“And it pleases me,kerima,to see to your safety. If this includes assuring you obey rules made for your safety—”
“I think I’m done listening, warrior,” Tedra cut in frostily. “When you make up your mind which it was you felt, pleasure or abhorrence, let me know and we can discuss it again. On second thought, don’t. This subject’s about thirty feet underground already.”
“Youwilllisten,” he said, annoyance with her attitude making his voice stem and commanding. “I have yet to beg your forgiveness. I do so now.”
“That’s a little barbarian humor, right? You want forgiveness when you’ve just admitted you’re not at all sorry? You’ll pardon me if I don’t feel like laughing.”
Frustrated, that hand she’d been worrying about came up to place a finger over her lips. “Not another word from you until I have finished.”
He waited for her to nod in compliance. She didn’t feel like nodding, but he wasn’t going to go on until she did, and his patience was infinite compared with hers, which had already expired. So she nodded, but that didn’t get her lips unsmashed. He wasn’t taking any chances.
“A warrior will do what must be done regardless of his feelings on the matter. Do you require additional discipline, make no mistake, woman, you will receive it. But it will not be done again with the carelessness and lack of regard shown you the previous darkness. There can be no excuse for that lack of concern, for my being so unaware of what I was doing that the doing went far beyond what was required. The irresponsibility was mine in not facing what was required without aid, but more in not knowing the full consequence of that aid beforehand. The blame is mine. The regret is mine. It is doubtful even your forgiveness will relieve me of all the guilt I feel, yet do I earnestly beg it of you. Will you give it,chemar?”
He removed his finger from her lips and waited, but Tedra truly didn’t know what to say. The nightmare hadn’t actually been deliberate on his part? Could that really be true? Would he say it was if it wasn’t?
He was admitting to being imperfect, to having made a mistake. That surprised her enough, but he was also admitting regret, and damned if he hadn’t sounded sincere. Yet he hadn’t said there wouldn’t be any more punishments—quite the opposite. In one breath he promised more; in the next, he begged forgiveness for that already given. And that was another thing. He begged forgiveness.Begged.Was that supposed to be a sop for her lacerated pride? All it did was remind her that he wasn’t any more likely to forget all the begging she’d done than she was. Of a sexual nature, howcouldhe forget it?
And she’d made a stand. She didn’t like having the foundation knocked out from under it. Was she to let him think he could get away with anything as long as he offered up a sweet apology afterward? And yet—and yet he’d called herchemar.Love. Of course, to a Sha-Ka’ani warrior, the word was no more than an endearment. But she’d still liked hearing it, had put her own meaning behind it—for a moment anyway—and … and was she really going to let him talk her out of her mad?
In self-defense, she demanded, “How could you be unaware of what you were doing, yet retain the memory of it? That sounds impossible to me, Challen, no matter how I look at it.”
“It is impossible. I remember very little of what was done. I have judged the seriousness of it solely by your reaction, and in knowing the new rising was almost upon us before I returned to a semblance of awareness and left you.”
“Are you actually saying you don’t remember what you did to me?” she asked incredulously.
“I do not … yet is there a certainty that what was intended to be done was done.”
That arrogant certainty that he had done his duty as he had intended was merely annoying at this point. “Let me rephrase that, then. Are you saying you don’t remembermypart in the evening’s agenda?”
“Nothing beyond your last attempt to feed me. I recall your anger before that, and everything else from the time I joined you until then, for the aid had yet to take full hold of me. But I cannot recall even beginning your punishment, or any part of it.”
And she was supposed to buy that just on his say-so? “Then you don’t recall my threatening to jump off the balcony, to take my life, to cut off that useless piece of flesh … between … your—?”
She didn’t finish. The horror of his expression said he actually believed she’d said those things last night, proving he didn’t recall the things she had really said and done. She might have been tempted to say those things, but she’d been too busy crying and begging him to make love to her to even think of threats and bluffs.
She felt now as if she’d had the breath knocked out of her. Her foundation of anger and resentment toppled from its last thread of support. Merely assuming he had done as he meant to do, and that she had reacted as he had promised she would, was not the same as having actual memories of it. He had no memory of her shame, he could only imagine it, and a man could imagine all he liked and never come close to the reality.
She could even console her pride by the certainty that she could probably have held out for the normal length of time devoted to such punishments—except that if Challen hadn’t been under the influence of a character-changer, he wasn’t likely to have stopped until she at least did a little crying and begging. And even a little crying and begging would have changed what she was feeling now, which was an urge to laugh because shecouldforgive him now,couldstill enjoy him until her service ended. So she could actually be grateful that he had taken the farden aid, even if it did prolong her misery at the time. The shame and humiliation that had been the worst of it were only hers to recall, and how long would such a memory last when it wasn’t shared?
But was she going to let him off the hook so easily? His mistake was no worse than hers, but she’d been punished for hers. Who punished a warrior when he erred? She could, she thought with a measure of keen satisfaction, and by no more than using his guilt against him. But she didn’t have to lie to do it. In fact, it bothered her that he still looked mighty upset thinking she’d been moved to violence, not only against him but herself, too, when she hadn’t.
“Don’t you recognize anger talking when you hear it, warrior? I never said those things to you last night. I didn’t even think them.”
“This was a means to add to my guilt?”
“No, just to see if you were telling the truth.”
“And if you are still angry, I must conclude the truth has made little difference to you. If you cannot forgive me—”
“I didn’t say that,” she cut in, making sure she sounded grudging about it.
But he took her literally, that if she wasn’t saying she couldn’t forgive him, then she would, and his relief was instantaneous, flowing through him. She hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until she felt him relax against her. She didn’t appreciate the grin that came with the relief, however.
“You’re asking for a lot without any compensation at all, warrior,” she grumbled, hoping to knock a dent in his returned good humor.
She didn’t. “This is so.” He tried to look grave again in agreement, but just couldn’t manage it. “Thus I have brought a gift for you, to make amends in a small way.”
That arrested her curiosity, especially since he had shown up without anything but himself. And she had to wonder what a barbarian’s idea of an amends-making gift could be. But whatever it was, it wasn’t what she had in mind.
