"I'm old enough to dress myself, thank you."

"I did not mean to insult."

She sighed. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to give offense, either. I owe my life to you. I am deeply grateful."

He nodded, expecting no less. "Grateful enough to give that life into my keeping?"

"I've already given my life to another for keeping. You know him well. He is my lifemate."

He waved that aside. "Their barbaric means of joining in marriage are not recognized on my world."

"Nor on mine, but in my heart I recognize it. So it's binding for me."

He seemed surprised to hear that. "You want to stay with him?"

She couldn't imagine why he might have thought otherwise, but perhaps a little explaining was in order. "Jorran, when I said I would help you in my world I lied. I was wholeheartedly against what you were trying to accomplish. I was assisting the Sha-Ka'ani in stopping you. If you've been thinking otherwise all this time, I'm sorry."

He shrugged indifferently. "None of that matters. I saw in your eyes, on their ship, your real feelings for me."

She frowned in confusion, trying to remember that day of major shocks. "Sympathy? You mistook my compassion for something more. I didn't like it that they were denying you medical treatment, even though they assured me you weren't in pain. I wouldn't have liked seeing anyone left like that-but I see you're whole again. You must have come across a meditech between then and now."

"Only today," he replied with some bitterness. "In their Visitors' Center. We have not such things on my world."

"Then I'd say you have reason to be grateful as well, that you have no lasting scars from what happened. My people would have put you in prison for the rest of your life for what you attempted, if they'd been the ones to stop you. The Sha-Ka'ani only returned you to your own home with a few deformities they knew you could eventually fix."

"So in your mind that exonerates them?"

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that in her mind, he was the villain, but she diplomatically bit her tongue. "I'm just glad that no lasting damage was done-to anyone."

They'd been standing a good ten feet apart. He approached her now. It was all she could do not to try to keep that original distance, he made her that nervous. And as she'd feared, he touched her, though harmlessly, a mere brush of his fingers against her cheek.

"You have a strange way of looking at things," he remarked softly.

"Not strange, just different from how you view things. It doesn't mean I'm right and you're wrong, or vice versa. We just come from vastly different cultures."

Jeez, was she telling him what she should be telling herself? What Martha had tried to make her see all along? The Sha-Ka'ani weren't really barbarians, they were just different. Their way of doing things was normal for them, worked for them, so it was the right way. To compare them with other cultures, her own in particular, was ludicrous. They were unique. They'd evolve in their own way.

"You would like my culture," he said wistfully. "I would make you a queen. What can your barbarian offer you to equal that?"

There was no hesitation in her answer. "Himself, which is all I need to make me happy-because I love him deeply, with all my heart."

53

« ^

MARTHA APOLOGIZED FOR NOT WARNING HER THAT Dalden had listened in on her conversation with Jorran, that it was the only way he would allow her to be left alone with the man. Brittany wasn't too happy about that. They hadn't spoken since he'd punished her. She had wanted to enjoy some of his amends-making before she officially forgave him, not have him hear secondhand that she still loved the heck out of him.

Not that it mattered, When she did finally see him again that day, he wasn't interested in talking. He marched her straight back to their room, where they spent the rest of the day and half of the next making sure neither of them were still suffering over that silly punishment.

She was beginning to wonder, though, if his dragging her off to places without a word of explanation was going to be a standard practice, because he did it again the next afternoon. He tossed a white cloak over her shoulders, took her hand, and pulled her behind him out of the castle, across most of the town, and through some of the park that fronted the edge of the mountain.

He stood behind her, wrapped his arms around her, and said nothing while she absorbed the incredible view before them. All of the verdant green valley that spread at the base of Mount Raik could be seen, woods and lakes beyond, and in the far distance, even a long range of other mountains which were a mere purple haze.

It took her breath away, all that beauty. And then Dalden said, "You will build our house here."

She swung around to stare at him incredulously. "I will?" she gasped.

"The design will be of your choice," he replied matter-of-factly, as if he weren't astounding the hell out of her. "You will keep in mind, however, that a warrior requires a good deal of space to keep from feeling confined."

She grinned at that point. "You're talking a big house, I take it?"

"Yes. "

"A really big house?"

"Yes."

She beamed ecstatically-until she recalled that his country didn't have lumber mills. "I'm not sure I can work with the materials you have available here."

"Martha has assured me that she can obtain anything you require."

"It will take me a long time to build something of the size you're talking about," she pointed out next.

"You will have help. Kodos and his lifemate, Ruriko, would like to assist you. Corth II will be available, also. And I will rarely be far from your side, kerima. You are likely to have other volunteers as well, once the town sees what you are doing. Sha-Ka-Ra has stood here for centuries without change. Change is not required, but it is not discouraged, either, and there are many who regret that we have no knowledge of creating things. Kodos has shown that clearly in his desire to learn your craft."

"He actually agreed to let his lifemate work beside him, when your women have never known real jobs?"

Dalden gave her an aggrieved look. "To keep peace in his household, he was-persuaded-to agree. He made the mistake of telling her too much about your culture. She was greatly intrigued."

Brittany winced. "I'm not heading for trouble here, am I? I really don't want to go down in history as the instigator of the women's movement in Sha-Ka'an. Not that you don't need a women's movement, but it's been pointed out to me that you need to figure these things out for yourselves, not have them forced down your throat by other species."

He cupped her face in his hands. "Do you intend to make trouble?"

"Well-no."

"Then no trouble will occur."

"Yeah, sure," she mumbled.

He chuckled at her. "I am teasing you, chemar. I should tell you that I have come to a realization that has taken a burden from me. Long ago I made the decision to follow my father's ways completely, to ignore my mother's. It was a good decision at the time. It was not easy when I was young, to be so divided by such vastly different beliefs. But this left a hollowness in me, as if I were not whole. Finding you, knowing you, loving you, has shown me that-"

She squealed and threw her arms around his neck. "You said it! You said you love me!"

He set her back from him, gave her a stern look. "Do not try my patience, woman. You know very well the depth of my feelings for you."

"Well, yes." She grinned, not the least bit intimidated by that look. "But it's still nice to hear it occasionally."