“Gifts might appease your Sha-Ka’ani women, but not me. Where I come from, it’s tit for tat.”
“This you will have to explain.”
“It means equal retaliation, babe, but I might settle for simply changing places—say for the rest of the evening.”
“You wish me to lie on my back while you face me at my side?”
She almost laughed at his confusion. “No, not physical places.”
“Ah, a status change.” He concluded next, and with some amusement, “You wish to beshodan.”
“No … I had in mind me being the victor, you the challenge loser, giving me all rights and privileges that that entails.”
He became so still, she thought he’d stopped breathing. He didn’t have to try looking grave now. Actually, he looked kind of shocked.
“You want me in a position where you may order and I must obey?”
“Now you got it, babe, but there can be no balking if you agree to make amends this way. No matter what I might have you do, or do to you, there can be no halt-calling. You’ll have to take it like a true challenge loser, owing the same service I owe to you.”
“And then you would forgive me?”
“Completely.”
“And give me willing service?”
“Unconditionally.”
He asked for no more clarification. Long minutes passed while outwardly he did no more than stare at her. But she knew instinctively that inwardly he was doing a lot more, that he was fighting with his desire to appease her and his total reluctance to do it in this way. She almost changed her mind, knowing it would be an alien experience for him to take orders from anyone, much less a woman. And to agree to obey those orders, not knowing what they would be—she wouldn’t have to change her mind. He’d never agree to that.
“You may have your ‘tit for tat,’kerima.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Tedra’s eyes flared, experiencing as much shock as Challen had earlier. Had she heard him right? He was actually going to give her complete power over him?
“You … agree?”
“Did you not wish me to?”
“Well … yes, but-”
She clamped her mouth shut before she stuck her foot in it. She would have wagered every exchange token she earned over the next ten years that he would have flatly refused, or, at the very least, tried to talk her into asking for something else instead. Had she missed something, some slyly inserted word in his questioning that would give him an out?
“Are you sure you understand the rules of this scenario, Challen? You’ll have to do whatever I tell you to, no matter what. You can’t refuse to do it, and you can’t use your strength against me, for instance, to keep me fromgivingyou orders. Is that understood?”
“It is.”
“And you still agree?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t hesitate with his answers, but had a man ever sounded so miserable? And she’d have to be blind to mistake the look of utter defeat about him. This wasn’t surprising, since being dominated would go against the grain for someone domination came naturally to. But suddenly she knew it was more than that. In fact, it came to her quite clearly that he expected her to humiliate him, to shame him, most likely to punish him in the same way he had her. And expecting it, he’d given her the power to do it anyway.
Stars above, was hethatguilty? Or was he just so desirous of having things the way they once were that he was willing to do anything to make it so? He’d begged her to forgive him. Did he really think he had to do this before she would? Well, it wouldn’t hurt him to think that for a while. It wouldn’t hurt him to expect the worse for a while either. She had no intention of exacting that kind of revenge, but she also had no intention of passing up this delightful opportunity to have the upper hand with him.
“Now that I’ve got you at my mercy, warrior, I think the first order of business should be a little protection insurance for myself. Give me your word right now that there won’t be any reprisals tomorrow or at any other time for what happens here tonight.”
That shook him out of his dejection, as if what she was insinuating was an insult to him. “Such had not occurred to me,” he said stiffly.
