Keeper of the Heart (30 page)

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.

It didn’t take long at all for Shanelle to realize that Falon had no intention of asking for Brock’s assistance to get them out of there. His careful examination of the locked door proved it.

“Transferring would be quicker,” Shanelle finally pointed out.

Falon didn’t turn around to reply, “Transferring will wait until it is absolutely necessary.”

And that told her that the big brave warrior had a definite aversion to Transferring, which she would have found amusing if she weren’t still so angry. She moved to his side to complain, “We’re stuck in here behind a locked door. You don’t consider that necessary?”

His answer was to glance at her for only a second before he
took
one step back and kicked the door down. Shanelle mumbled under her breath, “Well, I guess not,” and a little louder, “So much for specially made doors that even seven-foot barbarians can’t break.”

The only satisfaction Shanelle got was in catching Lanar unawares. The Sunderian female had been sitting on her couch gloating to herself while she finished her drink. The crash of the door caused her to leap to her feet, and like her sister, she wasn’t prepared for the sight of a live Sha-Ka’ani warrior, though she’d been forewarned of their size. She simply stared boggle-eyed at Falon, giving Shanelle the opportunity to approach her without being noticed.

Falon came closer himself, asking, “Are you the one responsible for the way I found my woman?”

Suddenly Lanar wasn’t frightened anymore. She was grinning. “Did you appreciate it? She said you would want to punish her for running away from you. I decided to make it easy for you, figuring you would be along shortly. But I would have let you in,” she added reproachfully. “You didn’t have to break my door down.”

“We do not bind our women for punishment, nor do we punish them in the way Shanelle was prepared for. What you did was to terrify the woman under my protection, and you would severely regret this were you a man.”

Lanar experienced only a moment’s fear before she realized he wasn’t going to do anything to her. “It sounds like you’re too lenient all the way around,” she sneered. “The woman deserves much worse than you’ll obviously be giving her. I should have seen to the matter myself before you got here. She needs that arrogance of hers whipped out of her.”

Shanelle tapped Lanar on the shoulder at that point. Lanar turned toward her in annoyance, then paled, having apparently forgotten that Shanelle was not a Sunderian female of Sunderian size.

“Care to tell me about what I deserve?” Shanelle asked in a softly menacing tone. “No? What about this arrogance I’ve supposedly got—which by the way can’t possibly be greater than yours?”

Still Lanar didn’t answer. In fact she was looking kind of sick. Shanelle found that satisfying, but not nearly enough for what she’d gone through.

Casually, she remarked, “You know, Lanar, I think you’ve been worried about the wrong Sha-Ka’ani. That warrior there might not make you regret what you did to me, but I don’t have any such qualms.”

Lanar finally found her voice, though it was definitely shaky. “You—you wouldn’t dare.”

“Wanna bet?” Shanelle replied as she drew back her arm and let her fist fly.

The little woman collapsed back on the couch, out cold for a while. Shanelle hoped she’d broken her jaw, but she doubted she’d be that lucky. Only that still wasn’t enough as far as she was concerned. She bent over and searched through Lanar’s pockets for the Altering rod she was sure these power-hungry females would keep handy, and sure enough, she found it.

Behind her, Falon said, “Thank you.”

Shanelle straightened with the short blue rod in her hand. “For what?”

“For doing what I could not.”

“I didn’t do it for you, babe, I did it for myself. Nor am I finished yet.”

And she marched into the other room to squat down by the two Sunderian males, who were still unconscious. Sublims had proved eons ago that it wasn’t necessary to be awake to hear something and have it implanted in your subconscious for future reference. Shanelle made use of that fact now.

When she finished and stood up, it was to find Falon blocking the doorway. “What did you do, woman?”

“Made sure the next time Lanar comes into this room she’ll end up being treated exactly as I was today, and probably how her slaves get treated every day. It ought to be an eye-opening experience for her, though she may be too mean-spirited for the lesson to do any good.”

She passed him to return the rod to Lanar’s pocket so she wouldn’t suspect that her slave-handlers had been tampered with. Falon was right behind her again when she straightened this time, and he wasn’t looking too pleased now.

“You know the use of that device?” he asked her.

“It was explained to me, yes.”

“Did you know the female called general would try to use it on me?”

“I knew she was going to try. Looks like you didn’t give her the chance to.”

“She used it, yet did I not have an understanding of her language for it to work. How is it that this one who looks like her could speak to me in Sha-Ka’an?”

“I was asked for a copy of the Sublim on our language, so I had Martha send it down. I thought it was the general who wanted it, but obviously it was her sister who doubted the process I had explained during my interrogation and wanted to try it herself. Shows what I get for making assumptions. If it had been the general, instead, that rod would have worked on you.”

“It occurs to me now that in knowing what she intended, you had to agree to it.” A growl entered his voice as he added, “You would have had me forget you.”

Shanelle flinched and decided it would be judicious to assure him the opposite. “That wasn’t my idea, Falon. It was the only way Donilla figured she could help me out. And it was only temporary. As soon as you returned to your ship, Brock would have reminded you of me and your reason for being here, and your very nature would have brought you back down here, whether you remembered me or not. For it to work permanently, I would have had to use it on you, and use so many countering suggestions that no one would be able to cancel them all. I could have met you when you arrived and got you so confused, it would have taken you years to figure out what I’d done. For that matter, I could have used the rod on you when I just passed you with it. You wouldn’t have known, and I could have told you to walk out of here—without me— and you would have done just that. It works that simply. But I didn’t do that, did I?”

“Why not?”

“You can get that scowl off your face, warrior. I don’t like the idea of altering personalities on people who don’t know it’s happening, any more than you do, that’s why not. That’s not what I did to those two men, either. I didn’t change them, I merely told them to forget that Lanar is their mistress. Apparently she’s already got them altered into thinking that any female who walks in there is there to be punished. But they don’t do the punishing, merely the preparing, so all Lanar will get is an uncomfortable wait until someone comes around to release her, and probably not even that, since all she has to do is pull out her rod and use it on them again—if she can figure out what suggestions I gave them
before
they bind her up. Farden hell, I didn’t think of that.”

He was suddenly grinning. “I cannot decide if I like this desire you have to avenge yourself.”

“Too bad,” she retorted, but then she looked at him curiously. “You know, Falon, if you agreed to it, I could rid you of the things I object to about you. Of course, I’d have to take one of those rods home with me, because someone is going to remind you of everything I’d have you forget, so I’d have to do it again and again. But it could work, I suppose, as long as you agreed to it. Would you like to be completely acceptable to me, warrior, so I won’t mind going home with you?”