Tedra spent the last few hours of the afternoon working herself into a fine case of nervousness tinged with anger, the anger because she had no business being nervous. Whatever Challen did to her she had to accept for the simple fact that she’d known she would be punished if she were caught leaving the castle, but she’d left anyway. If you were going to flaunt rules, you couldn’t cry over the consequences, now could you?

Tedra couldn’t. But she could farden well complain about such ridiculous rules being forced on her in the first place. She had never before been stopped from coming and going as she pleased, not since she had become an adult. So she couldn’t go far, but had to stick around for a while. She accepted that as part of her challenge loss. But the service that loss demanded didn’t take up every hour of every day, just a few in the morning and evening, and maybe a few more if Challen happened to catch her in his bedroom in the afternoon. That didn’t amount to more than half her waking hours, and being confined to the castle for the other half smacked of imprisonment no matter how she looked at it.

Oh, yes, she had her complaints lined up, but Challen was going to punish her anyway, because he was a barbarian and they seemed to think punishment was the answer for everything around here. So all right, she’d already accepted that, but what she needed was a this-for-that list so she’d know what it was she was accepting. Every other woman on this world probably knew exactly what punishment would be given for whatever wrong she committed. Not having that knowledge herself was what Tedra couldn’t stand and was causing her such nervousness as the sky darkened outside and Challen’s return became imminent.

Taking what precautions she could, Tedra placed herself as far from the entrance to the bedroom as she could get, which was out on the balcony. She wanted plenty of opportunity to observe Challen before he reached her. She could determine then how angry he was and if jumping off the balcony to disappear for a while, at least until he cooled down, might be the wiser course. She wasn’t likely to do that, brave fool that she was, but she still wanted that option. Maybe if she broke something on the way down-these individual rooms were twenty or more feet in height- he’d forget about punishing her.

The balcony would have been a balm to her senses under any other circumstances. There was a view of a good portion of the town seen above the outer walls, of the castle grounds below, even of the street through the wide front gate, left open until late at night. She could see gaali stone tenders using the long poles that flipped open the covers on the posts along the street as the daylight departed.

She had done some cover-opening herself, having watched yesterday how Challen did it. Each wall in the bedroom had a narrow ledge at about a seven-foot height, with a wooden top that rolled back into the wall at the turn of a lever. Concealed inside these ledges, of course, were layers of gaali stones; with five adjustments on each lever, light could be had anywhere from dim to superbright, shining up the white walls and onto the ceiling, reflecting off the marble as if a sun had been let into the room. She had also opened all the gaali stone boxes on their stands throughout the room, leaving alone only those out on the balcony; there was enough light spilling from the room that the balcony was well lit anyway.

Tedra spent only a few minutes taking in the view before turning about to face the bedroom so she could watch the door. It was a long time before it finally opened, but she didn’t desert her position. And Challen wasn’t alone. He held the door open for a Darash to enter with a tray of food and waited to close the door upon her leaving. Then he looked for Tedra.

It wasn’t hard to find her. There wasn’t anywhere to hide in the large room except maybe under the bed, but they both knew she wouldn’t stoop to hiding. Besides, she was visible on the balcony. Not as visible as he was inside the room, but visible enough. And all her waiting and careful positioning proved useless. The barbarian wasn’t revealing any of his emotions as he crossed the room to stop in one of the arched openings. He was the picture of calm control. But maybe that was revealing in itself. No smile of greeting. No rekindling of the burning look of passion she had had from him at their earlier meeting. Just a quiet perusal that lasted several tense moments.

“Come inside, woman.”

Even his voice contained not the slightest inflection. “Are we going to eat?”

“We are going to talk. I am going to eat.”

“So I’m to be sent to bed without my dinner?”

“That-among other things.”

For a second there she had been filled with such relief. No dinner. A barbaric child’s punishment, but so minor. Now she came forward with extreme wariness to accept the hand he held out to her. She didn’t think of rejecting it. They were, after all, in the place of his complete power over her.

He led her right to the table where the platters of food had been deposited. There were both red meat and white meat, cut in neat little chunks with a dark sauce over them; what could be either vegetables or pared fruits; a basket of sweet crumos rolls; some kind of baked dessert with a glazed topping and a really delicious smell to it; and a carafe of yavarna wine. There was enough for two, maybe even three, people.

Tedra hadn’t felt the least bit hungry until now, looking at all that food and knowing she couldn’t have any. Challen stretched out on one of the couches, but didn’t indicate she should do the same. But no matter where she went in the room while he ate, knowing he was eating was going to play havoc with her belly. Going without dinner when you didn’t see or smell the food first was one thing, this quite another.

She started to turn toward the window couches when Challen’s voice stopped her. “You will remove your chauri now.”

A glance at him showed he wasn’t making a move to remove his bracs or the fancy blue metallic comtoc he wore. Well, how many times today had she thought to herself she’d rather be naked than wearing the damned chauri? And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t stood naked in front of Challen before while he remained clothed.

With a shrug she said only, “You’re the boss.”

She untied the belt, and with a lift here, a tug there, she stood beside his couch unclothed, the chauri in a fluffy pile on the carpet next to her feet. Again his eyes moved over her in a calm study, reminding her of the day they met, which gave Tedra her first suspicion of the kind of hell she was in for tonight.

“Do you now sit here,” he said.

The “here” was his loins, which he indicated while watching for her reaction. She didn’t disappoint him, flushing with bright color. Her eyes brightened, too, as they locked with his, but with irritation at her own embarrassment. If she had had a few years of sex-sharing behind her instead of only a few days, she could have taken this in stride, but not even all they had done in those few short days had prepared her for straddling his hips naked while he was still clothed.

She did it, however, and tried for an unconcerned tone. “Is this how we’re going to talk?”

“This is how you will feed me. We will talk while you do so.”

Double whammy, feeding him, which had been such an erotic experience just last night, and she couldn’t very well not remember that while sitting on him, and being forced to handle and smell the food she couldn’t have. Talk about your cruel and unusual punishments. Or was this merely a little extra thrown in as they discussed what a bad girl she’d been?

“Let me take a wild guess,” she said, reaching for the platter of meat and thinking about dumping it over his head. “Your good buddy Tamiron spilled his guts to you, right?”