by TylerRose.
His hand around the corner of the table, offered to her, and she was relieved beyond words. She could barely get a “thank you for a lovely evening” out before Shestna had her out the door and walking to his vehicle. The Mayor’s home was on the other side of the market and several blocks behind the temple. They drove in silence and he pulled into the garage across the street from his home. Once in the house, door shut and her hands in his, he sighed hard.
“I’m sorry, Femina. I had not realized the noise you heard was so unrelenting. Nor their thoughts so repulsive. I do not blame you for not wanting to sit next to him, for protecting yourself from his intent.”
“It’s like that almost anyplace I go,” she said. “Not just here, but on the station. It was like that on K’Tran too. I deal with it as best I can.”
“It is your choice. If you feel safe enough to sleep in your own room, I will put my worries aside. If you do not want to sleep alone, my bed is yours and I will keep myself to myself as I did the night before last.”
“Give your father my regards,” she said.
He smiled that even she believed the ruse. “He did not summon me. I alert my brother Pisod when I’m going to such functions. If things go badly, I signal him and he calls to get me out of it. Since I can teleport to Father’s palace from home, no one is the wiser.”
“You sly dog,” she grinned.
“I could not stay there to make you suffer once I knew what you were going through, Tyler. Social functions must be an absolute agony for you. It is no wonder you prefer solitude.”
“I’ll change clothes; but can we have some food? I barely ate anything.”
“Of course. I will see what I can find.”
Which ended up being an entire platter of bites of meat, cheese and fruit with a pile of thin herb crackers.
“How do you not hold what people think against them?” he asked, watching her pile meat onto a cracker with a piece of fruit.
“Who says I don’t?” she asked in return.
He waited for an explanation.
“Why do you think I don’t talk to anyone?” she continued. “Why do you think I have no friends my own age and don’t try to make friends?”
“You’re not friends with the other Earth telepaths?” he asked. “I thought you would be, being from the same planet.”
“We are co-workers. Nothing more. Jerry is a know-it-all ass. Amy has quit working on the station and lives on Earth. Nancy isn’t any more interested in being friends with me than I am interested in being friends with her. I’m sure Earnol has influenced Jerry and Jerry has told Nancy to keep away from me. I have lovers, potential lovers, co-workers and acquaintances. Now, it seems, I also have acquired a number of enemies.”
“Where do you put me in that list?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied, head cocked so she was looking up at him sideways. “Where do you want to be?”
He smiled. “I’m not going to fall into that trap, Femina. You’ve read everyone else’s thoughts.”
“But not yours.”
“No?”
“No,” she confirmed. “You are more in control of yours, far more disciplined. You don’t broadcast like 99.999999% of the galaxy. Out of respect for you, I have never invaded your thoughts to find out.”
He put his next cracker down and lifted her chin farther to place a kiss on her lips. Deliberate, warm, gentle, and she returned it.
“What was that for?” she asked when his lips released her and his velvety thumb stroked her cheek.
“I think that is the most honest thing you’ve said without anger since you came to the Congressional station. It deserves recognition. Of what are you afraid in being with me?”
“Not so much afraid as very leery of. The prospect of…anchors. No thank you.”
“They do not have to be engaged. I can extend a length and hold it and use my hips rather than internal muscles to extend and retract.”
“I did not know that.”
“Now you do. But it is not a good idea to start an affair tonight when you are going to leave tomorrow. I do not do a one night thing.”
“No, you prefer seven night things,” she teased putting her napkin on the tray on the floor.
“I do. I’ll not deny that. You shall have to come and visit me again.”
“I’m sure I will have need of another vacation. I’m going back to courier work, which will mean I’ll be wanting a place of my own to stay in one place for a few days.” She sighed, releasing a breath of stress. “I’m enjoying this very much, but I’m also very tired.”
“Go to bed, Femina. We will have breakfast and I will go to the market with you to find what you were wanting to buy before you leave.”
After washing her face and hands in the bowl, she called Julian to let him know she was coming back around lunchtime, on Voranian time.
“Good. We have a new girl and she didn’t like working courier with Jerry,” he said.
“I like her already. Who is she?”
“Her name is Mariah. She’s a common Doyen from Sistair. Mild telepathy and small bit of psychokinesis. Enough to move something a few inches but that’s about it. Family troubles prompted her to apply for a job with the Congress. She’d been doing the secretarial stuff like you did and started courier work a week ago. She’s back doing secretarial today because she told Jerry off and quit him.”
Tyler laughed. “I look forward to meeting her. It’s bedtime. I’ll call before I arrive. Can I just go directly to my room?”
“Yes, I’ll input special permission when you call. Earnol has relaxed that regulation.”
“Thank you. Good night.”
“Goodnight,” Julian said, and put the phone down.
“You promised me you’d never do that.”
He smiled up the fleshy, naked body of his current lover, the dark-haired, dark-skinned Ercoli sex-nymph named Nacette.
“I had to answer that one. I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you,” he said, and returned to dining on her dark purple female sex while she went back to sucking down his hard length.
