Sharon Green - The Warrior Rearmed

“If you’re looking for Tammad, he’s in the next room,” my brother empath informed me, his voice as dry as the desert air. “Bite off a little more than we could chew, did we?”

His eyes and tone told me that his poor opinion of me was back in full force, but that was hardly unexpected. I closed my eyes and put an arm over them, then took a deep breath.

“I can’t decide whether I have a greater dislike for your old personality or your new one,” I told the darkness in a very soft croak, feeling the reverberation of every word. “Your new personality is unspeakably patient, but the old one gloats.”

“I’m not gloating,” he denied, trying to shed some of the dripping satisfaction in his voice. “I’m just wondering what you tried to do this time—and curious as to why it backfired.”

“What I tried to do was get that barbarian to take me back to the embassy,” I admitted, making no effort to keep the disgust out of my voice. “Not only didn’t it work, it also exploded in my face. As far as the why goes, your guess is as good as mine. Last time I looked, I was stronger than he was.”

“And this time he walked all over you,” Len agreed in a thoughtful voice. “If anyone had asked me, I would have bet against this sort of an outcome. Are you sure that’s all you did, try to force him into taking you back to the embassy?”

“Of course I’m sure,” I said in exasperation, pulling my arm away from my eyes so I could half-glare at him. “Even if I were into world conquest, this is hardly the world I’d want to conquer. All I want is to go somewhere where I’ll be left alone. Is that so much to ask?”

“I’m not the one in line for the question,” he said, suddenly trying not to look sympathetic. “Some men, like me, for instance, would let you go wherever you thought you had to, and then spend their time kicking themselves and worrying about you. Tammad belongs under a different heading, the one that reads, ‘We’ll work it out together.’ Why don’t you try remembering exactly what you said and did.”

I was tempted to accuse Len of avoiding my question, but my head hurt too much and it was fairly obvious that that was exactly what he was doing. Instead I dragged out the data on the episode I’d gone through with Tammad, including the details of his strange resistance, and gave them all to Len. His silence at the end of it gave me a chance to exercise some vestige of pain control on myself, which seemed to go a short way toward returning me to normal. I was able to get rid of the damp cloth and drag myself to sitting before Len pulled himself out of the deep thoughtfulness he’d fallen into.

“I think that may be it,” he muttered under his breath, looking at me with those pretty blue eyes. “In fact, I’m sure of it.—

“Well, I’m glad that’s settled.” I smiled, pushing back the dampened hair from my face. “Now let’s have a contest to see which of us can stand up straight first without falling.”

“Terry, stop being an idiot,” he snorted, surprising me by having-heard what I said. “I think I know what happened to make Tammad stronger than you, even though he really isn’t.”

“Scientific curiosity aside, Len, I’m not sure I want to know,” I said, looking away from him toward the windows. “I had exactly one advantage over Tammad, and now even that’s gone, right along with my last chance to get out of this place. What difference does it make why he beat me’? It won’t change the fact that he did.”

“Whys are more important than you seem to understand, Terry,” he said, putting his hand under my chin to turn my face back to him. His expression was more serious than was usual with him, but his eyes were warm with compassion. “I think Tammad was able to beat you at your own game because you weren’t simply trying to make him take you somewhere, you were trying to make him give you up. Hasn’t it come through to you yet that he loves you far too much to give you up?”

“That can’t possibly have anything to do with it,” I denied, disturbed over the idea. “You’ll see how deep his love goes when I refuse to help him with any more of his plans. And I didn’t ask him to give me up. I never would have presented so radical a concept with the sort of precarious hold I had on him. It would have been stupid.”

“Stupid comes in a variety of flavors,” Len answered, beginning to look impatient. “According to your own account, the first thing you told Tammad was that he wanted to take you back to the embassy. He obviously didn’t agree, but he also didn’t fight unreasonably hard. You weren’t satisfied with the reaction you were getting, so the next thing you told him was that he was foolish trying to keep you, and would be smart if he got rid of you as soon as possible. His reaction to that one should have told you that you’d gone too far, but instead of calming him and withdrawing, you had to add the crowning touch. You had to tell him he’d never see you again. I’m not surprised that he exploded; I’m surprised he didn’t blast you flatter than he did. With you wide open and him pouring out rage and fury, you’re lucky he didn’t burn you out completely. If you’d used your head, you would have known what his reaction would be without taking the risk of testing for it.”

“What do you mean, testing?” I demanded, suddenly suspicious of where his facile logic was taking me. “I was trying to get myself out of this place, not making nebulous and fatuous tests of some sort.”

“Sure you were,” he scoffed, leaning down to one elbow on the bed furs away from me. “Terry, when an ordinary woman tests a man’s desire for her, she uses words or actions to see what he’ll do. When a female empath tries the same thing, she shoves at his emotions to see how easily she can change them. You knew you would be wide open if he exploded, but you didn’t expect him to explode. You expected him to accept me and Garth and Gay in place of you, and expected the substitution to be easy. You tested him despite the danger of being burned out because you still don’t believe he really loves you.”

Len was staring directly at me, his eyes searching deeply as his mind poked at my shield, both trying to find a way within. I avoided his stare while ignoring the poking, then shrugged in an aimless sort of way.

“I’ve already told you how I feel about that,” I said, trying not to sound as defensive as I felt. “Everyone in sight keeps assuring me how great his love is, but all I know for sure is how I feel. And that has nothing to do with what he feels for me.”

“I don’t believe you can sit there and say that!” Len burst out, straightening again near my right shoulder. “After everything that man has done, how can you still doubt him?”

“What sort of everything are you talking about?” I asked, watching the billowing curtains at the window. “The way he kidnapped me, the way he refuses to let me go, the way he insists I obey him and beats me if I don’t’? Or maybe you mean the way he keeps trying to get me to work for him? Those last items really make me feel wanted and loved.”

His big hand came again to my face to turn it back to him, and I could see forced calm fighting with exasperation in his expression.

“How about the way he came after you to the Hamarda camp and here?” he asked, trying to keep from shouting. “Those Hamarda were ready to accuse him of slave stealing when they found you gone, but he didn’t care. He was ready to kill any or all of them who tried to keep him from following you immediately, and would have fought them single-handedly if the rest of us hadn’t calmed him down. By the time we got here, he was closer to being frantic than I’ve ever seen him. Instead of using the diplomacy he’s so good at to free you, he marched right in and up to that Aesnil woman and demanded your release. Only a man in love could have acted like such a damned fool.”