from the limb. As soon as she felt the hands take hold of her calves, she let go and dropped fast— until the barbarian’s arms, which had quickly wrapped around her legs, caught on her rear end. For a heart-stopping moment, a hard cheek was pressed to her belly, and then she slid slowly, very slowly, down his body until her feet touched the ground.
This had to be it. That tantalizing body-to-body caress had been deliberate on his part. Hot coils of anticipation were already unwinding in her belly. If he didn’t kiss her now . . .
He gave her backside a gentle pat before his arms left her, and then she was watching him walk away. He’d walked away! Tedra felt like screaming and stomping her feet. Of course, she didn’t do things like that. Usually when she felt frustrated, she put herself through her more grueling exercises to work it off, to save her friends and co-workers a taste of her foul temper, which was what tended to rise when she felt that way. But she had to admit she’d never felt this kind of frustration before, never having experienced such a keen want of sex-sharing before.
She was standing there naked and wanting him, and he’d just walked away. She still couldn’t believe it. Was the man made of stone? Or maybe she was looking at it only from her perspective and he didn’t really want her. He’d claimed her, but she had been, according to him, a claimable woman, so what else could he do? He’d even had her in a perfect sex-sharing position earlier when she’d lost the challenge, but he hadn’t taken the least advantage of it. Here she had five years of missed sex-sharing to make up for, and what did she get when she decided the time had finally arrived? A man who could take it or leave it, or didn’t want it at all. Of all the farden luck.
“Woman?”
A summons? A farden summons! That did it, rubbed her position in good, and snapped what control she had on her frustration. She stalked after the pair, who waited for her by the hataar, her aquamarine eyes narrowed and glowing, not the least bit of wariness for the white beast remaining just then.
“I take it that’s a friend of yours?” she asked softly, deceptively.
“A very good friend.”
Her finger stabbed into the center of his chest. “You could have told me that, you prehistoric jerk, instead of letting me—”
“Woman,” he interrupted, half in surprise, a greater half in disapproval. “Wherever you come from, you are now in Kan-is-Tra. You will abide by the laws and conduct yourself as a woman of Kan-is-Tra.”
Tedra snorted. “In other words, I can’t cuss you out as you deserve, or point out how infantile your little joke was?”
“You will give a warrior respect at all times.”
“Or what?”
“Or you will be punished by he who protects you.” He said it calmly, yet there was a promise in those words she didn’t care for.
“Some protection,” she grumbled, but with less heat. “You don’t really think I’m going to miraculously transform into a model of Kan-is-Tran womanhood who will jump to your every little command, do you?”
He stared down at her so long and so seriously that she was regretting that last taunt even before he answered with a soft menace, “You will.”
Maybe she would at that—for now. But if she decided she could withstand his punishments . . . Her body was conditioned to take a lot of pain and still function adequately. She’d have to wait and find out.
He must have concluded she was subdued for now, for he said no more and turned to the hataar, removing the thin fur blanket from its back. He took his long dagger and made a cut in the center of this; then, before Tedra had figured out what he was doing, he dropped the whole thing over her head, fur side underneath, and even pulled her necklace out for her, and the tail of her hair, arranging both to his satisfaction.
She didn’t know whether to thank him or not. The blanket smelled of hataar, but the fur was soft against her skin. As a covering it wasn’t so great, falling only to the middle of her thighs, front and back, but the width of it allowed it to drape down her arms almost to her wrists. Of course, the bottom line was, it was better than nothing.
She decided not to thank him, since she had been naked under his insistence, not hers. “I’ll need a belt,” she mentioned reasonably. “Mine will do nicely.”
He didn’t even glance at her pile of clothes on the ground. He tugged open the long fur sack hanging from the harness grip and pulled out a rope similar to the ones he’d used to secure the animals.
Tedra groaned inwardly. “That’s a bit old, and I do mean old-fashioned, don’t you think? There’s nothing wrong with my own belt.”
“Likely it is a fine belt—for a warrior,” he said in reply; then his dark eyes met hers to add gently, “You need no belt, kerima. ”
“Then what—” He had grasped both wrists and brought them together in one of his large hands, then began calmly wrapping the rope around them. “Now just a damned minute!” Tedra said with annoyance, but also with some little alarm. “I’m honor-bound to be stuck with you for a month, warrior. This isn’t necessary and you know it!”