The morning was so brightand pleasant that Shestna took Tyler to the market for their breakfast. She sensed his regret in everything. He was sorry she was going so soon but wasn’t going to say anything more about it. She wanted to go back to work and he wasn’t going to stop her. There wasn’t anything more to say.
After the meal of foods she didn’t pay much attention to, they walked the market until she found the dress she had been wanting. The bright little stall had a partitioned corner for trying on. The younger of the attendants helped her with the short zipper at the small of her back and the band across her upper back that held the sides and shoulder straps. The bust was fitted, with purple and black silk lace over both sides and gathered under a gold colored brooch with clear crystals.
She came out to look at herself in the mirror, turning to see the mostly bare back. The skirt hung straight as could be, her lines smooth all around from under the bust to the floor. She liked it as much as she thought she would.
“What do you think?” she asked Shestna. “Would it do for meeting your father the next time I visit?”
“It would be an excellent court gown. I did buy you one already.”
“Yes, I know. I was there. You picked out that one to please your eye. I pick out this one to please mine. I like this one better.”
He could only smile at her reason. If she liked this one more, she would wear it with more pride.
“I think that brooch needs to be changed out for something of real gold with real diamonds in order to do justice to the jewel wearing it.”
The corner of her mouth lifted in half a smile. “You’re starting to sound like a K’Tran Gar.”
“That is not the worst insult I’ve ever heard. Wait here. I’ll be right back. I’ll only be a moment.”
He disappeared around the corner of the dress stall and she browsed the accessories. So formal a gown required gloves.
“Can I see that pair?” she asked, pointing to a solid pair in the glass counter. “And the lace ones next to those?”
The attendant bent over to open the door and see which pair she was reaching in for. Bending to look more closely at the pattern on a handkerchief, her hand out over the case to receive the gloves, Tyler felt a familiar fluff.
“Shestna, if you–!”
She looked to see a white Psala in her palm and that same grinning idiot who had sat at her table. The attendant stared at the flower with an expression of utter horror. He’d done it to her too. Her week of hell flashed through her mind and Tyler knew what she was in for during the next seven days if she didn’t act.
“You fucking son of an incestuous street whore,” she spat, throwing it at his face so hard the edge of the stem left a mark. “Shestna!”
She stomped away to leave the stall to find him. Hard fingers grabbed her upper arm as Shestna had done in his kitchen. She reacted, stomping on the his foot with her boot heel. Jerking her arm out of his hand and spinning around to give him an open palm to the chest, she sent him flying backwards through the other side of the stall. He landed at Shestna’s feet.
“What is going on?”
“The fucking bastard put a flower in my hand!” Tyler growled loud enough people heard her two rows away through the open store stalls..
The attendant was nodding. “He did. I saw right as he did it.”
“Fuck the gods,” Shestna hissed.
“I claim the female,” said the man getting up from the ground.
“You knew I was protected by Shestna!,” Tyler nearly shouted, pointing at him. “You saw him here with me this morning!”
“You did not wear the pin declaring that protection. You were fair game,” he denied her.
She looked down…to the brooch of the dress, not the brooch of protection. She’d not moved it onto the gown while trying it on. Who would do that while trying on a dress for two minutes?
“You a loopholin’ motherfucker,” she snarled at him, stomping over to give him another round.
Shestna physically stopped her with a wall of psychokinesis. “Stop, Tyler. It’s not for you to do.”
“It damn-well is.”
“No. It’s for me to do. Remember what I said the other night about you not being able to change everything you do not like.”
“Then you make challenge?” the gray cat asked with a particularly pleased smile.
“I do, Hynder. You know I must.”
“No, you don’t. I always release them. I have never lost a challenge.”
“It’s not the releasing that concerns me but what happens in the days before it,” Shestna replied, taking off his jacket and unbuttoning his cuffs. “You know I have never lost either. It will be a day of firsts for one of us.”
He kicked off his boots to the side of the street, a crowd of faces poking out from stalls up and down the street and gathering at the two ends. The nearer corner was filling with spectators, this event long-awaited and wished for by numerous females Hynder had tricked.
“I can just teleport back to the Congress,” she protested. “This doesn’t have to happen.”
“Silence, female,” they both said.
“I will give you no quarter,” Hynder said.
“They never do.”
“This posturing is fucking ridiculous,” she said in Earth English, turning to leave through the other side of the stall. “Treat me like a god-damn piece of fuckmeat.”
The older woman who owned it stopped her. “You cannot leave, Mistress. You must watch their combat and you must go with the winner. There is no other way for a Voranian female.”
“I’m not Voranian.”
“You are today, and for the next seven days, whether you like it or not, regardless who wins. You cannot run. The Congress would return you immediately and then you would be more punished than you ever have been in your life.”
Three men behind her were ready to stop Tyler from running away. Walking forward, they made her turn around to watch. Already Shestna was in the middle of a trade of punches. Hynder knocked him to the ground and it turned into a wrestling match. She watched, rage building, and when Shestna had his forearm around his enemy’s neck and was about to pull and snap the neck, she did it for him.
