“For starters,” she said, stabbing a finger against his wide chest, “never speaking to you again.”
“That would not be allowed,” he said simply.
“Would not—!” she choked, unable to finish. “To paraphrase Martha, wanna bet? And don’t think you can tease your way around it. They don’t come much more stubborn than an Irish American, which I happen to be. Stubborn is often our middle name.”
“I thought your middle name was Tomboy.”
“Oh, cute, real cute. Pretend you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.”
He disagreed. “You are telling me it is your nature to be stubborn. This is the nature of most women, so warriors expect it and find it amusing.”
“Why amusing?”
“Because it is not a thing women succeed at very well—here.”
“You might want to readjust that statement a little bit to include, until now.”
He chuckled, then hugged her, then explained why he was suddenly so pleased with her responses. “You—and Martha—insist that you are different because you were not born here, but truly,kerima, your reaction to an unwanted lesson is no different from that of a Sha-Ka’ani woman.”
She pushed out of his arms, narrowed her eyes on him. “Lesson? Just what were you trying to teach me there? That if I do or say something you don’t like, you’ll embarrass the hell out of me?”
“It was not meant to embarrass you.”
“Then what was I meant to feel?”
“Exactly what you did feel.”
What she’d felt was raw passion and a desire to make love with him right then and there. “I don’t get it.”
He didn’t respond, which managed to infuriate her enough to say, “Martha, you and I are going to have a long talk before the end of the day, and you’re coming clean this time.”
But Dalden objected to Martha enlightening her, insisting, “Lessons are better learned by example than in the telling.”
Brittany bristled, but before she could reply, Martha lit into the warrior. “Dalden, did that Sha-Ka’ani pure air muddle your brain all of a sudden? You’ve done fine until now, keeping it in mind that she’s not Sha-Ka’ani. Don’t blow it just because you’re home, and don’t make some assumptions based on one reaction when she’s capable of reactions you’ve never seen before. Some of the things that you see as natural and right and your responsibility, she just isn’t going to tolerate. That cultural difference I warned you about better be ringing a big bell, because it’s real, it’s huge, and it will cause problems of the like no warrior, even your father in dealing with Tedra, has ever faced before.”
Brittany stiffened, feeling an ominous dread that frightened her. Dalden stiffened as well, though for different reasons. She didn’t like hearing that she, specifically, was going to be the cause of trouble between them. He didn’t like hearing that Martha was so certain he wouldn’t be equipped to deal with it.
Brittany clutched him suddenly, the fear getting to her. “Whatever happens, we can work it out. Whatever it is she thinks I’m going to hate, I’ll—I’ll try to understand, I’ll try not to hate it. Wewillwork it out, Dalden.”
He hugged her back, squeezing a bit harder than usual. “I am grateful, yet do you not need to make promises based on the unknown. We will indeed ‘work it out.’ I will allow no other thing to be.”
His indomitable will managed to truly amaze her sometimes. They’d be fine because he said so. No matter what, no matter the obstacles, no matter anything. He’d have it no other way, wouldn’tallowit. She wished she could grab hold of that certainty and take it to heart. But it was reassuring and took the edge off her fear.
“Did I mention architecture?” Martha’s voice intruded in another really dry tone.
Brittany burst out laughing, the rest of her tension fading away.
Chapter 41
BRITTANY HADN’T MISSED TOO MUCH OF THE TOWN, just the approach. And Sha-Ka-Ra was bigger than she’d expected after Martha’s remark that their towns didn’t come in sizes she was used to—not so much in head count, but in the buildings being spread out with plenty of breathing space between each one. It was perched on a flat plateau, so nothing was built on the slopes of the mountain.
The main street was very wide, lined at regular intervals with trees of different colors—none that she actually recognized, though a horticulturist she was not—and lampposts. The posts were similar to what was used in the nineteenth century, when someone came by each night and lit the candles in them, but these used gaali stones that supposedly didn’t need lighting, just uncovering, to reveal their soft glow.
She was looking forward to seeing one of these gaali stones she’d been told about up close and personal, a small one, though, since she’d been warned that large chunks were so bright they could blind. Yeah, right, something they couldn’t prove to her, but she’d like to see how they were going to hide the seams of a battery compartment on the smaller stones.
Just now, though, she was experiencing some disappointment in finding that none of the buildings in the town were built of wood. Everything was light tan in color, either plaster or stone, she wasn’t close enough yet to tell which. Mostly one-story houses, a few two-story, many with lovely arches, windows in all kinds of different shapes, each with its own yard and stable, its own garden. There were even some with balconies on their flat roofs, like sun decks. And clean. There wasn’t a single piece of rubbish on the ground anywhere.
It was an even mix of old and new. The buildings were modern-looking, but the people weren’t, and plenty had turned out to view the homecoming. Fifty men from this town had been absent for a long time, so their families were on hand to welcome them home. The procession started breaking up as each warrior was met by two or more members of his family. Oddly, never just one member, or more specifically, a lifemate. Even more oddly, now that it was noticed, there wasn’t a single woman on the street standing alone.