“Any challenge loser, or captive, too, for that matter, is treated thusly at first, to declare his or her status to all.”
“No one’s going to believe I’m a challenge loser.”
“Be glad of that, kerima. Challenge losers are scorned. Captives are merely a curiosity.”
“If you’d left me my clothes—”
“Every warrior in my camp would
have demanded their removal. I am not the only one who would find it offensive to see a woman dressed so.”
Tedra ground her teeth together, pulled against the rope now tight around her wrists, and glared at the barbarian. “I got to hand it to you, babe. You really know how to make a girl love the hell out of you.”
“This habit you have of saying things you do not mean is confusing, woman. Best do you keep to the truth.”
“I’d love to,” she said resentfully. “But it’s bound to get me punished, as you’ve repeatedly told me.”
“And what is this truth?”
“That I’m beginning to hate you and your planet, and your farden customs. Put that in your hat and eat it.”
He tipped her face around to his when she turned aside so as not to see his reaction to that. But his reaction bewildered her, since there was clear amusement in his expression. And then his words confused her even more, contradicting the amusement.
“You were correct, kerima. Such does deserve punishment. This will be seen to shortly.”
“Thanks. I really needed to hear that.”
He shook his head at her, as if her remarks were those of an incorrigible child, and then his gaze dropped to her bound hands. These he stared at for a long moment and even frowned, leading Tedra to believe he was going to change his mind. No such luck. He picked up her discarded pants instead, cut a few inches off the bottom of each leg, making her groan at the destruction of such a costly outfit, and then slipped one piece each over her hands under the ropes. Protecting her skin? How considerate—and again contradictory. Why should he care? He’d tied her to begin with. So what if she got scraped raw from the rope? She was less than a captive. She was a challenge loser, to be scorned.
In a moment of sheer disgust over the predicament her traitorous computer had left her in, she switched to her own language. “I hope you’re getting all this, Martha, because the strikes against you are adding up. I’m not just going to sell you when I get out of this, I’m going to demolish you—pull all your plugs and melt down your circuits—and that’s just for starters. And just because I’ll have to endure this for a month, whether you come to your senses or not, don’t think time will be on your side. I won’t forget that you could have saved me before that farden challenge. A month of barbarian arrogance shoved down my throat will ensure that I don’t forget. You’ve been—”
The cloth shoved in her mouth shut off her words, and Tedra’s eyes widened as another strip of cloth came to hold the first one in place and tie behind her neck. Bound hands didn’t help to prevent this from happening. All Tedra could do was scream her fury at this last outrage, the sound a mere squeak and too unsatisfying to go on for long.
When she gave it up, he was standing in front of her again, wearing his inscrutable expression. “Thus will be done each time you speak to your Martha in words unknown to me,” he told her. “When the lesson has sufficient time to be learned, I will allow you to speak again, in Sha-Ka’ani.”
Sha-Ka’ani? Was that what he called the Sha-Ka’ari language she had learned? Martha had said the whole planet spoke a single language, though the barbarian must not know that. Even though Tedra spoke another language, he still believed her to be from another country, not another planet. That would make his planet Sha-Ka’an.
Why Tedra felt she had accomplished something by figuring that out, she didn’t know. Maybe because she still didn’t know her tormentor’s name, only his country, and now his planet. But having a positive feeling at that moment, even about something so minor, was needed to counteract all the negative thoughts bombarding her. Tied and gagged. What next?
Chapter Eleven
They were miles away from their place of meeting before Tedra remembered her belt and the homing device it contained. She had been so preoccupied with annoyance over the restraints binding her, as well as distracted by her close proximity to the barbarian, she hadn’t even noticed that all her clothes had been left behind.
He’d climbed aboard his hataar with no help other than the harness post to pull himself up by. Then, still holding one hand to the post, he’d reached down and caught Tedra about the waist, setting her in front of him. With reins attached to the animal’s head, the barbarian had flicked them and off they went, the tamed fembair following close behind.
Now, a good hour later, Tedra couldn’t believe she had been so careless as to overlook something that important. Granted, she’d been gagged and in no position to insist her possessions be brought along. But to just forget? And why didn’t the barbarian want to keep them, if for no other reason than as something curious to show his friends? She had assumed he would when she had taken them off; otherwise she wouldn’t have been so quick to give in and remove her only open link with Martha.