She killed Hynder herself and the expression in Shestna’s eyes when he looked at her told her that he knew she’d done it. He dropped the dead man and stood to an inappropriately enthusiastic applause.
Before he could take a step, women came forward to kneel before him and kiss his hand and thank him for relieving them of the shame they bore.
“Send me the bill for the dress and send her clothing with it to my residence,” Shestna said a little too reservedly.
He took Tyler by the hand through the stall to the other street and they walked home without a word. People watched them go, applauding all along the way, word traveling with them from mouth to ear, person to person. Only inside, with the door closed, was the town silenced.
His head hung so low she could not see his face.
“I’ll get my things and go,” she said, starting off for her room.
His hand tightened around her wrist, stopping her.
“I do not blame you for this,” he began.
“I fucking hope not, since it wasn’t my fault.”
“No, it was mine. I left you alone in the store when you weren’t wearing my badge. Please listen to me, Tyler,” he said, head lifted enough she could see the expression in his eyes.
Things she would not like.
“I told you the other day, when I put the red one in your hand, that were it white you would be a Seven-Day bride. That easily, you are precisely that. You must remain. We must do things as they are expected to be done, especially since I am First Prince of our Emperor Encito. They will expect to see us together, to have a supper party at least once.”
“And the sex?” she asked with no small suspicion.
“Must be witnessed at least once within the first two full days,” he said, unhappy and almost ashamed to say it.
“I wasn’t ready to let you be a lover in the first place and now someone has to watch?” she asked, fast getting a fresh anger on about it.
“I am sorry, Femina. I cannot change it. My father will insist when he hears.”
“Who says he’ll hear?”
His phone rang in his pocket and he sighed audibly. “He has already been told.” He took the device out, looked at the screen and answered. “Yes, Mother.”
“Is it true?” Tyler heard a female voice ask.
“It is.”
“When will you bring her so I may see her?”
“In a couple days. Please, Mother, I—Tyler, wait! I have to go, Mother.”
He hung up on her, following Tyler into her room. She was already sitting on the sofa, facing the far wall, crying.
“I don’t blame you for killing him, Femina. Thank you for doing it when it looked like I had or you would be charged with murder.”
“Get out! Leave me alone!” she shouted.
“You cannot go anywhere.”
“I’m not going to! Just leave alone for a while, damn it!”
Her tone, the grief in it, the helpless outrage, stopped him cold. Of all times to express a lack of trust in her integrity.
“I will be in the sitting room when you are ready to face this.”
He backed out, shut the door, sighed out his own emotions. This was the last thing he had ever wanted to happen. He’d wanted her to come to him of her own volition, because she wanted it and wanted him.
“Master, what should I do?” asked the Neverseen on duty.
Shestna looked down to see the servant’s eyes pinched with worry.
“Get her fresh water for drinking and washing. Then wait quietly by the door until she is ready to change out of her dress and into something more appropriate for the bead ceremony. You will know what to dress her in.”
&nbs
p; “Yes, Master. Thank you. The Mistress is much grieved. It hurts the heart to see so good a Mistress hurting; but I know you are a kind Master.”
“Go to your tasks, Neverseen.”
He said nothing more, vanishing through the door as Shestna’s phone rang again. He stepped away from the bedroom door to answer.
“Father is sending me,” Dorn said. “He is too pleased.”
“Of course he is. Do not come. Not yet. For god’s sake, not nearly yet. And not for the first. I’ll let you know when. Sometime tomorrow. In fact, send Pisod now. Send him with orders to be her counsel. He can assure her that I do nothing underhanded and do everything according to law and tradition.”
“Why care? She’ll be free in seven days. She’ll get over it.”
“No. She will not. She will become more and more adversarial until every interaction is a confrontation of war,” Shestna informed his brother. “Pisod can help to diffuse the situation. She will trust him if he is here solely for her benefit and not to help me. I cannot treat her like any Voranian female. I will lose her trust and friendship forever if I do. She’s still too wounded.”
“Wounded? From what?” Dorn asked.
Shestna said nothing, having not intended to say even that much.
“Royal Brother, what is it I should know?” Dorn asked with a warrior’s calm.
Shestna walked to the kitchen, to be farther away from her hearing. “Remember when she was taken before? For a few days?”
“Yes.”
“He had done it again and kept her for about two weeks. He beat her very badly, Dorn. She escaped him about six weeks ago. She did not say, but her skin did. I could see the damage he did to her. I did not tell her that, of course. She still has a stripe of black bruises down the outside of her legs, healing under the skin. With my second sight, I can see it. He forced himself on her many dozens of times. He held her captive in the worst of ways and now here she is, as captive as that because of a damnable flower and facing a man who could force himself on her if he wanted. Because this captivity is legal, she cannot run from it. There is no place to go that she would not be returned to me. I am in the most impossible of positions. Father did this, didn’t he?”
