Keeper of the Heart (40 page)

“Now that you mention it, I don’t think I will.” Shanelle grinned back.

“You’re teaching her bad habits,” Martha interjected at that point to warn Tedra.

Tedra snorted. “She’s joined to a warrior, which means she needs all the help she can get. Speaking of help, where’s that old teaching console you dug up for her new nephew?”

“Coming right up,” Martha replied, and the machine appeared on the floor at their feet.

Shanelle smiled widely. “Why, that’s perfect to get Drevan started on.”

“Sublims would be easier on the kid,” Tedra said, “but Martha tells me your lifemate has an aversion to them, so we didn’t bother looking for your old teachers. But are you sure you want to try educating him on a wider sphere than what these warriors are used to?”

“If he’s willing. Falon is already breaking ground on dealing with visitors again, so who knows what will happen in a few years. It won’t hurt to have a warrior here who will feel comfortable with visitors and can be of assistance in an advisory capacity.”

“I didn’t think of that,” Tedra said.

“
I
did.” Martha gloated.

Shanelle managed to keep from chuckling at the scowl the phazor combo got again. “Besides,” she said, drawing her mother’s attention back, “if I can do anything for that boy, I want to give him a feeling of worth, which his mother has tried her damnedest to take from him.”

“Let’s not mention that female, or I’m liable to seek her out while I’m here and challenge her myself.”

Martha chuckled. “Your mother appreciated your coming to her defense a number of times, Shani, but she was dying to pin that female to the floor herself.”

Tedra waved a dismissive hand. “She got hers by getting defeated so fast. I couldn’t have done it any better. Now let’s have a look at you before I go.” Tedra pulled Shanelle to her feet, then grinned as she took in her outfit. “Maybe I should move to Ba-Har-an. Who would have thought these warriors would allow a woman so many freedoms? I’m positively envious.” And then she frowned. “No wonder Challen didn’t want me coming here.”

Martha pulled out her impatience tone. “If he knows how things are here, I’ll turn my voice off for a month. You know very well he didn’t want you stirring up trouble for Shani by putting Falon in a bad mood. Or have you forgotten you’re on that young warrior’s blacklist as far as mothers-in-law go?”

“I’ll wager
he’s
forgotten all about that silly challenge, now that he’s won what he wanted.”

“Wanna bet?” came out in two different voices, though in perfect sync.

Tedra scowled. “Well, he farden well better get over it real quick. I’m not going to come sneaking in here every time I want to see my daughter.”

“I’m working on it, mother,” Shanelle assured her. “But maybe you better go back now, before you get yourself in more trouble.” And then she grimaced at that reminder. “I’m sorry you ended up with a challenge loss to father because of me.”

“Don’t be silly, baby. Challenge losses are no more than fun and games with my barbarian these days.”

“Then you didn’t get punished, too?”

“She sure as hell did,” Martha couldn’t resist saying. “And she’s still not talking to that warrior because of it.”

“Mother!” Shanelle exclaimed incredulously.

Tedra gritted her teeth before she snarled at the computer, “I’m not going to be talking to you anymore either, Martha, if you don’t learn when to keep your mouth shut.”

Shanelle shook her head. “I thought you said warriors don’t let their lifemates hold grudges.”

“
Some
warriors have no choice in the matter.”

“That’s just great. Now I feel even more guilty than I did.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tedra scoffed. “Your father and I haven’t had a good fight in a long time. I happen to be enjoying myself with this one.”

“Well, for Stars’ sake, find some other way to enjoy yourself,” Shanelle complained. “And get rid of that phazor unit while you’re at it, before it gets you punished again. What are you doing with it anyway, instead of a regular unit?”

“I’m in a country I’ve never been in before. I decided not to take any chances. And a phazor is a perfect weapon, since it doesn’t actually look like one in its rectangular box, and stuns its target into immobility instead of killing them.”

“But if father sees that—”

“He won’t.”

But he would, for a moment later he arrived just as Tedra had, and Challen’s expression was about as furious as Shanelle had ever seen it. Stars, what next? It would be just her luck for Falon to return now.

He did.

Shanelle didn’t know what to say first—“Hello, father,” or “I can explain, Falon.” Her lifemate stood in the doorway frowning at the uninvited crowd in his bedroom. Her father stood there frowning at her mother. Her mother was wearing an I’m-not-budging expression. Shanelle gave up and kept silent, not wanting to instigate what was sure to be a big blowup.

Martha wasn’t as circumspect. “What the hell, the more the merrier. I should have thought of it myself.”

Martha’s voice drew Challen’s eyes to the phazor-combo unit at Tedra’s waist, well recognized after all the trouble he’d had with it when he first met her. “Not only do you defy my wishes to come here, but you come armed?”

Tedra’s chin went up. “Weapons are allowed here.”

“You did not acquire that weapon here, woman, but in Kan-is-Tra, where it is
not
allowed.”

“If you’re going to nitpick about trifles, then the fact remains that you haven’t caught me wearing it in Kan-is-Tra, have you?”

“This is true, yet will you be wearing it when I take you home.”

Her eyes narrowed at that reminder. “Then I’ll just leave it here.”

“No, you will not,” Falon interjected, drawing their eyes to him. “I care not if that thing you speak of is a weapon. What you may not leave here is access to your Martha, which it also is, for I have forbidden that computer to speak—”

“Let’s get something straight here, warrior,” Martha interrupted in her losing-patience tone. “You didn’t forbid me, you forbade Shani, which was all you
could
do, because I’m not command-able, and I think you know that by now. And how long are you going to hold this grudge against me and my Tedra anyway, just because we protected your lifemate before you had the right to? Would
you
have wanted some warrior barely known to you sneaking into her room in the middle of the night?”

