Loving a Stranger Page 8

  Now, after a long slog to the market which she hoped she wouldn’t get in trouble for when Harryx found out she had gone alone, she had spent it down to the last centine in order to get everything she needed. The walk back was hot and weary—the gracken haunch was extremely heavy—and she found herself with less time than she wanted to make everything.

  Nonetheless, she set to work, deciding to roast the haunch at a higher temperature in order to get it done in time for Harryx’s usual dinner time that evening. But then her volute soup wouldn’t gel and the yerna sauce turned a bright purple. It was supposed to have been blue and after a few moments, Nallah realized what was wrong. The man running the produce stall had sold her inferior yernas—the cheap kind only good for grinding up into pet food—though he had charged her for the most expensive kind, which were what she needed.

  She remembered with dismay how she’d thought the small, rounded vegetables which were all uniformly dusky gray on the outside didn’t look right. But when she’d tried to ask the stall owner about it, he had snarled at her and shoved the bag of yernas into her basket, telling her to shut up and take what was given to her. Then he’d ripped the money from her hand, refusing to give her even the few centines in change she ought to have had.

  Such treatment at the market wasn’t that unusual. Males ruled there as they did everywhere on Hascion Five. Nallah usually tried to go to that particular stall when the owner’s son was there—he was younger and usually kinder than his surly father. But in this case she’d had no choice—she had to have yernas for the recipe she wanted to make and this was the only stall in the market that sold them.

  She stared in dismay at the purple sauce. She couldn’t serve this to Harryx! It would have to be thrown away. But how would she explain serving gracken haunch with no yerna sauce? And what would he think if he learned how much money she’d spent on the ingredients?

  Just then she heard a yowling out in the woods behind the house and her ears pricked up immediately. It was Patta, her one remaining lanna and she sounded as though she was in pain.

  “Patta?” Putting the offending purple sauce back on the cook-top, she ran out the back door, wiping her hands on a dishcloth as she went. “Patta, where are you?”

  The piteous yowling came again—it seemed to be coming from the tangle of briars. Visions of the fluffy little animal all tangled up in the creeping, thorny vines and unable to get free came to Nallah’s head.

  “Hang on, Patta,” she cried, wading into the snarl of briars. “I’m coming, little one. Just hang on.”

  But though her clothing snagged and the long, cruel thorns ripped and tore her skin, she still couldn’t get to her crying pet. Worse, the cries seemed to be getting weaker and then they stopped altogether.

  Nallah felt panic rising in her throat. What if Patta was truly hurt out there somewhere? What if one of her paws was broken or she’d been bitten by a bigger animal? Lannas weren’t really bred to be outdoor pets. They needed to be kept inside due to their diminutive size and sweet temperament.

  This is all my fault, she found herself thinking. If I hadn’t sent her out doors…if I hadn’t forced her to become a wild creature instead of living in the house with me…

  NO, whispered a new voice in her head—a new thought she hadn’t allowed herself to think before. No, this is Harryx’s fault. If he hadn’t killed Pitta you wouldn’t have had to send Patta out. If she dies you’ll have no one. And he might be acting nice now but who knows how long it will last? How long until he hits you again—hurts you again? And what will you do when he does? Nothing—just like you did nothing when he killed Pitta. Because there’s nothing you can do. You’re nothing but a woman and women don’t count.

  It was the first time she’d ever allowed herself to feel anger at her husband. Harryx’s cold silences and red-hot rages had always been too frightening to permit herself the luxury of her own anger. But now that he seemed to have changed, she felt somewhat safer and somehow the anger came out. Though she had told herself before that she didn’t hate him, now she felt the opposite to be true.

  “I hate him,” she whispered to herself, her voice breaking on the words. “I hate him!”

  It was then that a heavy hand fell on her shoulder, making her nearly scream with fright. She turned so fast that a seeking bramble tore off her veil, but she hardly noticed. Standing behind her was Harryx, a worried look on his face.

