The Tigrens' Glory (15 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Glory looked around the extravagant stateroom she’d been assigned to aboard the
Ugaztun
and sighed tiredly.  It had been a very long day already and it was just an hour after noon.  There’d been a ceremony of sorts before they’d left the ranch, and another when they’d reached the spaceport in Badia.  She’d met so many new people while waiting to board that she was having a difficult time sorting them out in her mind.  The men all came in nearly identical threes, and there’d been so many of them that remembering their names was impossible when her head still felt as though it were filled with cotton from her first Dream Walk. 

The women were much easier.  There were far fewer of them, and they were each so unique.  To her surprise, they’d all been very friendly to her, and sincerely welcoming.  She found that she was looking forward to getting to know them better in the coming days.

A light knock on her door interrupted her reverie.  She opened it, mildly surprised to see that it was Lariah since she’d just left her not fifteen minutes earlier.  “How are you feeling?” Lariah asked, frowning worriedly as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.  “You look so tired, Glory.  I should have insisted you come to your room sooner.  I’m so sorry.”

“I am a little tired,” Glory admitted as she led the way to the sitting area at the far side of the room.  “But I’m glad I got to meet so many people, especially the women.  I enjoyed myself very much.” 

“I’m so glad,” Lariah said.  “Now that we’re aboard the
Ugaztun
, you can rest all you want for the next few days.  If you’d like to have dinner in your room this evening, you can call the cafeteria and they’ll deliver a tray.  Otherwise, you’re welcome to join us in our private dining room.”

Glory’s initial reaction was to decline, but she hesitated.  “I haven’t had a chance to discuss my Dream Walk with you and your Rami, and I imagine they’d like to know what I learned.”

“Of course they would,” Lariah said.  “So would I, for that matter.  But we don’t mind waiting until you’re ready.”

“I’m ready,” Glory said.  “I also have a few things I want to ask you and the Princes about.  If you think a serious discussion should not take place over dinner, I’ll certainly understand.”

“That’s fine,” Lariah said, waving one hand as though to brush away the concern.  “We’ll eat at seven.  Will that work for you?”

“It’s perfect,” Glory said.  “I’m afraid I don’t know where your private dining room is, though.”

“I don’t either,” Lariah said with a laugh.  “Don’t worry, I’ll send a steward to get you.  Now, I have a little gift for you,” Lariah said, reaching into the bag hanging from her shoulder and removing a thin, five by seven inch package wrapped in bright red paper which she offered to Glory.

Glory accepted the package, her hands suddenly trembling.  “A gift?”

“Yes,” Lariah said.

Glory stared at the package in her hands, then looked up at Lariah and swallowed hard.  “I apologize for my emotional response.  It’s just that I’ve never received a gift before.”

Lariah blinked rapidly to hold back the threat of tears and widened her smile.  “Then I am very happy to give you your first.”

Her bronze eyes glowing with emotion, Glory tore the wrapping off the package to reveal an electronic reader.  “This is wonderful,” she gasped, running her gloved fingers over the smooth plastic frame. 

“I know how important knowledge is to you,” Lariah said.  “With this, you can read books whenever and wherever you want.  There’s a complete library on
Ugaztun’s
computer, so you can download books on any subject you want.  The reader’s already set up so all you need to do is pick what you want.”

“I saw people using these on the passenger liner after I left Ramouri,” Glory said.  “Once I understood what they were I tried to purchased one, but the ship’s store had already sold out.  I thank you, Lariah, from the bottom of my heart.”

“You’re more than welcome, Glory,” Lariah said, then hesitated.  “There’s more.”

Glory looked at her curiously, and Lariah took a deep breath and plunged in.  “As I mentioned the other day, I used to be a librarian, before I met my Rami.  It was a very lonely time in my life, and I often found escape in books.  Some of my favorites were romance novels, especially the really steamy ones.”

“Steamy?” Glory asked.

“Sexy,” Lariah clarified.  Glory’s eyes widened, but Lariah caught the gleam of interest in them.  She’d been a little nervous about this part of her gift, but Glory’s reaction eased her worries.  “The mechanics of sex are one thing, but there’s so much more to relationships than that.  There’s love, romance, attraction, need, desire, and much, much more.  I’ve taken the liberty of loading a selection of romance novels onto your reader.  I’ve divided them into categories from mild, to steamy, to explicit.”

