The coach pulled into the inn yard behind Derand and his fighters, others of his fighters still around the coach. Derand hadn’t really ordered his men to watch Seea and report anything odd that she might do, not when the woman thinking he had given that order was enough to keep her from escaping her punishment. Derand walked over to the coach when it stopped and opened the door, then handed Seea out. Unfortunately she looked just as remote and almost unreal as she had at lunch, so as soon as he led her into the private dining room he stopped her near the table and took her in his arms.

  “Seea, I’m worried about you,” he said, feeling his insides twinge when she stared at his chest rather than looking up at his face. “I know that this punishment is really hard on you, but it will turn out to be for the best. Arvin isn’t like your father’s kingdom or Ramsond, and if you don’t learn to obey me instantly it could some day mean your life.”

  Derand paused to let her say something, anything to show that she was still here with him, but not a single sound came. She simply stood in his arms and stared at his chest, and the twinge in his insides turned into a true tightening.

  “Seea, speak to me,” he urged, desperate for some normal reaction from her. “Say something to show that you understand I’m not just torturing you for the fun of it. I love you, and in order to keep you safe I’ll do anything I have to even if it makes you unhappy. Being unhappy is better than being dead.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t want me to lie,” she responded, still not looking at him even though her manner had changed in some small way. “I’m not the one who doesn’t understand things, but you’ll never believe that.”

  “You’re saying that I don’t understand?” he asked, glad that she’d finally spoken to him but otherwise confused. “What is it that I don’t understand?”

  “You don’t understand that if you really did love me you would accept me as I am, not try to change me into someone you approve of more,” she answered, and Derand became aware of the fact that she now held herself away from him even though she hadn’t moved. “If you want a woman who will obey you instantly and completely, you should have chosen someone else. It isn’t in me to be that kind of woman, so trying anyway would be futile. And from where I stand, death doesn’t look to be a bad choice at all.”

  “But that’s ridiculous,” Derand protested, now even more confused. “Anyone can learn to do anything if they want to badly enough, which is why I chose this particular punishment. It’s designed to make you want to obey me rather than be punished this way again, and it will work. And suggesting that I choose a different woman is nonsense. You’re the one I love, which means I don’t want a different woman.”

  “And it’s all about what you want, isn’t it?” she said, but there was a deadness to the words rather than bitterness. “I’m not another human being, I’m a woman, and what a woman wants doesn’t matter because she can’t fight to defend her stance. I understand the point perfectly.”

  “But you’re understanding the wrong point,” Derand protested, very much aware of the fact that Seea wasn’t playing a game in order to get him to change his mind. She wasn’t even really arguing? “It isn’t because you’re a woman that you need to obey me, it’s because you don’t know how dangerous living in Arvin can be. If trouble starts you have to do exactly as I say or I could end up losing you!”

  And your loss or continuing possession is all that matters, Derand almost heard her say as soon as the words about losing her were out of his mouth. But Seea didn’t offer the counter his own mind had provided, which meant things were even worse than he’d thought.

  “All right, I’ll grant you that when a man is in love he turns selfish,” Derand said into the continuing silence, wishing she would look at him even once. “I never knew how wonderful being in love is, and I can’t accept the idea of losing the woman I feel that love for. If not wanting to see you dead makes me a monster, then I’ll be a monster. It is, after all, your life that I’m most concerned about.”

  “If it was my life you were most concerned about, you would let me live it my way,” Seea stated, and again there was no argumentative edge to her words. “Trying to force me to live my life your way says that the happiness of your own life is most important. And I can’t stop you, so what does it matter anyway?”

  Derand’s arms had loosened their hold, and Seea proved she knew that by moving away from him to the waiting table. She poured some of the hot tea into a cup before sitting gingerly in her chair, and Derand closed his eyes and then rubbed at them. The conversation had gone as badly as he’d been afraid it might, but he refused to lose hope. After Seea had a hot meal in her and they’d made love, he ought to have better luck.

  The luck Derand was hoping for started out being conspicuous by its absence. The food was really good when it came, but Seea ignored it completely and simply drank tea. Derand was tempted to make an issue over her not eating, but starting an argument wasn’t the best way to lighten the woman’s mood.

  Missing a single meal wasn’t likely to do her much harm, and after they’d made love she would certainly be more likely to listen to him.

  Thinking about making love to Seea caused Derand to hurry the last of his meal. He couldn’t seem to get enough of the woman, especially since the presence of that bead turned her wildly passionate and responsive. She held to his arm without comment when he led her out of the small dining room, took his room key, then guided her up the stairs, but that distance she’d been showing was obviously still there.

  Well, that wasn’t likely to last very long once he had her in bed.

  As soon as they were both bare Derand took his wife in his arms and began to kiss her. Her body showed strong indications of the need she was being made to feel, her nipples tight and hard, her hips moving as his hand stroked her beautiful, round bottom. Her response to his kiss, though, wasn’t as eager as he would have liked, but Derand ignored that and quickly put her to her back. His not making her wait for relief ought to please her, his own delight strong as he parted her thighs and presented himself to the soft warmth of her womanhood.

