Punished, Tana Stone [top reads .txt] 📗

“I’m sorry about that mess with Sienna.” He gave me a familiar grin. “You know how it is with women.”

“Unless she is a pleasurer, I do not know.”

His eyes widened a bit. “A pleasurer? You mean a whore?” He shook his head with vigor. “No, she’s definitely not one of those. She won’t even give it up to me and, believe me, I’ve tried.”

He gave me another grin, which I didn’t return. I did not understand a male who could not convince a female to warm his bed, especially one he intended to be his mate.

“So you’ve visited a,” he hesitated over the word, “pleasurer before?”

“Pleasure planets are common stops for Vandar hordes.” I started walking toward the exit, not waiting to see if he followed. “Females are not allowed on our horde ships. Usually.”

Donal ran to catch up. “You probably noticed by now that we don’t have any pleasurers on Kimithion III. When humans came to the planet as settlers and mixed with the natives, we had to agree to a morality clause. The only relationships between males and females can be through marriage. And our species can’t intermarry. It wouldn’t work mating-wise, anyway.”

I glanced down at him. “Your planet has morality rules that you have tried to defy by bedding the female despite her protests?”

He stammered and coughed, glancing around even though there was no one close enough to hear. “Everyone knows males have needs, right?”

“My needs have never involved an unwilling female.”

His face reddened, his eyes hardening for a moment. “She’s just playing hard to get. It’s a game. She’ll accept me. Everyone here marries.”

“Everyone on your planet is in mated pairs?” Although Vandar believed in taking mates—and there was one fated mate for each Vandar—we were not restrictive regarding sex. Vandar did not view sex—or enjoying any form of it—as immoral, and it was common to have many partners before finding your one true mate. As a male who’d enjoyed my fair share of exotic alien pleasurers, the idea of the only relationship being marriage seemed choking.

“The ones who’ve reached maturity. That’s why I know Sienna will come around eventually.” He swiped a hand across his sweaty forehead. “What other option does she have? Stay unmarried and unmated for her entire life?”

Considering how long the residents of the planet lived, that did seem like a grim fate.

“There must be more eager females,” I said to him, as we passed through the arched entrance to the amphitheater and headed toward the village square. The scent of saltwater and fish wafted up from the shores of the shallows, making my nose twitch.

Donal waved a hand. “She’s just playing hard to get. It’s part of our dance.”

I looked at him askance. “If you say so.”

“Besides,” Donal dropped his voice as we approached a group of people walking toward us. “Sienna would be a fool to reject a match with me, especially considering her family and her lousy job. She should be grateful I would consider marrying a female who is content doing inventory for the supply chief.”

I slowed my pace as I mentally noted that Sienna worked with the department that handled incoming off-world supplies. “What is wrong with her family?”

He twitched one shoulder. “Her mother died when her younger sister was born, and her father never got over it. He spends most of his time drinking their money away. Sienna got to be so scrappy because she fights anyone who says anything bad about her father or sister.” He chuckled. “She even punched me in the nose once for saying her sister was as doughy as her yeast rolls.”

I was liking this human less and less. “Maybe that is why she doesn’t wish to marry you.”

“That was forever ago. Besides, if she rejected everyone who ever said something about her family, there would be no one left on the planet.”

We reached the obelisk in the center of the village, and I stopped. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Just so you don’t feel bad about kicking her from your training. She should know better than to do the things she does, but she does them anyway.” He shook his head as if he was talking about a naughty child. “Her temper is something I’ll teach her to control once we’re married.”

Good luck with that, I thought. I would have bet good money that Sienna would never tame her temper or marry this weak man.

I flicked my gaze over him. “Let’s hope the rest of the males in the training improve quickly, or your planet is in real trouble. She remains the best fighter I saw today.”

With that, I turned and strode through the square and started up the winding stone path cut into the mountain. For some reason, the man’s words about Sienna had gotten under my skin. I might have just met the woman, but I didn’t like how Donal talked about her, or how he’d attempted to claim her as his, despite her obvious distaste for him. It flared a possessive streak in me that made no sense.

I stomped my boots as I walked, my head down, even though the sun was also lower and no longer glinting in my eyes. Why did I care if Donal wanted to lay claim to Sienna? I was a newcomer on the planet and didn’t understand their ways. Maybe he was right, and she would be foolish to reject him.

But maybe she doesn’t care, I thought. The woman who’d been brave enough to pretend to be a male so she could learn to fight would not bow to rigid customs. It was clear she was a rebel, and as a member of a species who’d spent millennia rebeling against the rule of the empire, I admired her spirit. My heart beat faster as I remembered the feel of her hips as I held her. It had been the curve of her flesh that was softer than any man’s hip that had tipped me off that she was no male.

I