Without voices to follow—and the barbarian had said nothing in all this time—Martha was likely back with the homing device, locked to its signal, maybe even assuming they were silently sharing sex all this time and gloating over it. Without the voices to monitor, the short-range scanner was useless, the reason that the homing signal was so important. The soft clip of the hataar wasn’t likely to be picked up by it. And who knew how many other moving creatures were in the area to confuse the long-range scanner?
Martha would be as lost to what was going on as Tedra was to being protected by her. Without a voice to lock onto, Martha couldn’t Transfer her back to the Rover. Without the phazor combo-unit in her possession, Tedra couldn’t either. Plainly speaking, she would be stranded indefinitely on this backward world without one or the other, and right now she had neither. And it was all his fault.
Tedra was still thinking that when her gag was untied and the cloth pulled from her mouth. So sufficient time had passed, had it? And she was to have learned something? The only thing she’d learned was not to attempt to reach Martha while the barbarian was around. But that farden gag hadn’t been pleasant. Her mouth was as dry as a solaray bath, and one of the things not hanging from the harness post was a water container, so she’d have to suffer with it until water could be found. Maybe the barbarian’s lessons were more ingenious than she had first thought.
After she’d swallowed several times, without much relief, Tedra rasped out, “Tell me ... some . . . thing. Is my time . . . with you to be ... one unpleasantness after . . . another?”
He lowered his head until his chin rested on her shoulder. This put his cheek against hers and started her mouth drooling, which almost took care of the dryness.
“There will be no unpleasantness, kerima, do you simply obey me and acquit yourself as befitting a woman of Kan-is-Tra.”
“Even though I’m not such a woman?”
“You will be,” he said, firm conviction in his tone. “It will be my pleasure to teach you.”
And how much would she suffer in that teaching? “Look, warrior, I’m not an ass-kisser, and I’m not one to keep my opinions to myself either,” Tedra said bluntly. “Where I come from there’s no one who could do to me what you did. That breeds the kind of arrogance and confidence that you yourself possess. You’re not going to beat that out of me, no matter this service I owe you. Would I amuse you as much as I seem to be doing if you did, if I become a carbon copy of the women you’re used to? Why don’t you think about that for a while?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t remove his chin either. In fact, he rubbed his cheek a little against hers in a nuzzling caress that sent gooseflesh over her arms and goaded the flame in her belly. Tedra groaned inwardly. She wasn’t going to let herself get teased into desiring him again, not when the damned warrior didn’t deliver what his subtle actions promised. She had almost changed her mind altogether about wanting him to be her first sex-sharer, not that she had much choice in the matter for the next month, if he ever got around to it. But she wasn’t sure she wanted it from him anymore, not with the way he’d been treating her.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the smell of water. She could actually smell it, and she turned her head an
d saw it, a small stream that shot out into the low-grassed meadow they were crossing, then snaked away again.
Tedra sat up straight when the hataar was turned in that direction, and she was lowering herself even as the animal came to a halt, her hands gripping the harness post until her feet touched the ground. Nor did she wait for permission to quench her thirst, but dropped to her knees at the edge of the sparkling little stream and scooped up what she could in her bound hands.
“What manner of men do you have in your country that they cannot beat you at warrior’s sport?”
So he had been thinking over what she’d said. Or maybe not. It could be just that one remark that had intrigued him.
When she glanced around to see him, she got a close-up view of the fembair instead. The monstrously huge feline had come up behind Tedra to sniff her over while she was on her knees and so much lower than it. She wasn’t used to any kind of live animals, let alone ones of this size, but as long as she was certain the barbarian would tell her if she was in danger of being eaten, she tried ignoring his enormous pet and leaned to the side to see around it.
“Is warrior’s sport what you call weaponless combat?” At his nod, she grinned at him. “Far be it from me to suggest you let your women participate, but in my world they do—and frequently win.”
She wiped her chin on the back of one arm and stood up, to find his expression just the tiniest bit annoyed, which meant he must be a great deal annoyed to let that much show. “You keep calling your country your ‘world.’ You will desist in this, woman.”
She knew damned well that wasn’t what had annoyed him. It was the idea of women beating men that burned his toes.