  His thrusting deep drew a sound from her, but what the sound indicated wasn’t very clear. Derand was certain he hadn’t hurt her, so he began to stroke her in the way he most loved to do. After a few minutes her body responded to the stroking by exploding in release, but there seemed to be fewer explosions than usual. She also made very little noise, and the wild abandon was mostly absent. It was almost as though if not for the bead urging her on, she would not have responded to him at all?

  After a shorter while than usual Derand let his own release come, and once he’d withdrawn from Seea he lay on his back trying to understand what had happened. It shouldn’t have been possible for Seea’s response to have the same distance that her manner had taken on, but somehow she’d managed it. But Derand didn’t have the feeling that she’s done it on purpose, the way she had when she thought she was punishing him. Whatever it was he refused to let it go on, so he sat up, turned Seea’s unmoving body to the side so that the bead could be removed, then turned her back to him.

  “You ? didn’t seem to enjoy the way I made love to you,” he began, his hand turning her face in his direction. “I didn’t hurt you, I hope?”

  “No, you didn’t hurt me,” she said, and then there was nothing. Her face was turned toward him, but her gaze was somewhere other than on him. And the satisfaction that usually held her for a while didn’t seem to have come to her at all?

  “How do you know that obeying me completely will be so terrible?” Derand finally tried, the only thing he could think of to say. “Wouldn’t it be more fair to try something before condemning it? You might discover that you really enjoy being obedient, and if you do I promise not to tease you with any I-told-you-so’s. And if you do agree to trying it my way, I’ll suspend the punishment until we see how the experiment works out. So what do you say? Is it a deal?”

  The idea of a “deal” had come as a stroke of inspiration, and Derand was delighted that it had. This morning Seea had been ready to agree to just about anything to have the punishment stop, so the relief of his offer would certainly break her out of the depression. If she didn’t keep her word about obeying him he could always start the punishment again, but memory of what she’d gone through should make her do whatever was necessary to ? keep it from ? happening again?

  “Seea, you aren’t answering me,” Derand noted aloud as his insides twinged again. “I expected you to accept my offer immediately, but - “

  “You were right about complete truth being best,” Seea said, breaking into his half-bewildered question.

  “Lying only makes more trouble than you already have, so I will tell the truth. No, I won’t obey you, completely or otherwise, under any circumstance at all. Whether or not I can do it is beside the point. I simply won’t.”

  “Not even to stop a punishment you can’t bear?” Derand demanded, so confused that he was getting angry. “Not even to stop a punishment that can be made even worse? What’s wrong with you, Seea?

  Why are you being so unreasonable?”

  “My name is Elissia,” she said with no emphasis at all as she sat up and moved to put herself under the covers. Then she lay down again, and a long moment later her breathing showed that she was asleep.

  “I don’t believe this,” Derand muttered, staring at the woman who was his wife. She’d stated what her name was and then had gone to sleep, as though rejecting his love-name for her without actually saying the words. She’d rejected his love-name? ! That couldn’t mean she was also rejecting his love? !

  Derand got to his feet and began to pace around the room, the confusion surrounding him so intense that it was almost painful. Seea needed a strong hand to restrain her take-charge impulses in a situation that could cause her harm, and she’d even said she wanted to be punished if she did something that might prove harmful. For some unknown reason she’d now changed her mind, and refused to cooperate even to have a painful and embarrassing punishment stopped.

  “So what do I do?” Derand whispered, willing to take advice from anyone able to give it. But no one was here to give advice, which was typical of the way that whole matter was turning out. His first, angered, urge had been to show Seea that the punishment could be worse, which would hardly be difficult to do.

  If, after lunch, he spanked her again instead of easing her, then made her ask for yet another spanking before taking her to bed?

  Yes, the punishment could be made harder on her, and he just might have to choose that option. She’d flatly refused to obey him and he couldn’t let that decision stand. But - and this was what disturbed him the most - she hadn’t been defiant in her refusal. She’d simply spoken what she clearly saw as the truth and then had gone to sleep, making no effort to challenge him. It was as if the darkness she’d sunk into had taken control, and nothing that mattered had been left her.

  “And I’ve lost the only way I had to pull her out of it,” Derand whispered again, the realization bringing him unexpected fear as well as a sense of helplessness. “She was so set on saving Gardal that she kept pulling herself out of the depression for her brother’s sake, but now Gardal is safely at home. She isn’t fighting the depression in any way for any reason, and I don’t know what the hell to do!”

  Derand’s last words had almost become the shout he so desperately wanted to voice, but shouting and yelling would have been useless. He couldn’t back down on demanding obedience from Seea, not if he wanted her to live whole and safe. But his demanding that obedience had sent her into a black pit of lifelessness, and if he didn’t find some way to pull her out of the pit she wouldn’t live long enough to get herself killed by disobeying him.

  Another hour and more of pacing brought Derand nothing in the way of answers. Weariness finally forced him to a stop, that and the fact that he’d heard the guard being changed in the hall a bit earlier. He had to get some sleep if he was going to be as alert as he needed to be once they crossed over into Arvin tomorrow. In the morning he’d talk to Seea again over breakfast, hopefully implementing the idea that would come to his rested mind.