  “Nallah, what’s going on?” he demanded, frowning. “What are you doing out in the briar patch and what’s burning in the food prep area?”

  “Burning? Oh my God-King!” Nallah exclaimed. “The gracken haunch!”

  Tearing through the undergrowth and creepers, she ran back to the domicile to see that the entire kitchen was filled with smoke. The volute soup was a solid mass and the purple yerba sauce had boiled over and was a blackened crust on the hot cook-stove which contributed to the hideous burning smell. But the thick, black smoke coming from the grill-oven was the main problem.

  Gasping and choking, Nallah turned off all the burners and the oven and grabbed a heat-proof hand-safe to pull open the oven door. As soon as she did, even more billows of thick smoke came rolling out, making her cough and gag.

  “Here, this is no good. It has to come out.”

  Grabbing the hand-safe from her, Harryx lifted the heavy pan holding the gracken haunch and dumped it into the sink. It was a blackened, smoldering husk, Nallah saw, her very soul shrinking in mortification. The fatty parts of it were actually on fire.

  Her heart filled with despair. Harryx was going to think she was the worst cook and the worst wife anywhere in the whole world. He would tear her veil and scar her face and turn her out in the street to become one of the Disgraced. She would be caught and punished every night by the Punishment gangs, just as poor Gemmah had been until one day they killed her and her body was found floating in the river. She might as well die now—it would be an easier end.

  “What happened?” he asked from the sink where he had finished putting the burning meat out. “Are you okay? What were you doing out there, anyway?”

  Nallah swallowed hard, trying to force the tears that threatened down and away.

  “I…I was out looking for Patta,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. “I thought…thought I heard her crying in pain but I couldn’t find her. I must have lost track of time and…and the dinner got burned. I’m so sorry, oh my husband.”

  “Patta is…your pet,” he said, as though trying to remember.

  “Yes, she’s my pet.” Sudden anger flared in her. “She’s the only pet I have left since you…since you killed…” She could feel her face twisting the wrong way, could feel the tears rising in her eyes even though they were forbidden. “Since you killed Pitta,” she got out at last.

  “He…I mean I killed your pet?” There was a horrified look on Harryx’s face she’d never seen before. For a moment he closed his eyes, as though searching for the memory of the event in his brain. At last he looked at her again, his eyes filled with remorse. “Gods, I did.”

  Despair suddenly made Nallah reckless and she spoke to her husband—her lord and master—in a way she never had before.

  “Yes, you did. You killed her!” Rage rose afresh in her breast, making her sick with anger and sorrow. “My little lannas were all I had to love and you killed one of them and forced me to put the other out. And now Patta is probably dying too only I can’t get to her and it’s all your fault!”

  She knew she would be punished severely for her words but she was already going to become one of the Disgraced anyway. What else could Harryx do to her that was worse than that?

  Her husband’s eyes went dark—as black as the waves of a midnight sea. Leaning down to her, he said in a low, intense voice,

  “Hit me.”

  “What?” His words shocked her so much Nallah was certain she had misunderstood him. But then he said it again.

  “Hit me,” he repeated, holding her eyes with his. “I�
��ve been a son-of-a-bitch to you, sweetheart. I deserve everything that’s coming to me—hit me. Get some of your own back.”

  “I…I can’t,” Nallah exclaimed. “A woman must never strike a man.”

  His face twisted into a grimace of disgust.

  “Oh, but it’s all right for a man to hit a woman? For a husband to beat his wife and kill her pet?”

  “It’s…it’s home discipline,” Nallah faltered. “Punishment.”

  “And you don’t think Harryx, I mean I, deserve some punishment for what I’ve done to you?” he demanded. “Come on…” He leaned closer, pointing to his cheek. “Hit me. Slap me as hard as you can. Or punch me. Do something, Nallah! Let it out.”

