Keeper of the Heart

Chapter 28

It took Falon a bit longer than the actual Transfer to assure himself that he was in one piece in the new location. He would never get used to that Droda-cursed mode of traveling, and prayed he would not have to. Nor had he expected to have to experience it again, except once more to return to the ship. Yet he had welcomed the Transferring this time for its speed, for he would have gone mad if he could not reach Shanelle when she had need of his protection and he knew of that need. But now that he was there and faced with her predicament, he was not sure if he had someone to kill-or to thank.

Her wrists were cuffed to the wall in front of her. Her ankles were spread wide and strapped to the supports of a round post that she was bent over. Her clothing had been removed. It could not be more obvious that she had been prepared for a whipping.

Two men stood behind and slightly to the left of her, dispassionately observing their handiwork. That there were no marks on Shanelle’s body was the only reason Falon moved up silently behind them and merely smashed their heads together. They dropped to the floor at his feet. That easily they were dismissed from his thoughts, and he stepped over them to stand directly behind the woman he had braved the horrors of space travel to find.

Shanelle didn’t know he was there. She was listening for the door to open. The soft thumps on the floor as the Sunderians dropped had hardly penetrated her frantic thoughts.

Lanar had to be crazy. She didn’t dare actually whip her. And yet she had gone this far-what if she was crazy? Who was there to stop her if so? Those two idiot males acted like low-budget androids, programmed to do one thing and one thing only. And they’d done it, stripped her and bound her securely, and nothing else. They hadn’t touched her again. They hadn’t even spoken to her after they finished strapping her in-except to tell her the waiting was part of it.

Part of what? The punishment? Torture was what it was, to stand there bent over, exposed, those farden whips on the wall the only things she could see-and remember the ugly red marks on the slave girls’ legs, to know that women did get whipped in this very room, and were made to wait for it, and agonize during the waiting…

“You are in a position ideal for two things, woman. I wonder if the one will make me forget the other.”

“Falon!” Shanelle gasped, every particle of her being stiffening at the sound of his deep voice. And then, when his words penetrated, “Falon, no!”

“You still think to tell me no? I think not.”

His hands came to rest on her backside, proving that nothing she could say was going to stop him from doing what he was going to do. But what was he going to do? One of two things? Oh, Stars, she didn’t have to ask what they were, and both terrified her. Punishment or joining, she wanted neither at his hands. And the whips were right there…

No, he wouldn’t whip her. Warriors didn’t hurt their women, and he considered her his-at least Kan-is-Tran warriors didn’t hurt women. But Falon was a Ba-Har-ani, and she still knew next to nothing about those eastern warriors-except their punishments did differ from what Kan-is-Tran women could expect. Perhaps he considered her desertion worth a whipping. And what did it matter? Even a spanking would be horribly painful from a man of his tremendous strength.

“I hear no words from you, Shanelle. Are you sorry you left Sha-Ka’an?”

“I’m only sorry you found me.”

Her eyes flared wide at the immediate stinging smack on her bottom. “That was the wrong answer, kerima. Do you care to try again?”

“Falon, let me go!”

“I will-when your responses please me.”

“Do you want me to lie to you?” she cried.

“No, it is honesty I want, so let us find the responses of your body instead.”

His words confused her, until she felt his hands move around her hips to her stomach, and then slide slowly up her rib cage to her breasts. Shanelle sucked in her breath, trying to ignore the sensations aroused by his touch, but it was impossible. Despite her fear, which was very real, he could still bring her body to life. Her nipples hardened beneath his palms, her insides swirled in anticipation, her pulse quickened. How could this happen every time he touched her?

His body bent over hers suddenly, giving her the feel of his leather bracs against her bottom, the bare skin of his chest against her back. And then his arms wrapped around her middle and gently hugged her as his cheek pressed against her spine.

“I missed you, woman. Thoughts and imaginings of what I would do to you when I found you are all that have kept me from despair-and from going mad in the confines of that metal machine I was forced to travel in.”

Shanelle dropped her head in near defeat at those words. But she couldn’t let his feelings get to her- or her own. And he hadn’t said the words yet that would defeat her and make her his lifemate. Until he did, there was still the chance that she could keep it from happening. And she still didn’t want it to happen. He just wasn’t right for her, no matter that he had become her father’s choice for her, no matter her body’s response to him. She knew it. Why couldn’t she make him accept it?

