She would have to ask Martha to contact Tedra to find out. She just might not be returning after all…

Stars, what was she going to do? Perhaps her mother had done her a disservice by encouraging her to think for herself. If she had had any other mother besides Tedra, she wouldn’t be agonizing over this issue now. Instead she would be happy to let her father decide her future, without the least doubt that he would make the perfect choice for her, because, above all, he wanted her happiness. But the plain truth was, she preferred her mother’s philosophy when it came to sex-sharing.

Though Tedra came from the Kystrani culture, she didn’t subscribe to all of it, especially having something as personal as sex governed by someone else. What she did subscribe to was individual choice, and Shanelle wanted that individual choice. She wanted to choose, and she was more than ready to choose, more than ready to find out what was making Yari so happy, what had made her mother so happy all these years.

She was ready. She just hadn’t found the man who could “knock her socks off,” didn’t even know what that was supposed to feel like. Her mother had assured her she would know when it happened, and when it happened, she was to take full advantage of it if she wanted to. It would be her choice. And her father either could approve of the man after the fact or not. She would still have made her choice. But Tedra seemed to think she could get around Challen’s displeasure. Shanelle was counting on that being so.

Shanelle was drawn back to the conversation in progress when she was asked a question. They were gathered in the Rec Lounge, having finished the last meal for the day. Shanelle would have liked to retire already, but her friends were too excited to sleep.

“What was that?”

Caris answered, “Cira wants to know if she’ll be allowed to sample the local wares when we arrive.”

“Wares?”

“The barbarians.”

Shanelle groaned inwardly. She really should have gone to bed. But she offered her friends a half smile.

“The Sha-Ka’ani don’t like to be called barbarians, now that they know what meaning advanced worlds give that name. And they aren’t really true barbarians anyway, though they might seem like it at first. But yes, you can share sex with a warrior if he’s interested. You just have to make sure you tell him beforehand that you are protected by the shodan, to avoid any misunderstandings.”

“What kind of misunderstandings are you talking about?” Cira asked. “Was this mentioned in those rules and laws Martha supplied us with?”

“Martha gave you the standard stats supplied to all visitors, but as you’ve already realized, your case is unique. Usually, the only visitors allowed to leave the Center are those who have requested an audience with the shodan. If he agrees to see them, they are escorted to the palace by the Center’s Security. They take care of their business quickly and then they are escorted right back to the Center. If there is a female in the party, she isn’t going to stop along the way to share sex with a warrior, so there’s no reason to mention something like this in the stats.”

Caris’s green eyes widened considerably. “My Stars, you’re talking about that claiming business you once mentioned to me, aren’t you?”

“I’m afraid so,” Shanelle replied, and explained further for Cira’s and Yari’s benefit. “If a warrior thinks you aren’t protected, and you don’t have a male escorting you, then he is within his rights to claim you if he wants to, and there won’t be anything anyone on my planet or yours can do about it once he does. But as long as you tell him up front that you’re under a warrior’s protection, he’ll make sure you’re telling the truth before he does any claiming.”

“Are you sure about that?” Cira queried.

Shanelle could understand that they might not be so eager now to sample the local males, but she hadn’t meant to dissuade them from having a little Sha-Ka’ani fun, just to be cautious. “Only two female visitors have been claimed in all these years, and those two wanted to be claimed, so no one got upset about it, least of all the females. And claiming protection does work, because a warrior who tries to claim a protected woman knows he’ll have to end up fighting her protector, and warriors don’t fight over women.”

“Why not?” Yari asked with interest.

Shanelle anticipated their reaction with a mixture of dread and disgust because of her own feelings on the subject. “Any warrior will tell you he doesn’t know what jealousy is-or love.”

“Oh, come on, Shani,” Caris said doubtfully. “You’ve said that your father loves your mother, and we all know he’s a warrior.”

“My father happens to be an exception.” But Shanelle’s tone turned dry as she added, “You could say my mother has been a bad influence on him.”

Caris and Cira laughed, but Yari put in, “Well, I think it’s great. Imagine not having to deal with possessiveness and jealousy.”

“Is that right?” Dren asked with a twinge of annoyance in his voice. He was even shorter than Shanelle was, and too slim of frame by half, but he’d been the most handsome boy in their class. “You weren’t thinking of trying any of these warriors yourself, were you?”

Yari grinned and wrapped herself around him on the adjusticouch they shared. He was short, but she was still shorter. In fact, not one of the girls was taller than five and a half feet, which made Shanelle occasionally feel uncomfortable with her own height and lushly rounded figure.

“Don’t get your nose bent out of joint, babe,” the petite brunette told him. “From what I’ve heard, those warriors are just too big for me. I like my skin white and creamy, not black-and-blue.”

“Farden hell, I never thought of that,” Cira groaned in complaint.

Shanelle chuckled and sat back with her goblet of Antury wine. “That doesn’t happen to be something you need to worry about. There is no man more gentle with a woman than a warrior because he is always conscious of his size and strength. The female Darasha of the servant class are much shorter than you are, Cira, and they have no complaints.”

“Are these females someone Jadd and I might like to sample?” Dren asked, to get back some of his own, but what he got was a poke in the belly from Yari.

Shanelle answered anyway. “The Darash females are available for anyone’s use, and they don’t mind. I sometimes wonder if they even know how to say no.”

“You certainly know how to say no,” Jadd said as he brought his wine over and sat down next to Shanelle on her own couch. “I wonder if-”

He didn’t get to finish. He’d no sooner taken the new seat than Corth was there and about to sit right on top of him if Jadd didn’t move himself real fast. He did scramble out of the way, spilling his wine in the process. Two robocleaners came out from two different sides of the huge room to clean up the mess, but no one noticed them. Jadd was glowering at Corth, Shanelle was laughing- she simply couldn’t help herself-and the others were all staring at Corth as if he’d malfunctioned.

“Why did he do that, Shani?” Caris finally asked for the lot of them.

Shanelle was too busy laughing to come up with an answer, but Jadd wasn’t. “He’s her protector,” he said, making it sound like a dirty word. “No one can share sex with her while he’s around. They can’t even touch her!”

“That’s not precisely true, Mr. Ce Moerr,” Martha’s voice intruded, proving she’d been following the entire conversation. It was a wonder she’d kept quiet until now. “If Shani wants to do a little sex-sharing with a man, Corth wouldn’t interfere. He might even help her take her clothes off.”

Shanelle stiffened, thinking about throwing her wine at the intercom panel. “That was rather crudely put, Martha.”