“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.”
This merely raised a golden brow. “Perhaps you have forgotten what your service is, woman. It is to deny me nothing. If I demand your willingness, will you deny it to me?”
Tedra flushed with chagrin, and felt her temper returning. “There’s a difference between willingness given and willingness forced. I gave it to you before because I wanted to… because I wanted you. But I don’t want you any longer, so now you will indeed have to demand it from me. I won’t fight you. That’s not what I meant at all. No, I’ll obey you, just like I’ll obey all your farden rules around here, because, believe me, you did make your point last night, warrior. You made it about an hour after you got started. The other five hours’ worth of your barbaric punishment only made me appreciate my own world, my own culture, where women aren’t subjected to a man’s whim. They made me see how stupid I was all these years, looking for a man I couldn’t beat, thinking that’s what I wanted. I suppose I should thank you for making me see that’s not what I wanted after all. I’d much rather break the fingers of a guy who tries doing to me what you did. I won’t make the mistake of losing that option the next time around.”
“Does this mean you will try to break my fingers?”
He was still amused! Still grinning! “Not yours, beetlebrain,” she fairly snarled, “I was talking about the next guy I’m dumb enough to think I want. Stars! I just love wasting my breath, I really do!”