The Warrior Challenged
Sharon Green
1
I sat on the carpet fur among the cushions, my eyes closed, feeling the faint, unimaginative sadness brush at me. As sadness it was no more than mild regret, about as compelling as having missed that dull meeting you had decided to go to, but then forgot about. I sighed at the thin-bloodedness of the sadness, then shook my head.
“That wouldn’t be enough to get a blink out of a chronic hysteric,” I told him without opening my eyes. “Try it again, and this time make me cry.”
A surge of annoyance and frustration daggered through the weakling sadness, strong enough to make me flinch if I hadn’t been guarding against it, and then he made a sound that was half growl and half vexation.
“Should it be your wish to weep, wenda, there are other means of achieving that,” he said in that dangerous, deep-voiced way of his. “As my efforts in this manner fail to please you, it shall likely soon become my duty to fetch a switch. ”
“Threatening the teacher isn’t allowed,” I answered with a laugh, finally opening my eyes to look at him. Tammad lay stretched out on the carpeting not far from me, one big leg bent comfortably at the knee, the rest of his giant body not as relaxed as it should have been. His swordbelt was conspicuous by its absence, leaving him nothing but the green haddin he wore wrapped around his loins, and his leather wristbands. His blond-haired head was crammed full with feelings of rebellion and resentment, feelings he wasn’t used to experiencing without being able to do something about them, and his blue eyes said his threat had been only half joking. Tammad was getting impatient with his progress—or lack of it—and was having trouble controlling that impatience.
“If this isn’t working out it’s only because you’re not trying hard enough,” I told him with feigned calm. Tammad loved me, I knew he did, but if he decided to look around for something to punish me for, he would not have to look very far. I’d only gotten my empathetic ability back a couple of days earlier, but I’d spent a good deal of that time experimenting with the changes I’d noticed. Tammad didn’t like the idea of my experimenting, and if he found out about it I’d really be in for it.
“If this isn’t working out, it’s only because you’re not trying hard enough,” I told him as his pretty blue eyes, looked annoyed; I was trying to sound firm and teacher-like instead of nervous. “And if you’re scandalized over being taught by a woman instead of another man, you have only yourself to blame. Len was perfectly willing to put you through these exercises, but he couldn’t do it with his head splitting apart. Which was your doing.”
“A doing which I truly regret,” Tammad said with a sigh, accepted-guilt now flowing through his mind. “To give pain to one attempting to aid you is not an action of honor, even should that action be involuntary, as mine was. I continue to have no understanding as to why it should have occurred.”
“That’s because you can’t see yourself from the outside,” I said, immediately soothing the ache I could feel in him as I pushed the skirt of my gown aside so I could crawl to him. “Your entire life has been aimed at being better than the other men around you, toward making yourself their leader. A leader dominates, always, and that’s what you were doing to Len when he tried to teach you. He can do something you can’t, but you weren’t about to allow that to keep you from being denday over him. Len isn’t strong enough to block your
output without shielding, and if he shields he can’t teach you. If he doesn’t shield-well, he ends up with the kind of headache he did end up with. He knows you weren’t doing it on purpose, but he also knows that doesn’t make any difference. He doesn’t have the strength to fend you off and teach you at the same time, so you’re stuck with me.”
“A wenda who does indeed have the necessary strength,” he murmured, putting those big hands to my sides to pull me down closer to him. “For teaching as well as other, more pleasurable pursuits.”
“Indeed, hamak,” I murmured in Rimilian, Tammad’s language, putting my hands to his face. “This wenda shall ever have strength for her beloved, for he is her sadendrak, the one who gives meaning to her life in all things. Perhaps a short rest would now be advisable, to conserve the strength of one who learns, for other, more pleasurable pursuits.”
I leaned down to put my lips on his, feeling again that I would never get enough of him no matter what, and he wasted no time putting his hand behind my head and returning the kiss. I could feel the growl of desire beginning in him, just as it usually did when he looked at me or put his hands on me, but then the heavy calm swirled into his mind, the calm he used as both a shield and a control over his own emotions. He took full pleasure out of the kiss we shared, but when it was over he simply lifted me away from his chest.
“As this one must learn, best would be that we continue with the lessons,” he said, his light eyes showing the calm behind them, his mind firmly made up. “As I must depart soon to join the Chamd Rellis for a meal, we must leave other things for another time. For what reason were you displeased with my efforts?”
“If you had made the effort, I wouldn’t be displeased,” I muttered, staring at him darkly from where I sat on the carpeting, hating the way he could ignore me as I’d never been able to ignore him. “Does Rellis mean more to you than I do?”
“The Chamd Rellis is our host, wenda,” he answered gently with only the hint of a grin in his eyes, one hand stroking my arm. “To refuse the invitation of one’s host to a meal, or even to appear later than the appointed time, is to give insult to one who has given hospitality. That you find great joy in squirming beneath me is known to me, yet were you given such joy when we awoke, and will be given the same again later. Might Rellis not be given a small portion of the attention which is rightfully yours, in return for the welcome we have had in his house?”
The grin had by that time spread to his face, most likely due to the way I was blushing I wouldn’t have described my enjoyment quite the way he had, and it was enough to make me back off in embarrassment just the way he’d wanted me to do. I was learning that he didn’t have to hand out orders to make me obey him, and the revelation was less of an interesting discovery than a nasty surprise.
“I’m thinking about hating you,” I stated as I leaned both arms on his chest to look straight down at him, trying to put a growl in my voice. “I’m also thinking about raping you.”
“Should you find it possible, you have my permission to do so,” he came back with a broadened grin and a chuckle, his eyes shining. “I am now aware that you would find the first as difficult to achieve as the second. Are you prepared as yet to discuss the reason for your displeasure with my efforts to learn?”
“I’ll be glad to discuss my reasons,” I agreed with annoyance, wishing I could find a way to rape that big hulk of a warrior. “Your efforts were unacceptable because they didn’t have any—” I quickly lowered my face to his shoulder, sank my teeth into it hard enough for him to feel, then raised my head to his startled outrage and finished, “—bite.”
“Perhaps, woman, it would be best if I were to fetch a switch after all,” he growled angrily. The look in his eyes hardened as he began projecting that deadly promise effect, but I’d been expecting it and was already shielding.
“There, that’s what you were missing!” I pounced, my pointing finger startling him out of the anger. “You have enough strength to project any emotion you like, but the only ones that get that strength are the emotions of violence. You have to learn to push behind the others just as you do with anger and outrage; otherwise you’re wasting your time.”
“I dislike your manner of evoking the reactions you seek,” he grumbled, bringing one hand up to rub at his bitten shoulder, his eyes still displeased with me but lacking that you’ve-had-it outrage which usually means I’m in trouble. “How am I to put strength behind those feelings which normally have no strength of their own?”