Keeper of the Heart

Chapter 11

Dalden’s mother was the farthest thing from happy as she slammed into her bedchamber late that afternoon-or tried to. The door was simply too large and heavy to close with any speed that would generate a good slamming. But in this case, it was stopped from closing all the way when Challen followed Tedra into the chamber.

He was none too happy himself just then. “Woman, you will speak to me of this.”

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be speaking to you again! How could you? And without telling me!”

Briefly, Challen thought about challenging that High King of Century HI for arrogantly claiming that he would defeat the champion of the games after they were over and thereby win Shanelle for himself. Hearing that, Tedra had demanded to know what becoming champion had to do with her daughter, and had been told that Shanelle was the prize being offered for victory. Challen had been forced to explain to the man his misconception. Warriors knew the way the competitions worked. Visitors had to be told that winning didn’t necessarily net the final prize.

But the damage had been done. Tedra had not waited around to hear all of the explanation. She had quietly walked away to return to the palace. But Challen knew his lifemate well. There was nothing of calm in her silent departure. She was on the borderline of committing violence and had wisely left before the committing began in public.

Now he watched her pounce on their bed and attack it with her fists. Usually she had Martha deliver Corth to her when she needed to pummel something, that being one of the android’s uses, to assist Tedra in the exercising of her skills-and the expending of her fury. But Corth was otherwise occupied right now as Shanelle’s protector and could not be taken from that duty.

Challen waited patiently for Tedra to rid herself of the worst of her fury, fully aware that the bed was a substitute for himself, just as Corth usually was. He was touched, as always, that she chose not to attack him instead, settling for only secondary satisfaction in substitutes. Such was an indication of the deep love she felt for him that was stronger than the strongest anger. Ironically, when she was only mildly angry, she did not hesitate to strike him. Yet when what she felt was extreme, she would not take the chance of hurting him with it.

It had become an easy matter to determine the degree of her displeasure in this way, and what he faced now was serious displeasure.

He spoke carefully while she was still pummeling the bed. “I did not tell you the reason behind these competitions because I knew this would be your reaction.”

Tedra glanced up only long enough to growl, “Damned right, but you did it anyway!”

“Yet is the reason no different from what you already knew I faced, finding the proper lifemate for my daughter.”

“My daughter will have no trouble finding her own lifemate. I’ve told you that a hundred times.”

“And I have told you a like number of times that I cannot release her from my protection to a man who cannot protect her as well as I.” Then, more gently, he added, “This you know, chemar. This is why the decision cannot be hers.”

That warrior logic had Tedra gathering the bedding up to her face so she could scream into it before she bounded off the bed and came to glare up at Challen. “You’ve made her a prize, a goal! You might as well have put her up for auction to the highest bidder!”

“I see it differently. What I have done is bring together the finest warriors in the land to determine those with the greatest ability and skill. From the best whom I find approval with, she may then choose.”

“She may?” Tedra’s eyes narrowed. “Just how many best are we talking about? Thirty? Forty?”

“Five.”

“Unacceptable! Make it ten and I might consider it.”

“We do not bargain here, woman. I go against my better judgment to allow her five to choose from when the fifth will have been bested by four others.”

“And what if she wants none of those five? What if she absolutely hates them?”

“You look for difficulties before they arrive.” And then he put his arms around her to draw her flush with his body. “You know I want her happiness, chemar, yet must she be happy and well protected. You would not want it any other way.”

“It just seems so impossible.” Tedra sighed.

But she was now privy to the fact that Shanelle didn’t want a warrior-and why-whereas Challen was not. Nor would it do to enlighten him on that fact.

She rested her chin on his wide chest to look up at him. Her culture considered him a barbarian, and it wasn’t easy loving a barbarian, but she did. She loved this one to distraction. But she knew his limitations, in particular his lack of understanding a woman’s fears. She was partly responsible for that because she had so few fears herself, and those she did have she merely gritted her teeth at and plowed right through. But Shanelle wasn’t like her in that respect. Shanelle had been so well protected all her life that she’d never had anything to fear as she grew to womanhood. But now suddenly she had a great many things to fear and she wasn’t prepared to face any of them.

“She’s going to be horrified when she finds out all those men are competing for her,” Tedra said quietly now.

“Why should she be? Never did it bother her when all my warriors lusted after her.”

“Maybe because she never noticed.”

“How could she not? It was so bad before she left that we could never get a servant after dark whenever she had been around them.”

Tedra hid her grin against his chest. His grumbling tone was nothing compared to his annoyance at such times, and those times had been many. Tedra had felt nothing but pride and a degree of amusement that so many men wanted her daughter, so much so that each of them was compelled to seek out a Darasha female after merely being in Shanelle’s presence.