Glory’s face heated, but her smile was pure delight.  Her curiosity on this subject had been extreme, but she hadn’t known where to go for information that went beyond the bald facts she’d gotten from the vid-terminal.  “This is so wonderful, Lariah,” she said, holding the reader almost reverently in the palms of her hands.  “I cannot think of anything that could have made me happier than this gift.”

“I’m so happy that you like it,” Lariah said, then grinned.  “It’ll give you something to do when you aren’t Dream Walking.”

Glory set the reader down carefully, then got up and hugged Lariah.  It was the first hug she’d ever initiated in her entire life, but she was so happy that that never even occurred to her.  Lariah hugged her back, more than pleased by Glory’s reaction to her gift.

“Well, I better get out of here and let you rest,” she said.  “Oh, the reader is easy to use, but if you have any trouble figuring something out, just let me know.”

“I will Lariah, thank you,” Glory said.

“One more thing,” Lariah said, turning back just before Glory closed the door.  “It’s waterproof, so you can read in the tub if you want.”  She winked, then hurried up the corridor, laughing softly.  

Glory closed and locked the door, then spent a moment arguing with herself before setting the reader aside and reaching for her bags.  After putting her things away she grabbed her bathrobe and the reader, and carried them into the bathroom.  She turned on the taps in the spacious bathtub and adjusted the temperature so it was as hot as she could stand it.  She removed her weapons, setting her sword on the bathroom counter, and her knife belt on the floor beside the tub with one knife on the rim, just in case.  Then she peeled her gloves off, sighing with relief at the sensation of cool air against her skin.  She dropped one, which made a hard metallic thunk as it hit the tile, causing her to wince.  She picked it up, relieved to see that it hadn’t damaged the floor.  This was the
Ugaztun’s
maiden voyage, and she had no desire to be known as the first person to break something. 

She undressed, put the reader and a hand towel on the rim of the tub next to the throwing knife, then climbed into the hot water with a sigh of pleasure.  She reached up and began the long process of letting her hair down so that she could shampoo it. 

When loose, her hair now reached her hips in a long, thick cascade of wavy blue-black silk.  Following the customs of Ramouri, she wore it in a complicated weave of folded plaits that hung to the middle of her back, threaded with the traditional golden cord that indicated her status as a member of the royal family.  Females on Ramouri never cut their hair aside from regular trims.  It was, by both tradition and custom, forbidden.  Until that morning, Glory’s hair had been so long that three feet of it dragged on the floor when loose, a typical length for women her age.  On impulse, she’d found a pair of scissors in Lariah’s guest bathroom and cut it to her hips.  Her head felt oddly light now, but she was pleased with how quickly she’d been able to bind it afterward, and how easy it was to release those bindings now.

As she removed the last plait and set the cord aside it occurred to her that she could go out in public without binding her hair at all if she wished.  No one here would know, or care, that it was much shorter than it should be for a respectable woman of Ramouri.  Nor would it matter if they did, she reminded herself.  She’d been banished.  Ramourian customs were no longer her own unless she chose them to be. 

She leaned back in the tub and closed her eyes, letting the heat of the water seep into her.  For a few minutes she toyed with the idea of cutting her hair short, like Saige Lobo’s, before deciding she wasn’t ready for that big of a change.  Instead, she decided to forego the complicated binding of her hair for the evening, and opt for a simple braid like she’d seen some of the other women wear.  It might not seem like much to most, but for her it was a bigger step than cutting it had been.

Happy with her decision, she dried her hands on the towel she’d set on the rim of the tub and reached for the reader.  She was pleased to discover that it really was easy to use.  She spent a few moments scrolling through the titles Lariah had downloaded for her before selecting one at random from the
Steamy
category.  She opened the file and leaned back in the tub to read.

***

“What was
that
?” Cade asked, looking around the valley in search of his brothers.  Kirk was walking toward him from the river, and Kyerion was standing before a heavy door that stood upright without support on the blue grass. 

