He smiled. “You now have the opportunity to discover hidden talents. The women will show you how. But this was not my gift to you, chemar. This you need to keep you from mischief when I cannot be with you.”

“Is that so?” she snorted, aware he was only half teasing. “All right, I’ll bite. What can be better than all this?”

“Sharm’s son.”

“Sharm’s wha-?” It hit her before she got the question out, and her eyes flew to the couch where the little fembair still slept. “Ooooh.” The tears started, but she couldn’t help it. “A pet, you’re giving me a pet, a live pet. Oh, Challen,” she whispered softly.

She threw her arms around his neck, hid her face against his chest, and sobbed her eyes out. Challen’s arms came around her, but hesitantly. He was totally confused.

“This was to make you happy, chemar. ”

“lam!”

“Then why do you cry?”

“I don’t know!” she wailed.

Now he understood. “Ah, a woman’s response. I had not expected to find the soft female inside you and set her free this soon.”

“I’m having a breakdown, so give me a break.” She pushed away from him to give him a reproachful look. “I’m a Sec 1. A Sec can’t be soft or womanish. The job doesn’t allow it.” She wiped the tears off her cheeks, then glared at the wetness on her fingers. “I don’t believe I did that.”

He was trying to keep from laughing. “Women often cry when they are happy. I must confess I assumed it would be otherwise with you.”

“That’s right, rub it into the ground,” she grouched. “One little slip…” She broke off with a gasp, having forgotten the reason for it in her upset with herself. “Oh, Challen, is he really mine, mine to keep?”

This time he did laugh. “Yes. He has just been weaned from his dam, but as you see, Sharm has developed a fondness for this cub of his. It will not be easy to separate them.”

She missed the implied meaning in that statement, too eager just then to examine her wonderful gift. “What shall I call him?” she asked, bending over the end of the couch to pick him up. This brought another gasp. “Stars, is this supposed to be a recently born animal?” The baby filled her arms and then some, and weighed at least thirty pounds.

“Does his size matter?” Challen frowned, not having considered that. “He will get bigger, much bigger.”

She glanced down at Sharm, who was watching her hold his son with a very attentive eye. “As big as that, huh? Well, I’ll make room for him. I do live in the country, you know.”

She would not have to make room for her pet if Challen had anything to do with it, for there was ample room right here, but he did not mention that. He watched her put her cheek to the baby fembaifs head, making weird little sounds of getting acquainted. The cat stood this abundance of affection only for a short while before squirming to get down.

Challen had to smile at Tedra’s reluctance to let the cub go. But then she was looking at him, and he caught his breath at the tender warmth in her eyes. There was a soft and womanly female hiding behind her gruff exterior. He understood this about her, and someday he would understand everything about her. Droda, how the woman fascinated him with the complexities of her nature. And how he wanted her to be the mother of his children, more than anything he had ever wanted before.

She had closed the distance between them, was standing before him now, and there was moisture in her eyes again. “I thank you for my gift, Challen.”

“It was my pleasure to give it, chemar,” he said deeply.

Her hands came to his cheeks very gently. “You’re such a sweet barbarian. No wonder I…”

“What?”

She dropped her hands, dropping her eyes, too, from his intense gaze. “Never mind.”

He didn’t press her. She was not yet ready to admit her true feelings for him. But soon…

He placed an arm around her to lead her from the room. “Come, we will take food now; then I must leave to inspect the gaali stone mines. Perhaps you would like to come along?”

She glanced at him in amazement. He knew her interest in the gaali stones. She’d never tried to hide it. Was this even more appeasement on his part?

“Sure, I’ll tag along. And I promise not to take notes,” she teased.

But she was still amazed at the extent of Challen’s generosity. When a barbarian got a guilty conscience, he really got a guilty conscience.

“Who owns these mines?”

“I do.”

Tedra swung around in surprise. They’d come about a hundred feet into the mountainside on what was a gradually downsloping path. Challen had been filling her with information about how the gaali was cut, transported, sold, the dangers involved. She’d been amazed to learn all the miners were men who had for some reason or other lost their eyesight. Understandably, there weren’t that many miners, for unlike a few cut stones, a large vein of gaali was bright enough to blind. And the Sha-Ka’ani obviously hadn’t devised a way to get rid of that risk yet, or maybe they just didn’t want to. Gaali stone mining was a good-paying job for the handicapped, after all.

“What do you mean, you do?” she asked. “Or do you control them as the shodan?”

Challen laughed at her assumption. “Being shodan does not have great rewards, other than the living in a fine house. The mines belong to my family, who have long owned the northern face of Mount Raik.”

“But the town faces north, doesn’t it? Does that mean your family owns Sha-Ka-Ra, too?”

“Most of it, yes.”

“Well, hell, no wonder you’re shodan. How come you never mentioned you’re a powerful landlord?”

“It was not a thing needing mentioning. But you are wrong in this assumption, too, kerima. The shodan is chosen for his strength alone, or he assumes the duty does he defeat the current shodan.”

“Which was it in your case?”

“A little of both. I had warriors who followed me who wanted the title to be mine. The last shodan became angry, hearing rumors of this, and so challenged me.”

“That must have been a pleasant win for you.”

“Not wholly. When I had fewer duties, I had more time for fun.”

It was his look that made her blush, not his reference to sex-sharing. “Poor baby,” she purred defensively. “I haven’t noticed you depriving yourself of fun lately.”

“Nor will I with such a beautiful challenge loser tempting me.”

Tedra turned away from the possessiveness in his eyes that wanned her clear to her toes. “We’re steering into an inconvenient subject here, babe. After all, you haven’t slept in these mines.”

“Does that still matter?”

It didn’t, not in the least, but she wasn’t going to admit that to him. As lusty as he was, it could get embarrassing if he thought she’d let him make love to her in just any old place. Their warrior escort was waiting outside the mines for them, and how long before they would decide to investigate if the inspection took too long?

She latched onto that thought. “What is it you have to inspect if you can’t go into the actual area where they’re cutting the stone?”

She heard him sigh before he answered. “These tunnels, the support beams. There are warriors who do this daily, but twice a year I like to see to the matter myself.”

The ceiling and the left wall were boarded up to cover the residual remaining of the main vein of gaali that ran through this area; otherwise it would be too bright. The thick beams he mentioned ran down the center of the ceiling and were supported at six-foot intervals by narrow wooden posts.

“Is it really one of those inspection times now?” Tedra asked.

“No,” he confessed, not at all embarrassed about it. “I merely decided to satisfy the curiosity previously revealed by my challenge loser.”