“Falon-?”

“No,” he cut her off curtly. “Your words rarely please me. Best we let your body speak for you now.”

The post only reached the top of Shanelle’s thighs, rather than her waist, as it was designed to do. Falon’s fingers were able to slip between her legs from the front of her, so he did not have to lift himself away from close contact with her back. This he did now, finding and igniting her heat, drawing a groan from deep in her throat. She still fought it, pulling on the clamp in the wall she was cuffed to. But she’d tried that earlier, and even this new desperation didn’t give her the added strength to break her bonds. She was at Falon’s mercy-a warrior’s mercy. They had none.

She dreaded it, expected it, and it happened. The fight swiftly drained out of her. The simulation of joining that his fingers were enacting was too pleasurable to ignore. She even forgot that pain was going to follow.

She didn’t want to be taken at all, but particularly not like this, where she couldn’t even move. But her body didn’t give a damn what she wanted, any more than Falon did. And he knew it. Her tiny moans were telling him. Later she would feel humiliated about letting him know how much she really wanted him, but right now she just didn’t care.

Shanelle was nearing the point of begging when Falon leaned into her further to reach the clamp her wrists were attached to, and with little effort yanked it out of the wall. She straightened as he did, but more slowly, and felt one of her ankles cut loose before she stood erect, the other freed a moment later.

As she slipped the cuffs off the broken clamp so she could at least separate her arms, she experienced a moment of gratitude that Falon wasn’t as merciless as she had thought him. It wasn’t the kind of release she was expecting, or needing at that point. The kind she did need now was still in control of her senses, and when she turned around and got her first look at Falon since he’d entered the room, it escalated.

The sight of him always did have the strangest effect on her. This time it joined with her need, and without the slightest hesitancy or encouragement from him, she practically leaped into his arms, wrapping hers around his neck and pulling his head down to press her lips to his. It was so compelling, this desire to taste, to touch, to give him anything he wanted. It so overwhelmed her that it was a while before she realized Falon wasn’t returning her enthusiasm, let alone her kiss.

When she leaned back to look at him in confusion, he set her away from him. “Is this honesty at last, Shanelle, or an effort to avoid punishment?”

That was as good as a bucket of ice water dumped over her head. And she realized suddenly that that was exactly his intent.

“You had no intention of joining with me here, did you?” she demanded.

“When I take you, woman, there will be a bed- one that does not move-and privacy I can be assured of.”

“Then why did you make me want you?” She fairly shouted the words in her frustration.

“You needed reminding of your true feelings, those beneath your fear. And finally you have spoken the truth. You still want me.”

“Not anymore I don’t, you farden jerk!”

She turned away from him and nearly stumbled over the two unconscious Sunderians. It occurred to her then that Falon had actually rescued her, come to her aid when she desperately needed it- or thought she did. She still didn’t know what Lanar had intended doing, not that it mattered now. But because of her, Shanelle was back where she started, stuck with a man impossible to handle or reason with, and who got his point across in ways she wasn’t likely to ever forget. She would definitely like to repay that Sunderian witch for that.

Falon’s latest “point” was still affecting her. If he would touch her now in an intimate manner, she’d probably melt all over him, and that absolutely infuriated her. How dared he do that to her, make her want him and then not do anything about it…? Oh, Stars, that was one of the reasons she hadn’t wanted a Kan-is-Tran warrior for her lifemate, the very thing Tedra suffered whenever Challen found it necessary to punish her! It hadn’t been as bad, certainly. She hadn’t been brought to the screaming point. But she had still just been treated to what she had thought Ba-Har-ani warriors didn’t practice.

She swung around now to glare at Falon, and found him holding out her clothes to her. She snatched them from him, grateful that it was a Kystrani outfit, which went on as quickly as it could be removed.

But the suspicion that had occurred to her wouldn’t go away, and the moment she was finished covering her nakedness, she demanded, “Were you punishing me, warrior?”

“When it is time for the punishing, you will not be in doubt that you have received it.”