  As he spoke, her hands balled into fists at her sides, her nails cutting into her palms as she thought about the way he had wronged her, of the piteous wailing shriek Pitta had made when he squeezed the life out of her and the awful crack of her neck breaking afterwards. It was against all her training but somehow she couldn’t help herself anymore. Drawing back her arm, she slapped his face as hard as she could.

  Harryx barely flinched, though her handprint appeared on his cheek, dark and red.

  “Is that the best you can do?” he asked in a low voice. “Come on, Nallah—give me some more. Give it all to me—all the pain you feel, let it out.”

  Nallah hit him again…and then again and again until her small fists were raining blows on his cheeks and shoulders and broad chest.

  “You killed her,” she sobbed, unable to hold back the forbidden tears—tears of rage and pain and betrayal. “You killed her and I hate you for it! Hate you, hate you, hate you!”

  Through it all, Harryx didn’t try to defend himself in the least. He kept his face level with hers and took every blow she dished out as though it was his due, not even moving when her nails raked across the flesh of his cheek, leaving long, ragged furrows there.

  At last, Nallah’s strength was spent and she collapsed, crying on the kitchen floor. She couldn’t hold the tears back anymore, even if she wanted to. She had sealed her fate as one of the Disgraced but somehow she hardly cared.

  Right now all she could think about was losing her pets—the only things she had to love in the world. Besides her husband, that was. But how could she love a man who would never love her back? How could she care for someone so cruel and cold and heartless?

  “Hey, sweetheart. It’s okay…it’s okay.”

  She became dimly aware that Harryx was scooping her up and carrying her out of the smoky kitchen into the living area where he sat on the couch cradling her to his broad chest.

  “I’m sorry,” he said over and over again. “So damn sorry, baby. Gods…”

  Nallah didn’t know what to think…what to say to this new, caring husband who seemed to feel such remorse for the pain he had caused her. But what she mostly felt was surprise. Despite the way she’d hit him, he hadn’t hit her back. He hadn’t shouted at her or beat her or punished her in any way.

  Why?

  * * * * *

  Reeve held the sobbing female to his chest, feeling like his heart might break. What a bastard his host was! How could any male be cruel enough to kill his wife’s defenseless little pet in cold blood, the way he had seen Harryx do in his host’s memory banks?

  You son-of-a-bitch, he thought at the sleeping host of the body he was occupying. I wish I was outside you so I could punch you in the fucking face!

  Of course, Nallah had handled that, and not too badly considering she was such a tiny female. Reeve winced when he felt the sharp sting on his cheek where her fingernails had raked him.

  It wasn’t like he didn’t feel pain when something happened to the body he was inhabiting—he felt it all right, as much as the actual host would have if he’d been awake. But Nallah had needed to let out her rage at the sadistic, abusive male who had hurt her so deeply. She had needed this release badly and the Goddess knew Harryx certainly deserved everything she gave him and more. Reeve could take a little pain to give her that much-needed catharsis.

  Gods, I wish I was in another body—any other body, Reeve thought passionately. He wanted to comfort Nallah—to care for her and protect her. Yet he had to do it while clothed in the body of her tormentor. How could she ever come to feel anything for him when she thought he was Harryx?

  The thought brought him up short.

  How can she feel anything for you? whispered a little voice in his head. You’re not here to make her feel for you, Reeve. You’re here on a mission and falling in love with another male’s wife isn’t part of it.

  But he couldn’t seem to help how he felt. Seeing her pain and anguish broke his fucking heart. All he could do was cuddle her close and whisper that he was sorry…so damn sorry.

  Slowly, Nallah quieted. The tears stopped flowing although her face was still wet and shiny and the front of his uniform shirt—he’d stripped off the jacket the moment he left work—was completely soaked. When she looked up at him, there was a dull kind of despair in her face.

  “I suppose I’ll be one of the Disgraced now,” she said heavily. “You’ll tear my veil and draw the shrive across my cheeks and turn me out into the streets. Not that I’m even wearing a veil.” Her fingers stole up to her bare face and then dropped limply to her lap.

