There was no morning, of course, but I awoke with Dallan’s arms around me and his lips against mine, giving me a good morning wish. I found myself melting to him most willingly, more than happy to oblige if he wanted anything, then cringed and stiffened against the blast of struggling calm that hit me. Dallan, feeling my reaction, raised his head to look out of our little nook and saw the looming bulk of Tammad. His dark outline was considerably more calm than the calm his mind was fighting for, and I couldn’t understand his reaction. He’d even seen me being used by other men without getting ruffled, so why should Dallan’s kissing me bother him so much? I didn’t understand what was going through his mind, and also didn’t understand Dallan’s instant amusement.
“I bid you a pleasant morning, denday Tammad,” he said, covertly tightening his hold on me to keep me from moving away from him as I’d immediately tried doing. “I trust your sleep was adequate?”
“Quite adequate,” the barbarian answered, paying a high inner price for the evenness of his tone. “I have already had my meal, and have come to see how quickly you will be prepared to continue on. ”
“We have only just awakened,” Dallan answered, moving his hands on me under the covering fur so that I gasped and arched against him. “I had intended taking a short while with my woman before seeking sustenance, and I now see that the time must be brief indeed. We will be with you as quickly as I see to her. ”
He turned away from the barbarian and began kissing me again, well aware of the fact that I was nearly choking on the storm of bulging, rippling fury-calm coming at me. Dallan was enjoying himself immensely, but from a cause other than the usual one. I didn’t know what he was up to, and I really didn’t care; I just knew what I wasn’t about to be the main attraction in his one-man show.
Blocking out Tammad’s frothing and Dallan’s nearness was as easy as pulling out teeth with nothing but fingers, but somehow, miraculously, I managed to do it. After that I gathered what I needed to use on Dallan, at the same time keeping all my fingers crossed tight. I had to dip into the area of nervous reactions for what I wanted, but it was the only thing I could think of that might possibly be mistaken for a natural urge. Certain tensions produce a nervousness in some people that stems from mental activity but manifests mainly as a physical response, actually forcing the body to not only feel the distress, but to actively participate in it. You don’t have to have a weak bladder to feel the urge to relieve yourself if you’re jumpy enough, and you don’t have to be nervous to feel that way if an empath turns desperate. Dallan held me pinned to the fur with his body, his hands in my hair as his lips teased mine, his right knee already beginning to insert itself between my knees, and all I could do was pray that he hadn’t yet relieved himself that morning. I brushed him with that special feeling then brushed him again, miserably aware of how quickly I was growing weak and willless, almost convinced that I was wasting my time—and then it took him. His muscles clenched and his teeth gritted almost at the same time, and he was abruptly no longer interested in taking his time. He brushed the covering fur away and scrambled out of the nook, trotted past Tammad without a word, then disappeared back around the last fold of rock in the direction from which we’d come the night before. I lay still on the furs trying to smooth the jangle out of my own nerves, and saw Tammad’s outline turn back to me again. He’d been startled by Dallan’s sudden and unexpected departure, but his startlement had inexplicably turned to anger.
“So, wenda, once again you act to suit yourself,” he said very softly, slowly moving closer to where I lay. “The rights and desires of those about you mean as little as ever, causing you not a moment’s hesitation in thought. To do as you will is a thing you have ever done, and undoubtedly always shall. What a fool a man would be to think you able to grow and change—and what a fool to speak of regret for having given you the fruits of your efforts. I shall not be such a fool again.”
The bitterness and disgust in his mind cut at me like a cold wind in the dead of winter, crushing me down, suffocating me. I found myself cowering back against the inner wall of the nook, clutching the cover fur to me, shivering as though it really was the dead of winter. My mind had turned too numb with fear to do anything more than quiver and shake, faint with the thought that his hulking shadow-shape might come closer yet, sick with terror over what he would do to me. If it had gone on another minute I know I would have fainted, but that was when Dallan came trotting back.
“Terril, forgive me,” he said as he approached the nook, a chuckle of amusement in his voice. “I meant no insult in leaving so abruptly, for a man has little choice at a time such as that. It was not—What has happened here?”
He stopped beside the barbarian to look down at me, confusion touching him, but it was nothing compared to what was in Tammad’s mind. The big barbarian had suddenly turned almost as numb as I felt, and his shadow profile stared at Dallan.
“For what—for what reason did you leave the woman?” he forced out at last, almost choking on the words. “Were you—ill, or incapacitated, or—driven away?”
“I was forced, yes, but only to relieve myself,” Dallan growled, abruptly glowing with the beginnings of a monstrous anger. “Have you grown to believe the woman capable of affecting our bodies as well as our minds? Must all that occurs be laid at her feet, tied to her throat, or heaped upon her head? Do you wish me to beat her for her fear of you?”
The larger shadow jerked his head back to me, silent in the darkness where our bodies dwelt, screaming with guilt where his mind dwelled alone. I nearly threw up with the agony he felt and then he was gone, running silently around the fold and up the trail, disappearing into the darkness and taking his illness and pain with him. I didn’t know Dallan was down on his knees beside me and holding me until Tammad had put enough rock between us to be out of range, and then I collapsed in hysterics. It hurt so much I thought I would break, and Dallan’s words came to me as I forced the fur against my mouth and face to muffle my screams.
“No, memabra, do not weep,” he growled, trying to be soothing but sounding savage. “Had he been worthy of you he would have proven it during my provocation of him, yet was it the opposite that he proved. To engender such fear in a small and helpless woman! I know not how a l’lenda might sink so low, yet do I know I shall not leave you alone with him again. We will complete this journey as quickly as possible, and when we return you need never see him again.”
He held me tight trying to calm the near-insane crying I twisted about in the grip of, but his efforts were useless while I found it impossible to calm myself. I’d accomplished what I’d tried to do and had touched Dallan without his knowing it, but what about the rest of it? Tammad had been right in accusing me and Dallan wrong incoming to my defense, but how could I tell them the truth? How could I face that bitterness and disgust from Tammad again, especially after what Dallan had made him feel? And what would they do to me if they found out the truth now, knowing they’d been fooled? I still wanted to spit out the words of truth to keep them from cutting me to pieces with the sharpness of their edges, but tear closed my throat and left them deep inside to silently spill the blood of my life. I screamed into the fur with the agony of unrelieved pain, brought about by the abomination of a disease called cowardice.