“His guts remain where they should be. He had words with me, if that is what you ask in your Kystrani way.”

“But you’re not interested in my side of it, are you?”

“Your reasons for earning punishment will not keep that punishment from you.”

“Is that so?” she said, shoving a chunk of meat into his mouth. “What if I told you someone forced me to leave the castle grounds at the point of a knife?”

“Is this true?”

“No.” She jammed two more chunks of meat past his lips. “I just wanted to see if all reasons don’t matter, or only the ones you assume to be true.”

He frowned at her then, and stopped the next meat chunk coming at him by grabbing her wrist. “This is no matter to treat lightly, woman.”

“Oh, I wholeheartedly agree. It’s a matter that has given me considerable anxiety, which I’m willing to bet now is just another part of the punishment. But let me tell you something.” She set the platter she was holding on his chest so she could use her other hand to fill his mouth with food and keep it full, long enough to say her piece. “Your rules might apply to all your women, but I’m not one of them. I’m a visitor here and so should be allowed immunity from your rules, especially since I find them totally barbaric, not to mention offensive. Where I come from, women can go wherever they want, do whatever they want, be whatever they want, and wear whatever they want. They aren’t treated like children half the time and slaves the rest of the time.”

“Are you finished?”

By his very tone she knew that nothing she had said made one bit of difference to him. “No. For the record, I never agreed to obey your farden rules, just you in this room. But since that doesn’t matter any more than anything else I’ve said, you better tell me now. How many different ways do you big, brave warriors have for punishing us poor, helpless women?”

He had the gall to grin at her derisive tone. “There are too many to name. A woman learns by experience.”

“Experience, huh? That had better be your idea of a joke, babe, because if you think I’m going to go through this kind of anxiety every time I step a little over the line, you’re crazy.”

“The rules for our women are for their protection. You will obey them for your protection.”

“Even when I can protect myself?”

“You cannot set yourself against warriors, woman. Do you go alone among them, you will be claimed. Do you challenge them, you will lose. Here a woman does not go where she pleases, do as she pleases, be what she pleases, or wear what she pleases-not in a country where warriors will not have it so. You have learned this truth once in challenge loss. Now you will learn it again in punishment.”

“Just like that?” She took the platter from his chest and dropped it loudly back on the table. If that didn’t let him know she’d finally got angry, the furious gleam in her eyes did, as well as the finger she jabbed in his chest. “I’m supposed to let you abuse me, you arrogant jerk? Just lie back and take it? All I was was bored and wanted to see a little of your town. You call that a crime worth punishment?”

She rose to her knees with the intention of getting up. A hand high on each thigh forced her back to her seat. Both hands then slid down to her knees to push her legs flush against the sides of his chest, so she was hugging him with her thighs. For a moment, Tedra forgot what she was angry about. Challen was quick to remind her.

“You left the household of your protector without escort, something no woman in Kan-is-Tra may do. For that you will be punished.”

He said this quietly, but she could detect no trace of regret in his expression, no reluctance to mete out the punishment. He was simply stating the way it was. And he wasn’t finished.

“Also, did you leave without wearing the colors of the house that would identify you. For that you will be punished.”

“I didn’t know about that,” she interjected curtly.

“Ignorance can be no excuse, since you would have been given the proper clothing had you requested the escort as you should have done.”

“But would I have been given the escort? Tamiron seemed to think not.”

Challen didn’t deign to comment about that, probably because he still wasn’t finished. “You used your skills against unknown warriors, thereby inviting them to a showing of the same, which you may not have survived. For that you will be punished.”

“Tell me something, Mr. Judge and Jury. Was I supposed to just let those two brainless wonders steal me away?”

“Had you done what you were supposed to do, they would not have bothered you.”

Tedra crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at him. “As long as we’re at it, let’s not forget my trespassing this afternoon in your petitions hall.”

“I have not. For that you lost your dinner.”

Simple. Everything so simple and tied up in a neat package of barbaric logic for her edification. Well, the only enlightenment she was getting out of this was that she would be wise to get off this farden world at the first opportunity, to hell with trade and honor. But she was forgetting the mercenaries she needed, those very same warriors for whom she was fast developing a strong case of dislike, but who still seemed to be the only answer for the liberation of Kystran. She could close her eyes to honor with enough provocation, but not to all those Kystrani women-turned-slaves on Sha-Ka’ar who were suffering worse fates that she was right now.

“All right, barbarian,” Tedra said tonelessly. “If you’re done listing all my heinous crimes, break out your whips and do your worst.”

“You want to be beaten?”

“Yes,” she said, and meant it. But if you think everything is going to be the same between us when it’s over, think again.

She didn’t say it aloud, and not because a strange tightness was closing around her throat to make speaking difficult. She simply wouldn’t give him a reason to reconsider. No, right now she wanted him to hurt her. She wanted pain to remember, to make her fear him, to make her dead inside when he touched her, to make her hate him for real, because even now she didn’t. She should, after all those calmly stated “for thats,” but she didn’t. All she felt as the moment was… was a need to cry. Stars, what a horrible realization!

She missed his sigh during her contemplation, but she couldn’t miss his sitting up, since it brought his face mere inches from hers, his chest touching hers.

“Do you lay yourself across my upper legs, woman. You may rest your hands on the floor if you wish.”

“What?” she said, distracted by his warm breath against her lips. And then, “Oh, sure. Across the legs.”

She was still distracted, but managed to get up and reposition herself before she realized what she had done and reared back up, or tried to. A hand in the center of her back wasn’t letting her up, and both her hands pushing against the couch weren’t changing that. Her breasts just reached the edge of the couch, but her head didn’t quite reach the table she was facing.

There was nothing for it but to place her hands on the floor in the space between the two pieces of furniture. She certainly wasn’t distracted any longer. She was, in fact, thoroughly indignant.

“This won’t work, warrior. You’ll have to tie me down, or I won’t be responsible for what happens if I go nuts in reaction.”

“No.”

“No?” She twisted her head around until she could just see him. “I wasn’t kidding. I’ve got some techniques so deeply ingrained that they’re automatic reflexes. And you’ve given me your right side. I can do serious damage from here to your liver and kidneys, and if I manage to turn over, I could well kill you.”

“You really think this is possible, woman?”

He was humoring her, she could tell, which only made her madder. “Of course it’s possible. I can take a lot of pain, but I’ve never been put through anything extreme, so I can’t know how I will react. Don’t be so farden arrogant in thinking I’m not dangerous when pushed, warrior. With the right provocation, anyone can be dangerous, but I’ve been trained to be especially so. I don’t want to end up killing you by accident, no matter how much the thought tempts me right now.”