“Put me down!”
“I will. In bed.” He took a long stride down the hall.
“No. Stop! Let’s go to dinner.” Her hair streamed down, and her nose bumped against his rock-solid back.
“Dinner?” He paused, humming. Resumed walking, past a cluster of chairs and surprised people. “I think I’ll have you instead.”
“You’re causing a scene,” she hissed, twisting, catching him in the side of his head with a stray elbow that made him grunt.
He got hold of her wrists with his hands and held her still, striding across the hall.
She hung over his massive shoulder, her bottom embarrassingly displayed. “You can’t just manhandle me whenever you strike a fancy.”
“I’m going to have to disagree with you there.”
She tried kicking and twisting again, her cheeks, nose and her ears, burning furiously. She’d never been so humiliated in her life. “Put me down.”
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and nonchalantly greeted a few of the more overt starers before speaking in low, conciliatory tones. “Let’s make a deal.”
“A new deal?”
“A second deal. You pretend you’re happy here. Just for tonight. No fights. No arguments. No talk of leaving. Just sit beside me, eat a meal, drink some wine, and have fun. With me. Forget for one night that you hate me.”
She didn’t hate him. She realized that with an acute sharpness that had her sucking in air. “Fine. Done. Anything. Just put me down!”
He rested his big boot on the steps, right below her head. “ ‘Fine. Done. Anything,’ as in you want me to put you down in bed?”
“No!” She pressed into the hard skin of his belly. At this point she’d agree to anything just so he’d put her down. “Fine, I want to have fun with you!”
“Bed would be fun,” he murmured, his broad, hot palm caressing her bottom. “Trust me.”
“I won’t mention leaving or pick a fight. Just put me down. Please.”
He lowered her back to the floor, and she swayed on her feet when the blood rushed from her head. “Good. The chef made babjian, my favorite. You’re going to love it. And Gaspart has arranged entertainment for you.”
She brushed her hair out of her face, steadfastly refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. “Would you have actually skipped that, or were you bluffing?”
He grinned, but didn’t answer, and led her into the banquet hall, to his seat at the head, tugging her in beside him.
Others filed into the room, chatting and laughing, and no one seemed particularly shocked to have just seen their leader toss his selissa over his shoulder and smack her bottom. In fact, the atmosphere was almost festive.
Gaspart and the younger brother, Jeor, came in and sat nearby, slender and almost frail beside Tor. As did Tor’s mother, with a slanted look her way.
Tor spread his arm along the back of the chair behind Klym’s head and gazed down at her with eyes so hot and happy, truly happy, that it was easy to let herself relax and enjoy this.
Pretend all this color and light and laughter with Tor was real and true and that it hadn’t been born of abduction and lies.
She must have been frowning because he tapped her forehead between her eyes and leaned in close. “You promised to enjoy tonight.”
“I am.”
His eyes did their crinkly thing, and he tugged her closer and toyed with her hair. “Then stop scowling.”
She chewed on her lip. “All the fun I had was at the Institute, but it was in the between times, by-accident times. Never in the open. We were always supposed to be dignified.”
“Your Institute sounds boring.” He took a long pull on his wine, and the muscles in his throat moved distractingly. “Just do whatever you want.”
“What if what I want to do isn’t polite? What if it violates some manner or custom?”
He leaned in close. “It’s okay. You can touch me if that’s what you really want.”
Her face heated. “I didn’t mean that. I just meant, what if I say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing?”
His mouth quirked in a dismissive frown. “Do it anyway. You’re the selissa. Nobody will mind. And if they do, who cares?”
She chewed on her lip.
“Don’t think, amiera. Have fun.”
“Show me how.”
And he did. He told her stories, and his brothers told her stories, they drank until her head spun, and still they all laughed and talked, interrupting and shouting over one another. Even their mother told a story from Tor’s childhood that made Klym laugh so hard her cheeks hurt. She captured some of it on the holo-cam, the color and the laughter and the drums, but no holo could capture the smells, or the way Tor made her feel inside.
He kissed her constantly, for no apparent reason other than that he wanted to, and he played with her hair, and smiled at her, and no one found that to be inappropriate.
The red sun set, the fires were lit, and the starflies overhead fluttered and glowed. The meal was intense, spicy and rich. Juicy. He speared bites with a fork and held them to her lips, laughing at her faces when she tried them. Gaspart pressed her to try new foods. Even quiet Jeor teased her into sampling a bizarre salty whipped egg pudding and, when she gagged, laughed so hard he choked.
Not even the herd of glowering felanas on the other end of the hall could dim the fun.
“See,” Tor said after a dessert of spicy cake, toying with the ends of her hair, the starflies reflected in his eyes. “Fun. Admit you’re having it.”
She squeezed her napkin. And then the dancers came in, and thought fled her mind.
Men, bare-chested but for elaborate swirls of white paint on their chests, wore drums that hung from thick leather straps around their waists. They danced and chanted and banged the drums hard enough to rattle the silverware. Their muscles and tattoos rippled and stretched under the flickering lights. Not one of them had quite as many tattoos
