“Doesn’t it matter to you that now I know I have to learn swordwork because of you?” I asked, reflecting that the more upset I got, the more answers I seemed to get. Maybe if I got hysterical, which wasn’t, at that point, too farfetched a possibility, I’d know it all. “Don’t you want to be as safe as you promised I would be?”
“To wish to learn sword skill in order to protect your hamak is a fine and noble motivation, wenda,” he allowed, a twinkling in his eyes despite the continued sobriety of his expression. “There is, however, your hamak’s permission first to be obtained, which may perhaps be gotten by pleasing him. Do you mean to please him?”
That’s a good question, I thought, still looking up at him. I’d just discovered that the reason I needed swordwork was to protect my beloved, but my beloved, a true l’lenda, considered that too funny for words. It so happened I did too, especially since Cinnan and Dallan would be with us, but none of that answered the question. Tammad thought it was funny, but I knew; was I going to let something terrible happen to him because I was too good to bend a little?
“It so happens I do intend pleasing him,” I replied with a sniff, finally letting his arm go. “What do I have to do first?”
“That, wenda, should be fairly obvious,” he said, straightening up and raising to his lips the goblet he was carrying, probably to hide a grin. “You have not yet greeted my return in the manner which has grown usual with you.”
He spent some time swallowing the wine he’d taken, but why he wasn’t choking was beyond me. He knew damned well I’d have to drop my shield to give him his greeting, and that would put me at his mercy again—if I couldn’t figure out what he was doing and how to stop it. He didn’t seem willing to discuss what he’d done to me; was that because he was hiding something—or because he didn’t understand it himself?
“Now, how could I have forgotten to greet you?” I asked in a murmur, deciding to go for broke. It was time to answer a previously asked question, and also time to dent some of that nauseatingly thick smugness my hamak was wrapped in. For the first time I made the effort to really look at the inside of my shield, just as I’d looked at the outside of Len’s. At first there was nothing, no single crack or crevice, nothing that would allow the faintest breath in or out—and then it came to me that I was looking at it wrong. Len’s shield was the way mine had been before the trouble, adequate for the purpose but full of spaces if you looked at it properly. Mine lacked those spaces—but that didn’t mean I couldn’t go around it. “Around” wasn’t the right word any more than “spaces” was, but that was the closest I could come to verbalizing something that could only be felt. My shield had no spaces, but I could go around it.
It felt odd reaching around with my shield still in place, as though I were reaching out with a hand that didn’t move from my side-yet could still get to and grasp anything in normal range. An invisible hand it was, or an emotion invisible to another empath, to someone who was watching closely for my shield to drop. Rather than becoming aware of my unshielded mind, Tammad felt instead the bodiless kiss I had taken to giving him in greeting, the sensation that was interpreted as having a pair of lips pressed to his. He started when he felt that unexpected sensation, and then he was frowning down at me.
“What have you done, wenda?” he demanded, his annoyance and outrage deliberately pushing at my shield. “You could not have touched me as you are.”
“The wise teacher makes sure to stay a few steps ahead of her student,” I commented, drawing my knees up to hug them with my arms. “I told you my abilities were growing stronger and spreading. Didn’t you enjoy your greeting?”
“Ever shall I find joy in the greeting of my wenda,” he said as he stared down at me, his annoyance so high that his voice had nearly become a growl. He seemed to want to say something else, but rather than do so he turned abruptly and went back to the tray, lifted the pitcher, then took his time pouring more wine. When he finished his task and turned back to me, he was well in control of himself again.
“There is a thing you perhaps fail to comprehend, hama,” he said, the words as smooth as his expression. “When a man bands a wends she is then completely his, to be touched and used by him as thoroughly as he wishes. No wenda is permitted to keep herself from her memabrak, the man who has banded her, in any manner whatsoever. Should you truly wish to please me, you must also do the same.”
His blue eyes were full of satisfaction as he sipped from his refilled goblet, the satisfaction of knowing he would win no matter what I did. If I obeyed him I would be unshielded, if I disobeyed he could forget about teaching me to use a sword. There were definite disadvantages in being paired with a strong, intelligent leader of men, I could see, but I really had no choice. It was annoying that he was making it so hard for me to protect him, but I wasn’t about to give up just because he was a stubborn barbarian. I could be stubborn too, and I had to learn to counter whatever it was he’d done to me at some time or other. I would have preferred later to sooner, but it wasn’t working out that way.
“Of course no woman should keep herself from her memabrak,” I agreed after only a slight hesitation, dropping my shield even as I rose to my feet. “What else may I do to please you, hamak?”
“You may now join me in our meal,” he answered, the grin returning when he let his eyes and mind brush me. The hum of interest in his mind was always so strong that it intimidated me somehow, making me feel small and weak and very vulnerable despite the fact that I knew he would never hurt me. Or, rather, that he would never hurt me voluntarily. Sometimes when he made love to me he lost control of himself; although he never caused any serious damage, it was enough to remind a woman of the price she sometimes had to pay for being mindless enough to get involved with a barbarian in the first place.
I walked over to him near the tray, joined him in deciding what we both wanted to eat, then carried one of the chosen bowls as we took them back to the cushions. Every step of the way I was aware of his attention on me, the hum in his mind that could turn to a growl at any time, his very close proximity without the least touch of his hand. He was brushing me with his restrained desire, forcing me to feel it, getting me ready for what he’d want after the meal. He knew I lost control when he did that to me, that I became aware of the soft fur under my feet, the silken gown draping my otherwise bare body, the five bronze, small-linked chains that were the bands he’d put me in. Soon those things would focus on and highlight my own desire, and control of my abilities would be completely beyond me.
“Do not sit yet, hama,” he directed, breaking into my thoughts just as we reached the cushions. “First I would have you remove that gown, so that I might look upon all of the woman who is mine.”
I could feel his eyes on me as I bent to put my bowl on the carpet fur, but I didn’t dare look up. Without the gown I would be totally naked, in a room where anyone could walk in at any time. Most people knocked before entering a bathing room, but not everyone and not every time. He was trying to fluster me, and was unfortunately doing a damned good job of it. It took very little time to slip out of the gown and put it aside, and then I stood in nothing but my bands.
“How lovely a woman is in the sight of a man,” he said softly, this time drawing my eyes to him. He had removed his swordbelt and seated himself among the cushions, his goblet on a small, low table not far from his left hand, the bowl he’d chosen in his right. He sat cross-legged as he looked up at me, and that light-blue stare conveyed the absolute sense of possession all Rimilian males felt when they looked at their women.