  “What?” Though the Grand General had said something along those lines when he was musing about what to do with his old wife when he got himself a new one, her words still seemed unbelievable to Reeve. “Of course I won’t scar you and turn you out on the streets,” he said to Nallah. “Why the hell would I do that to you?”

  “Well…because.” She looked up at him with wet, wounded eyes. “I shouted at you and…” she swallowed hard, “and hit you. You…you’re bleeding.” She reached up as though to touch his wounded cheek and then drew back her fingertips, as though uncertain if she should.

  “Why shouldn’t you shout at me and hit me and make me bleed?” Reeve demanded roughly. “I’m pretty damn sure I’ve done all that to you in the past, sweetheart.”

  Her eyes dropped to her lap.

  “You were punishing me,” she said in a low voice. “And you only make me bleed sometimes during…during my sexual submission.”

  “Goddess above.” Reeve felt sick all over again when he considered those implications. The body he was in was almost as big and strong as the one he had left behind on the Mother Ship. The thought of Harryx using his strength and size to overpower and hurt the fragile little female he ought to be protecting and loving made him want to roar with rage. Somehow, though, he contained himself. Nallah was already upset enough—seeing the man she thought was her husband get angry would only frighten her.

  “Anyway, I have done other things to make you want to turn me out,” Nallah said, cutting into his angry thoughts.

  “You mean burning the roast?” Reeve laughed humorlessly. “They do that here? Kick somebody out and disown them because of one bad meal?”

  “Well…yes.” She spoke as though it should be obvious—as though it was a given fact. “But also I…I did the forbidden.” She touched her wet cheeks as she looked up at him. “I wept before you, my husband. A woman must never weep before a man, for her tears make him weak.”

  “Bullshit,” Reeve said roughly. “More likely her tears let him know he’s been an asshole and I’m betting the males on this benighted planet don’t want to be reminded of that for one second.”

  “But…” Nallah looked at him, confusion filling her lovely eyes. “Are you saying you don’t care about any of the infractions I’ve committed, oh my husband?”

  “I care about you,” Reeve stroked a strand of hair from her face and for a wonder, this time she didn’t flinch when his hand came near her.

  “You…you do?” If her golden eyes got any wider they would swallow her face.

  “I do,” Reeve said firmly…tenderly. “Look, baby—I know I’ve been an asshole in the past. Worse than an asshole. In fact, I’m guessing some of the thi
ngs I did to you are damn near unforgivable.” He sighed. “But, well, I feel like a whole different person now. I feel completely changed.”

  “You act like a whole different person,” Nallah said candidly. “The Harryx I knew would never have invited me to hit him or let me sit veil-less in his lap and weep without dishing out some kind of punishment for my forbidden behavior.”

  “From now on, it’s not forbidden anymore,” Reeve told her, frowning. “You should be allowed to show your feelings. If you need to cry, go ahead and cry, sweetheart. Do what you have to do.”

  “And…you won’t hit me for it? Won’t punish me?” She looked afraid to believe him, afraid to trust.

  Reeve’s heart twisted in his chest.

  “No, baby,” he said thickly. “I promise—no more hitting. Not ever again.” He cupped her flushed cheek. “A male should use his size and strength to protect his female—not to hurt and abuse her. I’m so damn sorry for what happened to you in the past but I swear it won’t happen again.”

  Nallah looked as though she was trying to decide if she believed him or not. She opened her mouth to say something but just then the most unearthly yowling sound drifted in through the window he had opened when he first came into the food prep area to let out the smoke.

  Nallah stiffened in his arms.

  “Oh! My poor Patta—how could I forget her?” She looked up at Reeve. “Please, oh my husband, please let me try again to save her!”

  After seeing in his host’s memory banks what Harryx had done to her other pet, Reeve thought he owed her more than just permission to go digging through the brambles by herself.

  “Come on,” he said, setting her gently on her feet. “Let’s go see if we can find her together.”