“You lie. I became drunk.”
“I drugged you, babe, but after you were already—”
“Tedra, look out!” from Garr.
“No!” from far behind her.
She turned, but all she saw was the flash of blue steel coming at her. She had time to do no more than keep her head from leaving her body. She had no time to avoid the backlash of the blade as it bounced off the doorjamb. It knocked her flat. Pain lashed across her chest. She suddenly didn’t feel like trying to get up. The Sha-Ka’ari didn’t care one way or the other. He was desperate to get his hands on Garr, assuming him to be his only protection now. She’d merely been in his way. But he didn’t reach Garr. Challen came charging through the door right behind him, roaring like a man gone mad. His sword buried, lifted, and actually threw the Sha-Ka’ari across the room. That was the last Tedra saw before she closed her eyes against the pain.
And then she was being lifted carefully, so carefully, but the movement still hurt like crazy. She tried holding it in, but the groan got out anyway. The movement stopped instantly. There was another groan, not hers, but it managed to get her eyes back open. Only she doubted what she was seeing: Challen leaning over her with tears in his eyes, tears running down his cheeks, Challen crying?
“Hey, don’t . . . babe.”
She raised her hand to his cheek, but it dropped back before it got there. Stars, she felt so weak—and cold.
“Do you ... do you die, so too will I. Please, chemar, please! You will not die! You cannot!”
“No ... I won’t.”
But he thought she was only trying to tell him what he wanted to hear. He was looking at her blood-covered chest and dying inside. She realized that at the same time it became clear he’d forgotten all about meditechs.
She tried reminding him. “Just get me to a—” But the awful sound of anguished rage he made drowned her out. Garr would have to tell him, she decided. She didn’t have enough strength left to break through all the noise Challen was making. But she wouldn’t have missed this for the world.
Her last thought before she lost consciousness was, That man is definitely in love with me.
Chapter Forty-six
Challen gave her still another frown. Tedra chuckled this time. She felt wonderful, actually close to ecstatic. Her barbarian loved her, and before they left her old quarters at Goverance Building, he’d tell her so.
“I tried to remind you about meditechs, honestly, I did. But you were too busy grieving over me to listen.”
His frown got worse. He was holding her in his lap, in an adjustichair that had made plenty of room for them. She was curled around him, wearing not a stitch of clothes, and feeling not the least bit embarrassed that she wasn’t and he was. But that was the first thing he’d done as soon as she’d brought him there, strip her down and completely examine her body. There was no sign left of her wound, not even a pink mark. The meditech had spit her out with a clean bill of health and the assurance that her son hadn’t been bothered at all by the ordeal. No wonder. He was going to be a warrior after all, just like his father.
His father told her now, “Warriors do not grieve.”
“Oh? Then what would you call it?”
Suddenly his arms closed tight around her, his face buried in her neck. “I thought I was losing you,” he said deeply, with a wealth of feeling. “Woman, you must never leave me!”
“I won’t,” she assured him, holding him just as tightly. Yet after a moment she smiled to herself. “But why is it important to you that I don’t?”
“Why?” He looked up, and back came his frown. “Did I not tell you?”
She ran a finger across his chin, not at all discouraged. “You said something about dying if I died, but . . . why do you feel that way?”
“Because I treasure you more than my life.”
Her finger stilled as the warmth flowed through her. She forgot about hearing the words she was seeking. What he’d just said was quite good enough.
“Oh, Challen, I love you so—”
“Am I intruding?” Rourk Ce Dell asked innocently from the doorway.
“Hell, yes,” Tedra half growled, half groaned. “How did you get in here?”
“Obviously no one was in a hurry to change your identilocks when you moved out, babe, but then, of course, we were invaded not long after that. I gave it a try and found my prints were still on record.”
“Then let me put it another way,” Tedra replied. “What do you want?”
“Just to congratulate the heroes.” He grinned. “By the way, that is a stunning outfit you’re wearing.”
Tedra’s face went up in flames. “You jerk, you farden jerk,” she gritted out before she stomped off to find something to wear, leaving both males laughing behind her. When she came back in a convenience robe, she was still glaring, and they were still laughing. “That wasn’t funny.”
“Yes, it was. You didn’t even know you were sitting there—”
“You’ll change the subject, Rourk, if you know what’s good for you.”
“Very well.” But he really had to fight to get that grin off his lips. “I hear you’ve got at least two hundred prisoners, and more coming in by the hour with your warriors sweeping the city. Did Garr reward you properly?”
“He was very generous, to both of us. Didn’t you stop in to see him, to find out what he has in mind for you? I told him that I would never have escaped without your help.”
“You did?” He was surprised.
“Come on, Rourk, without you I’d probably be a slave on Sha-Ka’ar right now.”
