Double whammy, feeding him, which had been such an erotic experience just last night, and she couldn’t very well not remember that while sitting on him,andbeing forced to handle and smell the food she couldn’t have. Talk about your cruel and unusual punishments. Or was this merely a little extra thrown in as they discussed what a bad girl she’d been?
“Let me take a wild guess,” she said, reaching for the platter of meat and thinking about dumping it over his head. “Your good buddy Tamiron spilled his guts to you, right?”
“His guts remain where they should be. He had words with me, if that is what you ask in your Kystrani way.”
“But you’re not interested in my side of it, are you?”
“Your reasons for earning punishment will not keep that punishment from you.”
“Is that so?” she said, shoving a chunk of meat into his mouth. “What if I told you someone forced me to leave the castle grounds at the point of a knife?”
“Is this true?”
“No.” She jammed two more chunks of meat past his lips. “I just wanted to see ifallreasons don’t matter, or only the ones you assume to be true.”
He frowned at her then, and stopped the next meat chunk coming at him by grabbing her wrist. “This is no matter to treat lightly, woman.”
“Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. It’s a matter that has given me considerable anxiety, which I’m willing to bet now is just another part of the punishment. But let me tell you something.” She set the platter she was holding on his chest so she could use her other hand to fill his mouth with food and keep it full, long enough to say her piece. “Your rules might apply to all your women, but I’m not one of them. I’m a visitor here and so should be allowed immunity from your rules, especially since I find them totally barbaric, not to mention offensive. Where I come from, women can go wherever they want, do whatever they want. be whatever they want,andwear whatever they want. They aren’t treated like children half the time and slaves the rest of the time.”
“Are you finished?”
By his very tone she knew that nothing she had said made one bit of difference to him. “No. For the record, I never agreed to obey your farden rules, just you in this room. But since that doesn’t matter any more than anything else I’ve said, you better tell me now. How many different ways do you big, brave warriors have for punishing us poor, helpless women?”
He had the gall to grin at her derisive tone. “There are too many to name. A woman learns by experience.”
“Experience, huh? That had better be your idea of a joke, babe, because if you think I’m going to go through this kind of anxiety every time I step a little over the line, you’re crazy.”
“The rules for our women are for their protection. You will obey them for your protection.”
“Even when I can protect myself?”
“You cannot set yourself against warriors, woman. Do you go alone among them, you will be claimed. Do you challenge them, you will lose. Here a woman does not go where she pleases, do as she pleases, be what she pleases, or wear what she pleases—not in a country where warriors will not have it so. You have learned this truth once in challenge loss. Now you will learn it again in punishment.”
“Just like that?” She took the platter from his chest and dropped it loudly back on the table. If that didn’t let him know she’d finally got angry, the furious gleam in her eyes did, as well as the finger she jabbed in his chest. “I’m supposed to let you abuse me, you arrogant jerk? Just lie back and take it? All I was was bored and wanted to see a little of your town. You call that a crime worth punishment?”
She rose to her knees with the intention of getting up. A hand high on each thigh forced her back to her seat. Both hands then slid down to her knees to push her legs flush against the sides of his chest, so she was hugging him with her thighs. For a moment, Tedra forgot what she was angry about. Challen was quick to remind her.
“You left the household of your protector without escort, something no woman in Kan-is-Tra may do. For that you will be punished.”
He said this quietly, but she could detect no trace of regret in his expression, no reluctance to mete out the punishment. He was simply stating the way it was. And he wasn’t finished.
“Also, did you leave without wearing the colors of the house that would identify you. For that you will be punished.”
“I didn’t know about that,” she interjected curtly.
“Ignorance can be no excuse, since you would have been given the proper clothing had you requested the escort as you should have done.”
“But would I have been given the escort? Tamiron seemed to think not.”
Challen didn’t deign to comment about that, probably because he still wasn’t finished. “You used your skills against unknown warriors, thereby inviting them to a showing of the same, which you may not have survived. For that you will be punished.”
“Tell me something, Mr. Judge and Jury. Was I supposed to just let those two brainless wonders steal me away?”
“Had you done what you were supposed to do, they would not have bothered you.”
Tedra crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him. “As long as we’re at it, let’s not forget my trespassing this afternoon in your petitions hall.”
“I have not. For that you lost your dinner.”
