“You’re as easy to read as computer basics, Mr. Ce Moerr.” A female voice dripping with disgust came through the intercom on the wall behind them. “You don’t really think her father will give her to you just because you ask him, do you? His own warriors have been asking for her for years with no luck. What makes you mink he will favor a puny Kystrani still wet behind the ears?”

Mortified, Jadd flushed with color. Before he had come aboard Shanelle’s Transport Rover, he hadn’t known it was possible to hate a computer. In the past two weeks, he’d found out it was indeed possible.

“I will see you for dinner, Shanelle,” Jadd said stiffly and stalked out of the exercise room.

Shanelle watched him go, then glanced at the intercom on the wall. “That wasn’t very nice, Martha.”

“I’m not programmed to be nice, kiddo. How many times do you have to tell that boy no before he takes the hint? Your mother wouldn’t have put up with that kind of irritating persistence, so why should you?”

Shanelle sighed. “I’m not my mother.”

“No, you’re not. You’re too damn softhearted. Not that Tedra couldn ‘t be softhearted on occasion- she just never let anyone know it like you do.”

“Martha, I’m in no mood for another lecture on my deficiencies. When are you going to stop trying to turn me into another Tedra De Arr?”

“When are you going to realize that that’s something I wouldn’t do even if I could? Besides, it isn’t necessary. You’re already more like her than you know. You just take a little longer to assert your wishes, but you do get around to asserting them.”

Shanelle chuckled as she came up off the mat with easy grace. “Sure I do. That’s why that obnoxious little boy is on his way to Sha-Ka’an with the rest of us.”

“You just aren’t fed up enough with him, because you know he won’t try to take what he wants like a warrior would. Second, you knew as well as I did that the boy intends to ask your father for you, and you’ve decided to let Challen give him the facts of Sha-Ka’ani life. He would never give you to a man who couldn’t protect you as well as he could. Third and more to the point, you’re tickled pink that one of your worries has been permanently put to rest, a ridiculous worry, but no less real for that, that men other than warriors wouldn’t find you attractive. The kid’s determination reinforces the fact that you were worried for no good reason, which is why you don’t really object to having him around.”

Those facts had Shanelle glaring at the intercom, because they were facts. “Martha, when in the farden hell are you going to stop reading minds?”

“I don’t have to read minds, kiddo,” Martha replied smugly. “Motives, on the other hand, I tend to read even before you’re aware of them.”

With less anger but with a good deal of dread, Shanelle asked, “Then you know what I intend to do?”

“Am I the absolute best example of modern technology in this day and age, or what?” Martha asked in one of her more superior-than-thou voices.

Shanelle moved over and plopped down in an adjustichair, barely noticing the movement under her as it accommodated her slumped position. Corth came up behind her and gently began to massage the tenseness from her neck muscles. It didn’t ease the disappointment she felt.

“I don’t suppose for once you might consider not interfering and keep this our little secret?” Shanelle asked with little hope of getting an affirmative answer.

A perfect simulation of chuckling came out of the intercom. “I won’t have to say a word. Your mother isn’t dumb. But don’t look so miserable. She wants what you want. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“Not this time she won’t.”

“Wanna bet? You’re her baby, Shani, her creation. She never knew what that would mean until she had you, and the feelings that released in her knocked her on her ass. She may love your father to the depth of her soul, but she wouldn’t think twice about opposing him for you or your brother. It’s called motherhood, and it took my Tedra by storm.”

“This is different.”

“How do you figure? Who was it who browbeat your father for six long months to get his permission for you to go to Kystran for some hands-on flight instruction? Who was it who fought with him, argued him down, and even challenged him and ended up having to obey his every little request for a whole month? She’d stopped challenging him years ago because she knew she couldn’t beat him, but she still gave it another shot for you. And if you think she didn’t know that that excuse you gave her for wanting to fly was a bunch of crap, then think again.”

Shanelle squirmed in her chair, feeling a dose of guilt for not having been completely honest with her mother. “That was a legitimate excuse,” she said defensively.

“Maybe five years ago it would have been,” Martha replied with a snort. “But you know, and I know, and she knows that you no longer just want to fly the airobuses to the outer districts to bring the warriors in for trading. That used to be the reason you wanted to learn how to pilot, but it’s not your reason now. Do you think your mother isn’t aware that I could have taught you how to pilot the airobuses, just as I taught you all the basics? You wanted to go to Kystran to learn how to pilot deep-space ships.”

“But does she know the real reason?”

“She’s got eyes, doesn’t she? She’s seen how you shy away from Challen’s warriors, giving none of them the least bit of encouragement. She sees how their attraction to you upsets you. And she’s seen how you close yourself up in your room whenever it’s common knowledge that one of the women has been punished by her warrior, in that particular way a warrior will punish his own woman. She’s also seen how you won’t talk to your father for weeks on the rare occasions that he punishes her in that way.”

Shanelle shot out of her chair in total agitation. “That way” for a warrior was to drive his woman absolutely wild with sexual desire. The punishment was in leaving her like that, without any hope of attaining relief. And it could go on for hours, depending on the seriousness of the woman’s offense.

Only a lifemate or lover doled out that kind of barbaric “discipline,” so Shanelle had never experienced it firsthand herself. But she had heard enough stories when women gathered to talk, about how humiliating it was, how they begged and cried, all to no effect. One of her greatest fears was that she would have to suffer the same someday but wouldn’t be able to endure it. She was acquainted with too many other cultures, knew for a fact how barbaric that Sha-Ka’ani custom was, and knew that no matter how much she might love her lifemate, she would come to resent him because of it. She wasn’t like her mother, who got even with her father for punishing her that way. Her mother…

“How can he do that to her-to her!” she cried vehemently. “Sometimes I hate him!”

“No, you don’t.” Martha chuckled. “You love him to pieces, just like he loves you. You just can’t accept that part of Sha-Ka’ani life any more than your mother ever did.”

“Then why does she accept it?” Shanelle wanted to know, and in a small, bewildered voice added, “He makes her scream, Martha.”

“Not in pain, kiddo, merely in frustration. But haven’t you ever noticed that that big father of yours is easily bruised? He doesn’t come out of one of those punishment sessions unscathed anymore, at least not when Tedra isn’t restricted from retaliating by a challenge loss.”

A challenge loss was a period of time that the loser of a fight owed the winner in service. This was usually manual labor, or a specific task. But for her mother, it was and always had been complete obedience in the bedchamber.

“They treat a challenge loss like a joke these days,” Shanelle scoffed.

“Don’t you believe it. They may kid around about it, but your mother takes all challenges seriously, because of that silly thing she terms honor. But she’s smart enough not to be governed by challenge loss when she gets the urge to break some of the rules. And you don’t see her staying mad at Challen for long afterwards, do you?”