She was suddenly understanding Challen’s reason for these competitions a little better. Too many of his own warriors had asked for Shanelle, and although he might have preferred she go to a warrior he knew well, Tedra also knew he had decided he couldn’t play favorites in giving her to one of them. If only there hadn’t been so many offers…

“Do you mean to tell her?” Challen asked.

“And ruin her homecoming? She’ll find out soon enough when the competitions are over and she has to pick one of the finalists-oh, Stars!” Tedra gasped with the realization. “You’re going to give her away in just a few days, aren’t you? Challen, I only just got her back! Couldn’t you have waited?”

“Too long has this been delayed.”

“So I’m to lose her already?” she whispered forlornly.

“And where do you think she will go?” he chided. “These are Kan-is-Tran warriors who will ask for her. She will not be taken so far that you cannot visit her as often as you wish.”

She was annoyed enough to remind him, “Have you forgotten there are visitors also competing?”

“You were the one who insisted visitors be allowed to participate when they began asking to do so.” And they had asked because Rampon at the Visitor’s Center had somehow found out the true reason for the competitions and the word had spread from there to all the ambassadors, and from them to their home planets. “In fairness did I allow it,” he added, “yet have I no intention of choosing a visitor for my daughter.”

“Not even that High King Jorran who is so confident he can beat the champion of all the warriors?”

“Especially not that condescending High King. Sooner would I-”

What he would sooner do was interrupted by the light rap on the door. “Mother, are you there?”

Tedra pushed herself out of Challen’s arms and started toward the door even as she called out, “Come on in, baby.” But when Shanelle did, Tedra was glad she was blocking her from Challen’s view, and put her arms around her to whisper urgently, “Hide your face in my shoulder and keep it there. If your father sees those swollen lips, he’s going to kill whoever got them that way.” To Challen she said, “How about taking off for a while, babe? I’d like a private mother-daughter chat before dinner.”

“So I am to be kicked out of my own chamber?”

“Humor me and I might play challenge loser tonight.”

He laughed and whacked her bottom on his way out the door. As soon as the door had closed, Tedra hugged Shanelle happily.

“So it’s happened? You found the man you want?”

“Mother… don’t… squeeze!” Shanelle gasped out.

Tedra released her immediately. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” And with even more alarm and the beginnings of a new anger, she demanded, “Are those bruises on your arms?”

“I offered to take her right into a meditech,” Martha answered before Shanelle could, “but she wants to enjoy suffering for a while.”

“What in the farden hell happened?”

Martha turned on one of her driest tones. “To hear her tell it, she got run over by a solidite paver.”

“So let her tell it,” Tedra snapped. “Shani? Did someone beat you, for Stars’ sake?”

“No-it just feels like it.” Shanelle sighed and led her mother to the backless couches in the center of the large room as she continued. “I really thought this was it, mother. The man was absolutely gorgeous. Once I’d seen him, I couldn’t think about anything else. And he made me feel so- so-”

“He knocked her socks off,” Martha supplied with a chuckle.

With a frown Shanelle turned the computer link off, while with the same frown Tedra took the unit and set it on the large square table that the couches surrounded. “I’ll talk to you later,” Tedra told the computer, her tone warning that she was presently blaming Martha for whatever had happened. And to Shanelle, “So if everything seemed right, what went wrong?”

“Everything. But in the beginning, nothing. He seemed so perfect, even if he was taller than I would have liked. That didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except what he was making me feel. And he felt it, too. He came right to me. And, Stars, he was even ready to fight Corth for me.”

“To fight Corth?” Tedra said incredulously, but then with dismayed understanding, “We’re not talking about a warrior, are we?”

Shanelle lowered her eyes. “No-but he’s as big as one, nearly as big as father. And he acts like one more than he doesn’t-except for one major difference. He’s emotional-possessive, jealous, passionate-too passionate, actually, and that’s where everything went wrong. He didn’t have much control of his passion to begin with, but when we were about to join, he-he lost it completely. He wasn’t aware he was doing it, but his arms just about crushed me, and when he breached me, it hurt so bad I fainted.”

“Oh, baby.” Tedra’s sympathy poured out, her arms going around Shanelle very carefully. “You’ve always had a low tolerance for pain. The slightest little scrape or bang as a child and you’d be screaming your head off.”

Shanelle’s expression turned wry. “I’d like to think I can take a scrape or bang these days, mother. I didn’t will myself to faint. This was pain of an unacceptable level.”