“I think a better question is
who
was that
,” Kirk growled.

“It was just a dream,” Kyerion said, turning his back on the door and joining his brothers in the center of the valley. 

“Dream or not, she was letting a strange man kiss her,” Kirk said irritably.  “And touch her.  She belongs to us.”

“She cannot belong to us, Kirk,” Kyerion said, though the words tasted like ashes in his mouth.  He was just as disturbed by the shadowy, disjointed snippets of Glory’s dream as Kirk was, but one of them had to be reasonable, and he was the eldest.  “She isn’t Klanaren, remember?”

“What of her metallic eyes?” Kirk asked.  “You know as I do that eyes such as ours belong only to Clan Tigren.”

“Among the Klanaren, that’s true,” Kyerion said.  “But she is not Klanaren, as she made plain.  Nor is she soul-linked, which would also be required since she’s female.  She is human, and for all we know, metallic eyes are a common trait for her people.”

“Klanaren or not, she belongs to us, as we belong to her,” Cade said with calm certainty.  “I’m not sure how or why, but the feeling is too strong for me to deny.”

“I feel the same as both of you,” Kyerion admitted.  “But we need to use our heads.  Besides, since we don’t even know where we are, I’m not sure it even matters at this point.” 

Glory had given all three of them a lot more of her own energy than she’d realized.  They’d grown so weak that they’d lost touch with each other, something he never would have believed possible.  Glory had healed and strengthened their bonds, and then given Cade, the weakest of them, the equivalent of a concentrated boost.  

As Druids, they had no trouble duplicating what she’d done once they’d gained a little strength, so they were now able to remain in their own copy of her valley.  As Klanaren, it was their nature to be stronger together than they were when apart, and they found Glory’s valley relaxing.  They were exercising their minds, working to increase their power so that they could block Glory from giving them more of her own essence in future, but it was a slow process.

“I think we should ask her who that man was,” Kirk said. 

“I disagree,” Kyerion replied.  “I don’t think we should let her know that we can look into her dreams at all.”

“Why not?” Kirk asked. 

“I’m not sure,” Kyerion said.  “It’s just a feeling.  A strong one.” 

“Fine, but if she keeps dreaming of other men touching her, it’s going to drive me crazy,” Kirk said. 

“It’s not easy for any of us, Kirk,” Kyerion said.

“I know it,” Kirk replied with a sigh.  “How long do you think it’ll be before she returns?”

“Not long,” Kyerion said.  “She’s sleeping much less now.  That’s a good sign.”

“We should not have taken so much energy from her,” Cade said. 

“We didn’t do it deliberately, Cade,” Kyerion said.  “We are more aware now, and stronger.  We should have little or no trouble blocking her the next time she comes to us.”

“I wish we had a better sense of how much time has passed,” Kirk said.  “I don’t know if it’s been one day, or ten, or a hundred since we spoke with her.”

“We will ask when next we see her,” Kyerion said.  “Now, shall we exercise our minds again by making things appear and disappear?”

“Yes,” Cade said at once.  “I’m still not as strong as you two, and I don’t want Glory to feel she needs to give me any more of her energy.” 

“You go first, then,” Kyerion said.  He watched as Cade began building a replica of the jungle around their home on Ugaztun, while in his mind he was trying to convince himself that what he’d told his brothers was true.  Glory would return to them.  They just needed to be patient a little longer.

**

Glory’s eyes popped open, her entire body tense with the knowledge that she was supposed to be doing…something.  She turned her head and frowned at the clock on the bedside table.  When she sat up, she was surprised to find that she was holding the reader Lariah had given her.  Her eyes widened and she nearly jumped from the bed, checking the time again.  She had less than half an hour to dress for dinner. 

She hurried into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face.  She hadn’t meant to fall asleep.  After her bath she’d laid down on the bed to read and gotten caught up in the story.  A romantic scene between the two main characters had shocked and titillated her.  She remembered closing her eyes as she tried to imagine the scene in her mind, and then she’d obviously fallen asleep.

She reached for her toothbrush as she admonished herself for being so careless.  Showing up late for dinner would be an unforgivable breach of manners, and she owed the Dracons better than that.