“Instead of a double occupant on Sha-Ka’an?”
“Who says I’m going back there?”
“Well, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I hate it when people take things for granted,” she grumbled. “I really do.”
“I’m guilty.” He sighed.
“So am I.” She finally grinned at him.
When they both looked at Challen, he snorted, “I never take anything for granted.”
“The hell you don’t,” Tedra scoffed, but she was still grinning. “You never had a single doubt that your warriors wouldn’t win the day. Admit it.”
“This is so, but I did not take it for granted, since no other thing could have happened.”
“Arrogant, isn’t he?” Tedra said to Rourk.
“It sounded like just plain confidence to me.”
“Oh, he’s got barrels full of that, but who can blame him? They don’t come much bigger than he is, you know, at least not in Centura.”
“So what’s the word on getting our women back?” Rourk asked to distract the frown Tedra was getting from the big guy. “Has Garr made contact yet?”
“Certainly.”
“Well? Is there going to be a problem? There shouldn’t be, when you have their warriors as hostages.”
“Actually, they were willing to sacrifice these guys to keep the women. But Garr pulled a bluff at my suggestion.”
“What?”
Tedra chuckled. “They were told to return the women or Sha-Ka’an would make war on Sha-Ka’ar. A few of them remembered where they came from, and so they decided not to chance a hostile visit from barbarians of their mother planet.”
“Was it a bluff?” Rourk asked Challen.
“No. All must be finished here before I can take my woman home. Does this mean we must go to Sha-Ka’ar first, then there we would go.”
“Well, I thought it was a bluff,” Tedra said, smiling at her warrior. “Would you really make war on a whole planet for me, Challen?”
“Do you not know I would do anything for you, does it make you happy?”
“I—ah—think that’s my cue to be going,” Rourk said.
“Good-bye, babe,” Tedra said without looking at him, already crawling back into Challen’s lap.
“Have I said something to please you?” Challen asked, settling her back into her previous position.
“What gave you tha
t idea?” she teased him. “By the way, Garr is letting me keep the Rover.”
“I thought the Rover was yours already.”
“No, Martha and I stole it. Now it’s mine, which means we can go anywhere in the universe. And World Discovery was my second career choice.”
“You will not miss being a Sec 1?”.
“I’ll always be a Sec 1, babe. I just won’t be working at it anymore. After all, there’s this barbarian I know who gets nervous when I think of fighting-other guys. Of course, he’s delighted if I want to fight him.”
Challen chuckled. “Best you remember what happens when you fight him.”
“All I can seem to remember just now is his very gentle way of making me cry defeat. Why do you do it that way?”
“Because it gives me pleasure to cover your body with mine, chemar. I see it gives you pleasure to know that.”
“Not at all.” She managed the aloof sound she was trying for, but just barely.
Challen grinned wickedly. “Woman, you lie. I can smell your heat.”
“You can not! Can you? Now that’s not fair, warrior. You give so little away, and I give too much.”
Challen shook his head. “And this displeases you? You wish to hear that you have captivated me, bewitched me?” He started taking off her robe. “You wish to hear that I am whole only when you are near, nothing when we are apart?” He got his bracs off without disturbing her position, but then he repositioned her. “You wish to hear how much I yearn to join with you, how much I need you?”
He entered her slowly, exquisitely, and Tedra couldn’t hear another thing. She melted around him. He melted into her. Fused, joined, without separation—his. Stars, how she loved him, and loved loving him. But he knew that, the beloved jerk. And he had a right to be arrogant and cocky, didn’t he? Look at him. Where in the universe was there another man like him? And he was all hers.
She stayed right where she was, even after her breathing returned to normal. She’d like to go to sleep like that, with him still inside her, his strong arms about her, his heart beating under her cheek. But she wasn’t tired. The day had been too exciting.
“That wasn’t fair of you, warrior. You did that to distract me, didn’t you, because you know what I’m fishing for, and you just won’t say it.”
“Perhaps if you tell me what you wish to hear, you will hear it.”
“I want to hear only that you love me.”
“But warriors do not love.”
“That, warrior, is worth a challenge!” she growled, coming up to glare at him.
But he caught her head in his hands, and his mouth fastened on hers before she could say any more. It was a kiss worth a thousand words, filled with all the passion they felt for each other.
And then she had her words, whispered against her lips. “Warriors do not love . . . they should not . . . but here is one who does. I love you, woman. My heart cries with how much I love you.”
“Oh, Challen!” Tedra cried.
He sighed. “This was to make you happy.”
“I am!” she wailed.
“As you were at the giving of the fembair?”
“Yes!”
The warrior could only shake his head, grinning, but Martha was laughing her head off as the viewing screen behind them went blank.
* * *
Version History
1.0—23July2004—Spell-checked and formatted from the paperback.