“Your wrist is bruised,” he said in a much quieter voice. “I’m not surprised, but I honestly don’t think he did it on purpose. Terry, why don’t you try meeting him half way? If you give him a chance to make you happy, I know he can do it.”
Happy. The tears increased to sobs, making it very difficult to speak. I let it go on for a short while, then managed to force the words out.
“I need an honest answer from you, Garth,” I husked, turning to my back again to look up at him. “Will you give me an honest answer?”
“If I can,” he agreed quietly, looking down at me. “What’s your question?”
“If a woman you loved challenged you with weapons, would you agree to face her?” I demanded. “According to what you said you would be more likely to grow angry and punish her for trying to make you hurt her. But if a woman you needed desperately for other purposes tried the same thing, wouldn’t you be even more likely to agree against your better judgment just to make her happy, just to coddle her into a good enough mood to do what you needed her to do? Even if it made you look foolish?”
“I see what you’re leading up to, but you’re wrong,” he answered immediately, his expression concerned. “Tammad did punish you for getting him involved in that fiasco—even I had trouble keeping up with him, and I wasn’t being dragged along by one wrist.”
“Sure he punished me.” I nodded, closing my eyes again. “After he realized he’d made a tactical mistake. There isn’t another woman on this world he would have taken that from, not the way his mind works. He doesn’t want anything from me but my talent, and everything he does makes me more and more convinced of it.”
I couldn’t see Garth’s face, but that doesn’t mean his emotions were closed off, too. He felt a pang of guilty realization when I said my piece, privately agreeing with my conclusions but not about to say so out loud. He wanted to believe Tammad’s reasons for kidnapping me were noble and romantic, not mercenary and emotionless, but things weren’t working out well for him. Well, he wasn’t the only one they weren’t working out for.
“Do you know what it’s like being wanted for nothing more than what you can do?” I asked, watching the colors appear and disappear against my closed eyelids. “It’s like a slap or a kick, but a lot less honest. It makes you want to run and run from wherever you happen to be and never go back. I thought he wanted me and I was the happiest woman in the universe. Then I found out he just wanted to use roe and something broke inside. I swore I wouldn’t help him and I’ll keep that vow. Why won’t he let me go?”
“Perhaps because he no longer cares to press the matter of your assistance, yet still desires you,” Tammad’s voice came instead of Garth’s, startling me. His calm was as deep as it had ever been, and I hadn’t been aware of his return. “It is now no more than your own fears and misconceptions which keep you from me, hama. I will not long allow such a state to continue.”
“You’re just being stubborn!” I cried, twisting around in the fur to look at him where he stood by the pavilion entrance. “Anyone with any sense could see that it was over between us! I can never again believe anything you say, and nothing will change that! It won’t get any better just because you want it to!”
“Perhaps you are mistaken,” he said, grinning faintly as he folded those massive arms across his chest. “Am I not denday, and is my word not law? It remains to be seen what my will is able to accomplish. At the moment my will concerns you, and I have returned to assign you your duties.”
“What duties?” I frowned, narrowing my eyes at him. “How many times do I have to say I won’t work for you?”
“You will work if it should be your wish to eat,” he came back dryly, staring down at me. “When last you were upon my world, your meals were earned with your talent. As you no longer care to exercise that talent, other duties have been found for you. You will assist the other women in the preparation of our provender, hopefully learning that which requires no great talent—merely some manner of intelligence and diligent effort.”
“And if it doesn’t happen to be my desire to eat?” I shot back, feeling his ridicule as strongly as the throb in my right wrist. “If I tell you to go to hell with your jobs and your meals, what then?”
“Do you need to ask?” he said softly, crouching down in front of me to stare at me more closely. “In one manner or another you will obey me, wenda, do not believe otherwise. Do you rise to your feet and follow me now, else we shall see the strength of your will—compared to the strength of my arm.”
The look of determination in his blue eyes was steady and solid, as steady as the calm still possessing his mind. He had undoubtedly decided to bore me to death with menial chores, and then simply wait for me to beg him to change his mind and let me do things his way. Well, if that was what he was up to, he had along wait ahead of him.
“As long as I have to be here, one job is as bad as another.” I shrugged, then forced myself to my feet. “If it’s cooking you want, then you’ve got it. As long as I don’t have to share the meal with you.”
The flash of anger was too strong for him to cover up entirely, but his expression never changed—as though I couldn’t tell he was angry if it didn’t show in his face. He had a habit of behaving that way sometimes, acting as though he believed I couldn’t tell what he was feeling if there were no external signs of it. He knew better than that, of course, but only intellectually. Emotionally he was just as badly prepared to cope with an empath as any other untalented person.
“There is one other thing before we go,” he said, reaching to his swordbelt without getting out of his crouch. “On this world, wendaa are banded, and you have too long gone without my bands. Stand as you are.”
I looked down to see him holding two of the small-linked, bronze-colored chains his people called wenda hands, and as I watched he closed first one and then the other on my ankles. The chains weren’t locked but they didn’t have to be. It took the strength of a man to get them open again, the sort of strength no woman could exert. I stiffened as he closed them on me, but didn’t bother trying to protest. His satisfaction was a palpable thing, so strong I could see it in his eyes when he stood straight again.
“Should you be wondering, you will not be banded further this time,” he informed me, looking down at me as he folded his arms again. “Should you wish the third, fourth and fifth bands, you will discover you must earn them, as any other wenda roust. When I find myself pleased with you, I will consider banding you further.”
“That goes without saying,” I nodded, “but you haven’t told me what I must do to be banded less. That’s the part I’m interested in.”
The great mass of satisfaction he’d been feeling was suddenly punctured, causing an explosion of frustration to light his mind. Isis eyes darkened with the thunder of his anger, and his hands came to my arms so fast and hard that I gasped.
“I am pleased to see you feel free to find amusement at my expense,” he growled, lifting me off the floor toward him. “Did you find less pleasure in my company, you would undoubtedly feel less pleasure in taunting me so, for you would fear my wrath. Though my wishes are of little concern to you, wenda, I suggest you consider my wrath. There are those who deem it a thing to be avoided at all costs.”
“Tammad, don’t let her get you angry,” Garth urged, suddenly right beside the barbarian. My eyes wide and staring, I wasn’t up to saying anything yet, but Garth took care of that lack. “Don’t you see she’s doing it on purpose, to force you into turning her loose? If she doesn’t know what to say to people to get them to do as she wishes, no one does! If you really don’t want her, let he go now, but if you do—then fight for her!”