Keeper of the Heart (8 page)

They were a little too far away for Shanelle to make out their features, but her attention was definitely snagged, for these were obviously visitors by the dark color of their hair, yet all four were warrior-tall, warrior-big. Stars, what planet did they come from, that they had such a look of the warrior about them? Three had hair as dark as Shanelle’s mother, black as the
zaalskin bracs
they were wearing. The fourth man had chestnut hair, almost as dark.

The men spoke together for a moment in front of the tent before they split up, two going off toward the front of the park, two coming toward the end where Shanelle stood. These two were of an exact height, young, she saw as they got closer, maybe four or five years older than she, and handsome, she saw as they got closer still. She held her breath, hoping they would stop at the arena in front of her, and when they did, she forgot about letting her breath out.

Oh, Heaven’s Stars, was he splendid, the one she couldn’t take her eyes off now that she could distinguish their features. This one wasn’t merely handsome, he was sensually appealing to every one of Shanelle’s senses. His black hair was long and thick, caressing warriorlike shoulders and a thick neck. His skin was darker than golden; his chest and arms were immense, perhaps larger than those of some warriors she knew. He had an arrogant cut to his square jaw, hard, chiseled lips, a well-shaped nose for his face, and thick black brows that drew together in a serious manner as he spoke again to his companion.

Shanelle was still watching him when his eyes touched on her in passing—and came right back. Azure they were, as light as a midday sky, and disconcerting in their intensity, making her feel things...

She looked away, back to the two warriors straining in the arena, and heard Martha’s voice. “If I’m reading you right, doll, you just got your socks knocked off.”

“Stars, so this is what it feels like.” A fist seemed to be squeezing her belly—no pain, just the strangest, most pleasant feeling.

Martha chuckled. “All right, where is he? I’ve got to see this incredible specimen for myself.”

Suddenly Shanelle felt fearful and nervous. She didn’t
want
Martha to know he was a visitor. This was so important!
Calm down, for Stars’ sake.
Where were these emotions coming from?

“Not yet, Martha. I want to be sure I haven’t just conjured him up with wishful thinking.”

“Your whole system’s gone haywire. You don’t get that from fantasies.”

“What’s your Martha saying, Shani?” Caris questioned at her side.

“Nothing. How’s your warrior doing?” Even as Shanelle asked this, the man won the match and Caris started squealing in delight. Shanelle grinned, beginning to feel some of her anxiety dissolving. “You won’t get to meet him as long as he keeps winning, unless no one else challenges him.”

The judge of this arena was already leading in the next warrior, a seven-footer. Caris frowned. “But I don’t want to hope he loses.”

“If it’s far enough along in the eliminations of this arena, then losing here may not put him out of the running. There are the other skills to consider.”

Caris was no longer paying attention to what Shanelle was saying, caught up as she was in the new match, which had just begun. Shanelle took the opportunity to steal another glance at the black-haired visitor and once more met those light blue eyes head-on. Stars, had he been watching her all this time? She felt nervous again, and there was no reason for it. She wanted him to be interested. She wouldn’t utter a single protest if he came over, grabbed her hand, and dragged her off. Of course he wouldn’t do that. He was a visitor from another planet. Visitors, most of them, tended to do things in a civilized fashion. What a waste of time!

Time she didn’t have. But she couldn’t be
too
easy. She didn’t want to scare him off. He had to want her enough to ask her father for her, but she didn’t know if he wanted her at all yet.
Entice him, Shani. Make him come to you. If he loses interest,
then
you can be aggressive.

Slowly this time, as if reluctantly, she looked away, back to the two warriors straining in the arena. She watched Caris’s warrior being shoved over his line and heard her friend sigh.

“He loses and I win.” Caris was just short of chuckling now. “I think I’ll go over and introduce myself and offer a little sympathy.”

“Go ahead. I’ll wait for you here.”

“She has the right idea,” Martha said as soon as Caris hurried off. “What are
you
waiting for?”

Shanelle glanced again toward the black-haired visitor, then looked quickly away. He was still staring at her. But his expression was unchanged. He hadn’t even smiled at her yet.

“I’m waiting for him to come to me.”

“We’re not playing games here, kiddo,” Martha said, adding a big dose of exasperation to her tone. “You want him, go get him.”

“Damn it, Martha, it’s not that easy. And let
me
handle this, will you?”

Determinedly she watched the next match, all of it, without once glancing toward the visitor. The seven-footer won again, easily. He really was mammoth and would likely last a good long while, possibly the rest of the day.

Why
hadn’t he come over yet? Visitors weren’t typically shy or hesitant. Maybe he didn’t want her. Maybe he only found her curious, looking like a Sha-Ka’ani female but dressed like a visitor— except for the cloak she was wearing. Was it the damn cloak? Did he think it made her unavailable? He could at least ask!

She gave him another quick glance. The moment she did, he entered the arena. Shanelle’s eyes flared wide. Her gasp brought Corth to her side.

“What is wrong?”

“Nothing, Corth.”

“I’d better get a better answer than that,” Martha’s voice warned.

“He’s entered the competition.”

“Well, that ought to be interesting.
Now
can I have a look?”

“Not yet.”

“I’d be getting suspicious, Shani, if I weren’t monitoring you.”

“Be quiet, Martha.”

Shanelle couldn’t believe he was doing this. The warrior had at least four inches on him and a great deal more weight. But the visitor clasped hands with him, took up the correct stance, and then looked again at Shanelle. In that moment she knew why he was in there. He
did
want her. She had been watching the contestants, but he wanted her eyes on him, so he became a contestant. What a sweet, jealous thing to do—and so foolish. He couldn’t possibly win. But she’d take a leaf from Caris’s book and give him a dose of sympathy when he lost.

