Chapter 2 #2
Shanelle anticipated their reaction with a mixture of dread and disgust because of her own feelings on the subject. “Any warrior will tell you he doesn’t know what jealousy is—or love.”
“Oh, come on, Shani,” Caris said doubtfully. “You’ve said that your father loves your mother, and we all know he’s a warrior.”
“My father happens to be an exception.” But Shanelle’s tone turned dry as she added, “You could say my mother has been a bad influence on him.”
Caris and Cira laughed, but Yari put in, “Well, I think it’s great. Imagine not having to deal with possessiveness and jealousy.”
“Is that right?” Dren asked with a twinge of annoyance in his voice. He was even shorter than Shanelle was, and too slim of frame by half, but he’d been the most handsome boy in their class. “You weren’t thinking of trying any of these warriors yourself, were you?”
Yari grinned and wrapped herself around him on the adjusticouch they shared. He was short, but she was still shorter. In fact, not one of the girls was taller than five and a half feet, which made Shanelle occasionally feel uncomfortable with her own height and lushly rounded figure.
“Don’t get your nose bent out of joint, babe,” the petite brunette told him. “From what I’ve heard, those warriors are just too big for me. I like my skin white and creamy, not black-and-blue.”
“Farden hell, I never thought of that,” Cira groaned in complaint.
Shanelle chuckled and sat back with her goblet of Antury wine.
“That doesn’t happen to be something you need to worry about.
There is no man more gentle with a woman than a warrior because he is always conscious of his size and strength.
The female Darasha of the servant class are much shorter than you are, Cira, and they have no complaints. ”
“Are these females someone Jadd and I might like to sample?” Dren asked, to get back some of his own, but what he got was a poke in the belly from Yari.
Shanelle answered anyway. “The Darash females are available for anyone’s use, and they don’t mind. I sometimes wonder if they even know how to say no.”
“You certainly know how to say no,” Jadd said as he brought his wine over and sat down next to Shanelle on her own couch. “I wonder if—”
He didn’t get to finish. He’d no sooner taken the new seat than Corth was there and about to sit right on top of him if Jadd didn’t move himself real fast. He did scramble out of the way, spilling his wine in the process.
Two robocleaners came out from two different sides of the huge room to clean up the mess, but no one noticed them.
Jadd was glowering at Corth, Shanelle was laughing—she simply couldn’t help herself—and the others were all staring at Corth as if he’d malfunctioned.
“Why did he do that, Shani?” Caris finally asked for the lot of them.
Shanelle was too busy laughing to come up with an answer, but Jadd wasn’t. “He’s her protector,” he said, making it sound like a dirty word. “No one can share sex with her while he’s around. They can’t even touch her!”
“That’s not precisely true, Mr. Ce Moerr,” Martha’s voice intruded, proving she’d been following the entire conversation. It was a wonder she’d kept quiet until now. “If Shani wants to do a little sex-sharing with a man, Corth wouldn’t interfere. He might even help her take her clothes off.”
Shanelle stiffened, thinking about throwing her wine at the intercom panel. “That was rather crudely put, Martha.”
“You know me, doll. I like to get my point across in a big way.”
“Thanks a lot.”
Martha started to laugh, but Jadd demanded indignantly, “What kind of protector is that, I’d like to know? I thought he was supposed to keep all men away from you, Shani!”
Shanelle was annoyed enough to snap, “No, just those I’ve already refused.”
Jadd’s color heightened in embarrassment, making him sneer, “I doubt that’s what your father had in mind.”
“You’re absolutely right, Jadd,” Shanelle replied. “It’s something my mother added to Corth’s programming without my father knowing. She is a Kystrani, after all, just like you. She believes in saying no when she feels like it, and yes when she feels like it.”
“But do you ever feel like saying yes?”
It was a question too personal even for a man in the grip of frustration to ask. Jadd regretted it immediately and looked away, not expecting an answer. Shanelle wouldn’t have answered him anyway. But Martha, that miscreant of metal parts, had no such qualms.
“It wouldn’t do her any good to say yes on Sha-Ka’an.
She’s a daughter with a hale and hearty father who no one will challenge for the position of shodan, much less for a woman.
There isn’t a warrior who knows her who will even approach her.
All they can do is think about it, and try to prove to her father that they are worthy of being her lifemate.
She won’t be sharing sex until then. She doesn’t dare go against the natural order of things. ”
Shanelle was no longer thinking about throwing wine at the intercom.
She was definitely going to smash it to bits.
And she knew what Martha was doing. She was trying to goad Shanelle into standing up for her rights, by showing her how others would see her situation.
And those others were looking at her in differing degrees of horror right now.
Just what she needed, their pity on top of her own self-pity.
“Is that really how it works, Shani?” Caris asked. “Do you have to go straight to a permanent commitment without even getting to try the guy out first?”
“Most Sha-Ka’ani females don’t mind that at all—” Shanelle began, only to have Martha butt in again.
“They don’t know how to buck the system.”
“Tradition, Martha, not system, and stay the hell out of this!”
“But, Shani, you’re half Kystrani,” Cira pointed out.
“That’s right,” Shanelle replied. “Something Martha conveniently forgets about just to make her points. I do happen to have other options, one I’ve already decided on.”
“The coward’s way out,” Martha said with a snort. “You can find what you’re looking for right at home. You don’t have to go to another Star System and end up breaking your mother’s heart in the process.”
There it was, what Shanelle should have realized from the start. Martha was only on loan to her. She was first and foremost Tedra’s, and everything she said and did was ultimately for Tedra’s benefit.
Shanelle sighed. “All right, Martha, I’ll look, I really will, right up until my father makes his choice. But if I don’t agree with his choice, then I’m gone, and my mother will back me on that.”
“I know she will. All I’m asking for is a little effort on your part so it won’t come to that, and now that you’ve agreed to make it, you’ll have my complete support.”
“Well, I hope you realize one of the undesirable possibilities of your underhanded goading.”
“Of course I do. Dense isn’t in my programming.
” And suddenly Jadd disappeared from his perch on the end of the couch only to reappear a few moments later looking mighty shook up.
Martha’s voice was now purring as she addressed the young man.
“That was just a preview of what will happen to you, Mr. Ce Moerr, if you mention any of what you’ve heard here tonight to a certain somebody’s father.
Only next time you won’t be Transferred to your cabin and back, you’ll be dropped in deep space. ”
Even Shanelle was impressed by that threat.
Molecular Transfer was the means to get from ship to planet surface without landing or using Transfer craft.
It literally Transferred your body from one point to the other in less time than it took to blink.
And Martha was in control of the Rover’s Transfer system.
“That’s—that’s against the laws of Life Appreciation,” Jadd said in a horrified whisper.