“Indeed.”

She glared at him. “Now isn’t the time for you to be agreeable, warrior. I didn’t strip down to stay stripped down, so give me something else-Stars, what is that?” Tedra gasped, seeing a huge white beast loping toward them through the trees. “My phazor, quick, man-give it here before we’re on tonight’s menu.”

She held out her hand for the unit, but her eyes remained glued to the beast that was getting closer by the second. With those visible fangs, she was afraid it was carnivorous, and it was nearly as big as the hataar, too big certainly for a barbarian to tangle with. The head was round with tufted ears, the body long, sleek, and short-pelted, the tail about as long as the trunk. Its paws alone were twice the size of her fists, and she had no desire to meet up with the long claws they would contain. But her hand remained empty, and she finally spared a glance at the barbarian, to find he had turned to stare at the beast, but no more than that. His hand hadn’t even approached his sword handle, let alone her unit.

With his back to her, the phazor was staring her in the face, and Tedra didn’t even think about hesitating. But the moment her fingers touched it, other fingers grabbed hers and lightly tossed her hand away from it.

“Are you nuts?” she shrieked.

The barbarian only looked down at her, facing her again, his expression inscrutable. To the side of him, she saw the beast, still in a lope coming toward them and just ten feet away now. And it roared-loudly.

“Oh, Staaaarrrs!” Tedra cried and ran for the nearest tree.

She heard the laughter before she even reached the limb which spread out about twelve feet off the ground, though that didn’t stop her from gaining a perch on it. It was sturdy enough to support her, but she still gripped it for dear life, tree climbing as alien to her as trees were. Only when she was lying down flat on it and was sure she wasn’t in danger of sliding off did she look down to see what the laughter was all about.

It was the barbarian, of course, and he wasn’t just laughing, but having a fit of it. She kind of figured out why when she saw the huge feline beast sitting on the ground right next to the barbarian, like a damned tamed pet, which Tedra concluded it likely was. She could hear its loud purring over the noise the barbarian was still making as his laughter wound down to chuckles. And the animal was staring up at her with great blue eyes, as if she were a mere curiosity. She was that indeed, naked and up a tree. She was also feeling so foolish and ridiculous that she was hot pink with it.

“That tree you seem so fond of, kerima, would not have served,” she was told as her amused companion approached.

“Oh?”

“The fembair plays in trees. Had he wanted you on his menu, he would have joined you on that limb.”

So that was what a fembair looked like. She had gathered from the Sublims that it was some sort of wild animal to be avoided, yet this one no longer looked so wild, just still scary as all hell. It had followed the barbarian, its body as high as his chest when it was up on all fours, and they both now looked up at her from beneath the tree.

“Come down, woman, and we will be on our way.”

That was all? No apology for the rotten trick he’d played on her?

“Actually, the view’s great from up here,” she replied testily.

He ignored her tone and her words. “Drop down and I will catch you.”

With the bark on the tree limb irritating the tender skin of her belly and her inner thighs, Tedra didn’t offer any more lip. She gripped the limb with both hands, then lowered her body slowly until she was dangling from the limb. As soon as she felt the hands take hold of her calves, she let go and dropped fast- until the barbarian’s arms, which had quickly wrapped around her legs, caught on her rear end. For a heart-stopping moment, a hard cheek was pressed to her belly, and then she slid slowly, very slowly, down his body until her feet touched the ground.

This had to be it. That tantalizing body-to-body caress had been deliberate on his part. Hot coils of anticipation were already unwinding in her belly. If he didn’t kiss her now…

He gave her backside a gentle pat before his arms left her, and then she was watching him walk away. He’d walked away! Tedra felt like screaming and stomping her feet. Of course, she didn’t do things like that. Usually when she felt frustrated, she put herself through her more grueling exercises to work it off, to save her friends and co-workers a taste of her foul temper, which was what tended to rise when she felt that way. But she had to admit she’d never felt this kind of frustration before, never having experienced such a keen want of sex-sharing before.

She was standing there naked and wanting him, and he’d just walked away. She still couldn’t believe it. Was the man made of stone? Or maybe she was looking at it only from her perspective and he didn’t really want her. He’d claimed her, but she had been, according to him, a claimable woman, so what else could he do? He’d even had her in a perfect sex-sharing position earlier when she’d lost the challenge, but he hadn’t taken the least advantage of it. Here she had five years of missed sex-sharing to make up for, and what did she get when she decided the time had finally arrived? A man who could take it or leave it, or didn’t want it at all. Of all the farden luck.

“Woman?”

A summons? A farden summons! That did it, rubbed her position in good, and snapped what control she had on her frustration. She stalked after the pair, who waited for her by the hataar, her aquamarine eyes narrowed and glowing, not the least bit of wariness for the white beast remaining just then.

“I take it that’s a friend of yours?” she asked softly, deceptively.

“A very good friend.”

Her finger stabbed into the center of his chest. “You could have told me that, you prehistoric jerk, instead of letting me-”

“Woman,” he interrupted, half in surprise, a greater half in disapproval. “Wherever you come from, you are now in Kan-is-Tra. You will abide by the laws and conduct yourself as a woman of Kan-is-Tra.”

Tedra snorted. “In other words, I can’t cuss you out as you deserve, or point out how infantile your little joke was?”

“You will give a warrior respect at all times.”

“Or what?”

“Or you will be punished by he who protects you.” He said it calmly, yet there was a promise in those words she didn’t care for.

“Some protection,” she grumbled, but with less heat. “You don’t really think I’m going to miraculously transform into a model of Kan-is-Tran womanhood who will jump to your every little command, do you?”

He stared down at her so long and so seriously that she was regretting that last taunt even before he answered with a soft menace, “You will.”

Maybe she would at that-for now. But if she decided she could withstand his punishments… Her body was conditioned to take a lot of pain and still function adequately. She’d have to wait and find out.

He must have concluded she was subdued for now, for he said no more and turned to the hataar, removing the thin fur blanket from its back. He took his long dagger and made a cut in the center of this; then, before Tedra had figured out what he was doing, he dropped the whole thing over her head, fur side underneath, and even pulled her necklace out for her, and the tail of her hair, arranging both to his satisfaction.

She didn’t know whether to thank him or not. The blanket smelled of hataar, but the fur was soft against her skin. As a covering it wasn’t so great, falling only to the middle of her thighs, front and back, but the width of it allowed it to drape down her arms almost to her wrists. Of course, the bottom line was, it was better than nothing.

She decided not to thank him, since she had been naked under his insistence, not hers. “I’ll need a belt,” she mentioned reasonably. “Mine will do nicely.”