Only he didn’t lose right away. The pushing and straining began and it was magnificent to watch. Muscles appeared and bulged prominently on the visitor that Shanelle wouldn’t have imagined he could possess. Her breathing quickened. She found herself straining right along with him, and suddenly she wanted him to win so bad she could taste it, because here was a visitor her father could approve of. That had been one of her main stumbling blocks, that her father wouldn’t accept a visitor, any visitor, but he could certainly accept one who could defeat a warrior.

Her eyes were on his face now, willing him to do it, and it was in the exact moment when his eyes came to Shanelle to assure himself she was watching that he gathered the last effort to win. He did it. The mighty warrior stumbled back over his line, their hands separated, and the visitor stood victorious and stared right at Shanelle.

She didn’t jump up and down squealing like Caris had done, but that was what she felt was going on inside her. She was absolutely ecstatic, and her grin showed it.

“I’d swear you were being kissed and loving it, but I know no one’s touching you,” Martha remarked, actually sounding curious. “What’s got you even more excited?”

“He just beat a warrior, Martha.” And Shanelle was the one feeling proud.

“So?”

“All right, take a look.” She positioned the computer-link unit so that the viewer on the end was aiming right at the triumphant visitor.

“Shani, you’d better be pointing in the wrong direction,” Martha said, clearly irritated. “That’s not a warrior.”

“I don’t care what he is, he’s the one. And I’m going to turn you off now, Martha. I don’t need any help from the sidelines.”

“Don’t you dare. Your mother pulled that once and got herself claimed.”

“And look how nicely that ended up.”

“Shani—”

Martha’s voice was cut off, but Shanelle knew she could still hear and monitor her with the Rover’s short-range scanner, so she offered, “I’m sorry, Martha, but I’ve made my choice.” She patted the unit at her waist. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“I believe the man wishes me to challenge him, Shani,” Corth remarked suddenly.

Her “choice”
was
looking directly at Corth just then. “Glance away,” she told him. “In fact, move away. He thinks you’re with me.”

“I am with you.”

“You know what I mean. And stop grinning. This isn’t funny. He’s a visitor. Unlike warriors, visitors
do
get jealous over the most ridiculous things, and that’s not how I want to start out this relationship.”

“Perhaps I should oblige him.” Corth’s humor mode was obviously running on strong. “To show him I am merely a machine,” he added.

Shanelle knew it was still in his programming, the time Challen had been jealous of him. Even after her father had been told Corth was only a machine, he’d still been jealous of him. And Corth’s strength was ten times greater than any man’s, including a warrior’s. She wasn’t going to have him prove that to the visitor when the test wouldn’t be for the contest, but over her.

“All right, you’ve had your little joke, Corth. But that’s the man I want to get to know, and I mean
know.
So absent yourself for a while.”

“You know I cannot do that, Shani.”

“Then keep me within your sight, but yourself out of
his
notice. You can do that—”

Shanelle fell silent as she realized it was too late. The visitor was already approaching, signaling the judge that he wouldn’t be participating further at this time. And with those long legs, he was there before Shanelle could get her thoughts together. But he was still looking only at Corth.

“If you wish not to enter these competitions, we can go elsewhere to settle this matter in private.”

He had the Sha-Ka’ani language down pat, with only a slight accent that was really very lyrical, but Shanelle’s mouth dropped at that opening challenge, and it
was
a challenge. Corth, however, was still finding the situation highly amusing.

He smiled at the visitor. “This we could do, yet would the doing be unnecessary. The woman has made her choice.”

Those light blue eyes came to Shanelle, and even through her sudden mortification, she knew she was looking at an intensity of emotion the likes of which she’d never experienced before. Hot, savage—scary, but gone as soon as he looked back at Corth, leaving Shanelle merely shaken and wondering if she’d imagined it. But she hadn’t imagined Corth’s bald statement.

“I’m going to unplug you for that,” she whispered to her friend, her cheeks still burning.

Both males chose not to hear her, or else hadn’t heard her during their continuing regard of each other. The visitor was looking at Corth’s hair when he asked him, “Are you from the east?”

“No,” Corth said simply.

“From this planet?”

“Not originally.”

That easily, Corth was dismissed and Shanelle had the man’s attention again. She found it amusing that he had thought Corth a warrior, even though he lacked the bulging biceps of a warrior, and the extreme height. And she could be amused because those azure eyes weren’t so unsettling this time, but were merely appraising, curious, and definitely interested.

“He is no more than your escort?” he asked her.

“An escort, but also a friend—also an android.”

“An android.”

He said the word as if he didn’t know what it meant, but Shanelle decided only one thing needed clarification just then. “He will leave me with you if you want to—talk.”

She put enough insinuation into the last word that a dummy could catch her meaning, yet the man took her literally. “I would do more than talk.”

So it was going to take plain speaking, was it? She grinned. As long as he wasn’t a warrior, she could be as bold as she pleased.

“So would I,” she told him.

The man’s smile at that point nearly made her knees buckle. How was it possible for his attractiveness to double with a mere curling of the lips? And that wasn’t all he did. He bent under the thick cable that roped off the arena and came to stand directly in front of Shanelle, and that close, his size just about overwhelmed her.

He really was only an inch or two shorter than her father, which put him nearly a foot above her own head. And the width of him ... A body like his was nice to look at, it surely was, but she really wished he wasn’t so tall, or so strong. That was one of the reasons she didn’t want a warrior. You simply had no defense against someone this big. And this big someone was a visitor, which meant he wouldn’t have a warrior’s control—the control that kept a warrior from accidentally or otherwise hurting a woman who was, of course, much smaller than he.