I didn’t know what he was talking about, but didn’t have the time to wonder about it. His lips came quickly to mine, soft but hungry, enticing rather than demanding, taunting and teasing and impossible to escape. Once, when I turned my face away from him, his lips came to my throat instead, drawing a moan from me despite everything I could do. He was using what he’d done to me earlier, ruthlessly and with full knowledge, bringing me to the writhing point without once touching me with his hands. I could have cried when I realized I wanted him to touch me with his hands, but more from desolate confusion than anything else. What had those men done to me that I was no longer mistress of my own body? Why did my will crumble and my blood run hot any time one of them was too near? I moaned again and put my hands on those wide, metal-thewed arms, trying to press myself up against him, but he refused to allow that. He continued doing nothing but kiss me until I rolled about in near-madness, dying for him, and then he leaned away.
“Wenda, I would make you fully mine,” he said softly, holding up the fifth band. “With this band I swear to defend your life with mine, to share my victories and keep sadness from you, to deny with a sword all those who would take you from me. With this band take my heart, for they are both equally yours. ”
He reached down then and closed it around my throat, and only then did he take me in his arms. His kisses grew fierce and his hands touched me everywhere, and it was impossible to deny him anything he wanted. I kissed his face and bit at his earlobe even as he laughed and removed his haddin, and then he put me beneath him, to enter me and take his due as my owner. It took a long time to satisfy both of us, to quench the flames that had risen so high, but even so I still remembered, and afterward lay with my hand to the band on my throat and wept.
7
Dallan, the monster, refused to allow me time to brood or dwell on should-have-beens. I had been banded as his and would think only of him, or at least that’s what I was told. I wanted to lie still and ask the unanswering air why Tammad had never gone through the rite of five-banding the way Dallan had, but my new owner had other ideas. I lay curled on my left side, facing away from him, but suddenly found myself being pulled over onto my back so the l’lenda above me might look at me more easily. Angrily I struck at his face with both fists, expecting the useless gesture to be ignored as usual, suddenly shocked when my blows landed against his nose and in his right eye, sending him back with a shout of surprised pain. I sat up quickly with both hands to my mouth, horrified at what I had done, watching as he sat and cradled his eye and nose in his hands, a disbelieving tinge to his thoughts. When he finally looked over at me I was already edging away across the carpet fur, about five feet from him. I squeaked in alarm when he began crawling after me with dark determination in his thoughts, but shifting to crawling myself didn’t do more than delay the inevitable. As fast as I crawled, he crawled faster, finally getting close enough to put a big hand on my ankle. I cried out when he caught me, wishing I’d gotten to my feet and run instead of crawling like an infant, but I knew why I hadn’t. As big as he was on all fours he was still bigger upright, and somehow I thought it would go harder for me if I was caught with both of us erect. How true that was I’d never know; it was hard enough on all fours.
Dallan wasn’t anywhere near furiously angry, but that didn’t mean I had the nerve to struggle when he caught me. I shook my head desperately when he pulled me back to him, wishing I could say it had been an accident, wishing I could say it was his fault for not protecting himself. I was trying to think of something I could say, afraid to imagine what he would do to me, wasting time picturing those big fists crashing into my body or face. I call imagining being severely beaten that way a waste of time simply because with l’lendaa such as Dallan it was. There are worse things they can do to punish insolence, and Dallan chose one of them.
With very little effort I was draped over his knees, but I wasn’t held down. I felt the ridiculously tiny silk skirt being lifted away, my bottom was patted, and then the first smack came. I jumped at the sting and writhed in humiliation, feeling so miserable I wanted to cry. Dallan knew there was no need to hold me down, that I didn’t have the nerve to try getting away, but that wasn’t the reason why I wasn’t being restrained. It was part of my punishment to have to lie face down across his lap, with nothing holding me there, simply accepting the humiliation he gave. If he had really hurt me I could have found fury to brace myself with, but he didn’t hurt me. He merely punished me one smack at a time, putting enough strength into it to let me know I was being punished, taking it slow with the thought that we had all day. He may have all day, but after the fifth whack, I began growing desperate.
By the time it was over there were tears running down my cheeks, and not only from the ache I’d been given. The punishment had already been well begun when a knock came at the door, followed by the sound of the door being opened. In utter, chasm-deep embarrassment I began shifting out of that humiliating position, not caring what was done to me afterward as long as no one was there to witness it, but I’d forgotten the decision wasn’t mine to make. Suddenly there was a fist tangled in my hair, not painful as long as I lay still, and the punishment was continuing, somewhat harder than it had been when begun. I cried out in misery when the amusement crowded at my mind, coming from the woman who had entered, the one who had been the first of the three during my bathing. She laughed aloud from behind me, gleefully approving, then moved closer.
“I bring your midday meal, drin Dallan, and that of your weerees as well,” she said. “Do you wish me to serve it?”
“Not at the moment, Ladir,” Dallan answered, still swinging his arm. “I now attend to a necessary chore, one which will be some time in ending. This one will serve me when I wish to be served.”
“And eagerly,” the woman Ladir laughed, while I moaned to myself over that “some time in ending” comment. “The red in her pretty, rounded seat will assure you of that. Do you wish me to fetch a strap?”
“No.” The monster chuckled as I hid my face in my hands, blushing fit to burn out a circuit. “Should I require a strap, I will send this one to fetch it. You may go now.”
“As you will, my Drin,” the woman answered, taking the earlier tray with her. I was crying hard by then, more than miserable, but the punishment continued only another minute or two. Abruptly it stopped, and the fist was withdrawn from my hair.
“I suddenly find myself interested in what is held by that tray,” Dallan mused, almost to himself. “Shall I continue with what I currently do, or have I one about who will serve me eagerly?”
“I will serve you!” I choked out immediately, willing to do anything to get vertical again. If I’d begun feeling intimidated by him that morning, by then the process was nearly complete.
“Excellent,” he said, the laughter in his mind surrounding me to suffocation. “Rise, then, and begin serving me.”
I struggled to my feet without looking at him, hurried to the tray to get a bowl of spiced meat strips garnished with nuts and vegetables, then went back to the tray after delivering the bowl, under orders to bring a goblet of wine. I held the wine goblet while my owner ate, kneeling in front of him, my eyes and head down, relinquishing the wine only when he wanted to sip it, or when he was ready for the next course. It still amazed me how much those men ate without getting fat, a thought I held to as I stared at the beautifully decorated golden goblet in my hands. It was painful thinking about the serving I was doing, as though I were a slave, beaten down and terrified of what would happen if I did something wrong. I wasn’t exactly beaten down and I wasn’t exactly terrified, but I was so ashamed of myself that I couldn’t stand it. I was a coward for letting myself be browbeaten into obeying, but I couldn’t face that punishment again. I glanced up at Dallan where he sat and ate, found his eyes on me as his mind hummed, and quickly looked down again, hating myself even more. He couldn’t have done that to me if I hadn’t let him, but I couldn’t seem to find it in me to argue the point.