“But a breaching is painful. I know you kept your innocence intact for your father’s sake so your lifemate could have it, but it looks like you should have visited a meditech instead.”

“It’s a moot point now.”

“Is it?” Tedra sighed. “All right, so we’ll class it as one of the most horrible breachings on record. As long as the man made up for it afterward, then-”

“There was no afterward. When I woke up, I just wanted out of there.”

“Wait a minute.” Tedra was outraged. “Are you saying you got no pleasure to make up for the pain? That’s indecent! I’ll-”

“Mother-”

“-crucify that bastard when I see him! He should have insisted-”

“Mother! I didn’t want him to touch me again.”

“But you needed to be shown it’s not all pain, and who better to show you than the man you picked yourself?”

“You’re not listening, mother. With him it was all pain-or at least too much pain. He was too rough even before he lost control. And he did insist we continue the joining. In fact, he wasn’t going to let me leave until we did. I had to ask Martha to change his mind.”

“I’ll bet he just loved that.”

“Sure he did, enough to swear he was going to destroy Martha first chance he gets.”

Tedra grinned. “I’ll bet she just loved hearing that.” The audiovisual console in Tedra’s dressing room chimed right then, so she added, “I’m not answering that, Martha. I told you I’d talk to you later.”

“Maybe it’s not her,” Shanelle suggested.

“Of course it is. It drives her crazy that she can’t get around on this planet like she could on Kystran-and does on the Rover, popping into any audio console and computer when she wants. If her main housing hadn’t been turned off when she left to get you, she’d be yelling at us right now, instead of dialing for permission to speak.”

Proof was the end of the chiming coming from the dressing room. All of Tedra’s advanced machines were stored in there, away from Challen’s sight. The room was so crowded with the wonders of other worlds that there’d been no room to add Brock’s housing when he joined the family. So he was kept in another room-otherwise Martha would have borrowed his console to have her say.

“I think I’ll visit a meditech after all,” Shanelle said with a grimace as she started to get up.

Tedra’s hand detained her. “Sit down. I didn’t mean to get off the subject, but I was getting too close to tears for comfort. This wasn’t supposed to happen to you. It shouldn’t have. And maybe we ought to let your father have a good look at you after all. Your young man needs some punishing for what he put you through, and if Challen doesn’t do it, then I’ll have to.”

Shanelle shook her head. “I don’t want him punished for something he did unintentionally. He could use a lesson or two in bedroom manners, for the benefit of the next woman… he…”

Tedra lifted a brow at the way her words trailed off. “So it bothers you, the idea of him with other women?”

“No, why should it?”

“Because you picked him, Shani. Because a part of you is already maintaining that he’s yours.”

“Well, that part will just have to catch up to the rest that says I’m not interested anymore,” Shanelle replied stiffly.

“Yes, you are. You’re just disappointed that he’s not as perfect as you’d like him to be. I’m disappointed that he’s not a warrior. But these are difficulties that can be worked out.”

“Mother, you still aren’t listening to me,” Shanelle said in exasperation.

“Maybe because I know you. And maybe because even though I’ve tried to minimalize your father’s influence on your ideas about sex-sharing, you really do share his views. You want only one man. That’s why you’ve waited this long, trying to find the right one. And this is the right one, or you wouldn’t have been willing to share sex with him the moment you met him. You went with him with every intention of opening your heart to him, of spending the rest of your life with him.”

“That’s absolutely true, but instincts can go awry, and hopes and intentions don’t always hold up to reality. I wish it had worked out, mother. I wanted it to so badly. But the plain fact is, the man is dangerous. You can’t imagine what it was like to be held by someone just as strong as father, but without his gentleness-and he didn’t even know he was hurting me. That’s what frightens me the most, and I’m not going through that again.”

“But, Shani-”

“Look at me, mother,” Shanelle cut in impatiently this time. “Do I look like I’m not serious? I have the bruises to prove I am, and if they’re already showing up on my arms from my just being drawn forward for a kiss, then let’s see what the rest looks like by now.” She whipped her blouse off-then wished to Stars she hadn’t.

She hadn’t expected quite such a dramatic showing, but she should have. Her skin did bruise easily. Shades of red, violet, and soon-to-be-black liberally covered her upper torso, the darkest patches spreading out from the sides, where she’d been squeezed too tightly. The lighter marks, which were around her breasts and lower waist, probably wouldn’t hurt to the touch now, but had yet to fade.

Shanelle blushed in embarrassment, because none of it felt quite as bad as it looked. But her mother had turned ashen and then crimson with rage. And Tedra didn’t have much more to say, merely, “The man dies!”