Falon flushed with color, especially when Challen’s eyes swung toward him in marked displeasure. Shanelle didn’t have the least bit of pity for him at the moment.

“Now you see what happens when you get on Martha’s bad side, warrior,” she said. “She gets even when you least expect it.”

“You are speaking to me again, Shanelle?”

She shrugged. “You can thank my mother for that. She talked me out of being seriously mad at you. Now I’m just semi-mad.”

“For what reason were you angry at all, Shanelle?” her father wanted to know.

Shanelle wished she had kept her mouth shut. But she didn’t have to answer.

Falon did, and wasn’t the least embarrassed about
this.
“I found it necessary to punish her this rising.”

“Ah.” Challen nodded. “I now face the same necessity with my own woman.”

“That tears it,” Tedra growled. “My baby was in pain. That cancels all forbiddings as far as I’m concerned. I had to see for myself how much damage was done, and give her hell myself for forcing Falon to inflict it. I won’t be punished for that, warrior.”

“You will,” Challen promised. “Did you know she had need of us, you should have come to me. Instead you defy me and come here, where you are as yet unwelcome. And I see no evidence on my daughter to warrant your coming here at all— Shanelle,
why
do you wear those clothes?”

Shanelle blinked at the sudden change in subject. “This is what women wear here, father. They wear swords, too. In fact, when you see for yourself, you will be amazed at how different it is here—in some things.” She then looked pointedly at her lifemate. “Falon?”

He knew exactly what she wanted. He would prefer it if she didn’t put him on the spot like that, yet his desire was strong just then to give her anything she asked for, in an effort to mend their breach.

He glanced at Challen. “As long as you are here,
shodan,
I would invite you and your lifemate to visit for a time.”

“That is brave of you,” Challen replied, prompting a laugh from Falon and another scowl from his lifemate.

“Don’t rub it in the ground, warrior,” she grouched. “One measly little challenge that
he
didn’t even take seriously, and you won’t let me live it down. Well, I think we’ve played Tedra-is-a-bad-girl long enough. I happen to approve of my daughter’s lifemate, now that he’s got his act together. He doesn’t have to worry that I’ll get on his case again as long as he keeps his promise to make Shani happy; and, disregarding punishments that she
deserved,
he’s doing that. So let me off the hook already, before I
really
get mad.”

One golden brow arched. “Your anger these many days has not been true anger?”

“Not even close.”

“Best we recall, then, the lack of respect that has accompanied your untrue anger, which was allowed as an appeasement.”

“Fine,” Tedra snapped. “Go ahead and keep it up. But when my challenge loss is over, warrior, you better believe I’m going to do some getting-even.”

“Such is to be expected of a warrior woman,” Challen replied. “But best you remember your past difficulty with getting even, not through lack of ability, but through lack of true desire. You cannot hurt your only love,
chemar.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Shanelle was pleased that Falon had given in to allow her parents to stay for a few days, which was all her father had agreed to, since he was expecting his own parents’ return to Sha-Ka-Ra within the week. Even Tedra didn’t complain about that, for she loved his parents, especially his mother, whom she had taken to like the mother she herself had never had. If Tedra had any complaint, it was that Chadar and Haleste Ly-San-Ter never stayed for long in Sha-Ka-Ra. But Chadar was a Guardian of the Years, which meant he had to do a lot of traveling around the country each year to search out important events for recording, and Haleste naturally went with him.

Shanelle wondered if Falon would permit her to go home, at least for a few hours, to visit with her grandparents while they were in Sha-Ka-Ra. If she was going to ask, today was the day to do it. After she’d got permission for Drevan to start using the teaching console, permission to begin Drevan’s sword practice, and permission to have her
fembair
Transferred to Falon’s house, she had concluded that there wasn’t much she wouldn’t get if she asked for it today. Her lifemate was definitely suffering pangs of distress for what he’d done. Not guilt, for he felt justified, but definite regret, with the accompanying need to make amends.

Shanelle was all for that, especially since as the day wore on, she was forced to admit—at least to herself—that her punishment hadn’t been
that
bad. There was no more than a tightness across her bottom now, and a slight discomfort when she sat down. In fact, it had almost been worth it just to find out that punishment at the hands of her warrior wasn’t the absolute horror she’d thought it would be. Almost. At any rate, she now knew she could live with it as long as she deserved it. But if the day ever came when she felt she
didn’t
deserve it, well, she’d just have to find out how good she was at Kystrani downing.

There was another moment that day when she experienced a different form of discomfort. Her father drew her aside before he left with Falon to view Ka’al. He looked so serious, and she couldn’t help but remember that when she had left Sha-Ka’an, it was her
father
she had disobeyed. She hoped that wasn’t what he had on his mind, but her luck hadn’t improved that much.

Yet she thought she had a reprieve when he told her, “I was certain I had chosen the right lifemate for you, the one who could protect you as well as make you happy. Was I wrong?”

“No,” she was quick to assure him. “You chose well, father.”

“Yet were you not there for me to give you into his care.”

She hung her head. “I know, and I’m sorry about that. I just had too many fears, and no courage to face them.”

“Have your fears been seen to?”

“Yes.”
All but one
, but she didn’t want to tell her father that.

“This I am well pleased to hear. Was your disobedience also seen to?”

It was on the tip of Shanelle’s tongue to say, Yes, of course it was. Falon wouldn’t neglect something like that. Instead she heard herself admitting, “No. He meant to. He even started to. But he couldn’t do it. He didn’t want our life together to begin with such unpleasantness.”

“A wise man.”

Shanelle looked up in surprise. “You mean that?”

“Indeed. And since I know that he
will
correct you when it is necessary, I need not worry that you have this man so besotted he cannot see to you properly.”