  The room’s lamp still burned, so he crossed to the door and turned it down, then made his careful way to the bed in the dark. He sat down on the near side of the bed, more than aware of Seea’s sleeping presence on the other side, wanting desperately to hold her in his arms as he slept but unsure of whether that was a good idea. Taking her in his arms might wake her, and loss of sleep would simply add to what held her so tightly -

  Before Derand could lie down the room’s door was kicked open and a dark form rushed in. The intruder was clearly male and very big, just about as large as Derand himself - and on top of that he held what looked like a long dagger in his fist. As soon as the intruder entered the room he headed for the bed, and if Derand had been asleep he would never have been able to wake quickly enough to keep from being killed.

  But Derand hadn’t been asleep, and hadn’t even been lying down. Instead of finding an easy victim the intruder was met by a man who had surged to his feet with uncanny speed, and then had grasped the wrist of the hand holding the dagger. Derand used his right hand to take the intruder by the throat, at the same time delivering a vicious knee to the intruder’s privates. When the intruder bent with the pain of being kneed, Derand forced the man to drop his dagger.

  Unfortunately, though, being fouled didn’t keep the intruder from fighting. He recovered from being kneed faster than Derand would have, and then Derand was fighting for his life again. The intruder was strong and seemed fresher than his intended victim, and was obviously a good fighter. The punches he threw were solid with the man’s body weight behind them, but Derand had taken as bad or worse in his time.

  He threw his own punches in response that the intruder had to feel - and then came the one thing Derand had hoped wouldn’t happen.

  The intruder must have somehow felt the bandage still covering parts of Derand’s body. When the first blow struck directly on the wound that hadn’t yet healed, Derand told himself that it had been a lucky shot and tried to ignore the heavy pain. But when the second and third blows came there was no longer any doubt about the intruder’s knowing he had an edge to use against his intended victim. Derand, well aware of the fact that he’d be able to stand up to the treatment only so long, desperately grappled the intruder close and pulled him down to the floor.

  Derand and the intruder rolled back and forth, each of them struggling to get the other under him where it would be possible to use body weight again. Derand was just about to win the struggle and pin his assailant down when the son of a diseased whore punched him in his wound again. When the blinding flash of pain passed Derand discovered that he’d lost the struggle after all, and the intruder knelt above him - with hands closed tight around Derand’s throat! The dagger was gone, but strangulation would kill the intended victim just as dead as edged steel!

  Trying to force the hands from his throat while lying flat on the floor wasn’t working. Derand would have pulled out one or both of his attacker’s eyes if he could have, but the man kept his head back as his fingers closed tighter and tighter. The darkened room started to get darker still as it also began to spin -

  And then the big body was gone from above him, the hands gone from his throat. Derand lay still for a moment as he dragged all the air in the world into his lungs, then he forced himself to sit up. His attacker -

  former attacker - lay unmoving on the floor beside him, and as the lamp brightened Derand could see the pool of blood slowly spreading from under the man’s body. He turned to thank whichever of his guards had come to his rescue - and got a shock almost as bad as the one the attack had brought.

  “Is he safely dead?” Seea asked, the dagger dripping blood still held in her hand as she adjusted the lamp by the door. “What happened?”

  “I was a fool,” Derand answered with a small bit of trouble as he forced himself to his feet. “Just because we won’t cross over into Arvin until tomorrow shouldn’t have been taken as a guarantee that no attack would come until then. And yes, he is dead so you can put the dagger down now. And get some clothes on.”

  Derand added that last when he heard the sudden shout and sound of running boots, showing that someone had noticed either the absence or the death of the fighters who were supposed to be out in the hall. All the rooms on this floor had been reserved for Derand, but Listan wouldn’t hear of putting their fighters into those rooms. The High King of Arvin and his queen deserved privacy, Listan had said, and his good friend and advisor meant to see that they got it. Privacy in life that had almost led to the complete privacy of death?

  “Your Majesty, what happened?” a voice came as Derand was putting on his pants -with his sword right next to his hand. “The men in the hall are down with arrows through the neck, and in here? “

  “And in here is probably the man who used the bow,” Derand finished when the fighter’s voice trailed off.

  “But just to be sure, wake up a couple of extra sections of the guard to do a search. And send for Lord Listan.”

  “No need, Your Majesty,” the fighter said, causing Derand to look up to see both fighters at the door looking to their right. “Here comes Lord Listan with more men right now.”

  The next few minutes were filled with a furious Listan issuing orders in all directions, which gave Derand a chance to glance around. Rather than getting dressed Seea had gotten back into bed, which was probably the wiser move. She couldn’t have closed that gown herself, so being completely under the bedcovers was considerably more effective. Derand really wanted to talk to her, but the conversation would have to wait until the hubbub died down.

  “My king, are you all right?” Listan finally got around to demanding as he stalked up to Derand. “We found a bow and quiver near the stairs, but the men outside swear that no one got past them. How this filthy assassin got into the inn - “