She stared at him, not sure what to think, but still too angry to be afraid or cautious. “And what makes you think I will accept your punishment, whatever it is? As far as I’m concerned, I haven’t done anything to deserve it.”

Falon lifted a dark brow. “Then you had your father’s permission to leave Sha-Ka’an?”

“I had my mother’s permission,” she replied with a great deal of triumph.

“Which she likely has been made to regret the giving of by now.”

Shanelle paled. Why hadn’t it occurred to her that Tedra would end up catching the brunt of Challen’s displeasure? Her mother must have known it, and still Tedra had let her take Martha, the very thing that would prove to Challen that Tedra had helped Shanelle leave.

“I think I’m beginning to hate you, Falon Van’yer,” she said between gritted teeth.

She’d managed to get a frown out of him. “Best you know now that I will not tolerate this habit you have for stating untruths.”

She frowned right back at him. “That wasn’t an untruth. In fact, I no longer think it, I’m quite sure now I definitely am beginning to hate you. And best you know that any habits I have I’m keeping, with or without your approval, which I don’t give a damn whether I have or not. Stick that in your boots and suck on it, why don’t you?”

She held her ground as he approached her. Nor did she flinch when his hand lifted, though it was only to take her chin to raise it so she couldn’t avoid his eyes. And those eyes weren’t blazing with anger, but were merely thoughtful as they gazed down at her.

“It is interesting how you deal with frustration, Shanelle.”

“I’m furious, not frustrated,” she retorted hotly. “There is a difference.”

“You are upset” he stressed, “because I did not see to your need.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snorted. “What you made me feel was next to nothing and forgotten already.”

“Again you give me untruths. Shall I prove it?”

She tried to step back from him, but his grip tightened. She swallowed her pride and whispered, “No,” then was amazed to hear him confess.

“I could not prove it, not without taking you right now, for my need exceeds yours, kerima. I want you so much I hurt with it. Yet to hear you admit that you wanted me is worth any pain. Nor could I have refrained from touching you to assure myself you are real-and mine. Do not begrudge me that, and the small discomfort it has caused you. Easier would it have been to stop breathing than to keep my hands from you.”

Why did he have to say things like that? If she hadn’t been frustrated, she was now, in having to stomp down the unwanted emotions his confession caused, and not succeeding completely. The pleasure she felt from his words just wouldn’t go away.

And then it hit her, that what he was feeling, he was in control of, and obviously much better than she was. He was controlling his passion!

How dared he do that, get rid of one of her prime objections to him? How was she supposed to stand firm in her resolve when he did things like that? But everything else was still there, enough to convince her she still couldn’t be completely happy with such a thoroughly domineering male. He was going to try and change her. He’d already said so. And she’d have pain and humiliation waiting for her every time she did the slightest thing wrong. No way was she going to meekly accept that. And he still hadn’t proved that he wouldn’t lose his control in a crucial moment, only that he was getting better at it.

That managed to squash the pleasure she’d been feeling, and back came the anger, that she’d let his words affect her at all. She knocked his hand aside and moved away from him before she insisted, “I’m not experiencing any discomfort, warrior, just disappointment that you’ve found me, which you can’t do anything about unless you disappear the way you came-without me.”

He made a sound that was very close to exasperation. “I will break you of this need you have for telling untruths, woman; this I promise you. Yet do we have other things between us that must be attended to first.”

“A reprieve?” she shot back dryly. “How fortunate can I get?”

“Shanelle-” he began in an unmistakable warning tone.

But she cut him off before she got another promise she didn’t like. “If one of those things is to get out of here, the door happens to be locked. So you’ll have to ask that traitor who Transferred you here for assistance-which reminds me. If you’re listening, Brock, and I know you must be, I hope Martha never speaks to you again. I know I certainly won’t.”

“You are angry with your father’s computer?” Falon asked with some definite amusement lacing his tone now.

“I’m angry at every male under creation, but don’t worry about it. I’ll only take it out on you.”

He suddenly laughed. “This I am pleased to know. It would prove tiring if I must fight every male you offend.”

“And what happens when I offend you?”

“This you must find out firsthand.”

It figures, you farden jerk, but she said that only to herself.