Johanna Lindsey Warrior's Woman Read Online Free

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Warrior'southward Adult female

Resilient beauty Tedra has devoted her life to the art of gainsay, and no one, to the lowest degree of all a homo, has ever been able to pierce through that rigid armor of single-minded purpose. When political upheaval forces her to flee her homeland, the strongly independent maiden finds that her only refuge is in the artillery of a bronzed barbarian.

In a brotherhood where warriors rule supreme, Challen is the fiercest and most feared. He quickly claims Tedra equally tradition and his own desires demand, but though he sparks her nonetheless unfulfilled passion, the proud fighter refuses to submit to whatsoever man'due south volition. Challenging him to physical battle, she also dares him to discover that she is a worthy opponent, partner, and companion—and together they can conquer all realms.

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Warrior's Woman

Johanna Lindsey

AVON BOOKS

An Banner of HarperCollinsPublishers

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the production of the author'due south imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to bodily events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely casual.

AVON BOOKS

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

ten East 53rd Street

New York, New York 10022-5299

Copyright © 1990 past Johanna Lindsey

Published by arrangement with the author

Library of Congress Itemize Bill of fare Number 89-92480

ISBN: 0-380-75301-4

www.avonromance.com

All rights reserved, which includes the correct to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except equally provided past the U.S. Copyright Law. For information accost Avon Books.

Beginning Avon Books Printing: June 1990

Avon Trademark Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. and in Other Countries, Marca

Registrada, Hecho en UsA.

HarperCollins® is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

Primed in the UsA.

20 19 18 17 16

If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be enlightened that this book is stolen property. Information technology was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this 'stripped book.'

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CONTENTS

1 2 iii 4 5 six 7 8 9 x 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 nineteen

xx 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

twoscore 41 42 43 44 45 46

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TO SUSANNE, WHO SAID Go FOR IT;

SHARON, FOR INSPIRATION;

AND ALFRED, FOR HIS SA'ABO.

MANY, MANY THANKS.

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Chapter One

Kystran, 2139 A. C. (After Colonization)

The demonstration against boskrat killing had been going on for three days, with ecology students marching in front of the Fanya Science Lab, their projector banners flashing on and off in neon colors, protesting the need for the extinction of another species in the name of science. The anticipated anarchism had come up to pass and was now in full swing, joined by bored and frustrated Fanya citizens on the lookout for a little excitement and tension release.

If it were only the ecology people involved, who had protesting down to an art course, there wouldn't take been any problem. Only the local Stress Clinic had been closed last week for remodeling and extension, and the unattached citizens of Fanya, those non having filed for double occupancy, were more than aggressive than usual.

"If they don't become their sexual practice in one case a day in the clinics, they think their world'south coming to an end," Fanya'south Master of Science had complained to Garr Ce Bernn, present Director of Kystran. "These young people don't remember what information technology was like earlier we had Stress Clinics in every urban center."

"Neither do we," the Director had replied dryly, simply he'd sent a Sec 1 equally requested to pacify the man.

Tedra De Arr was the lucky volunteer ordered to Fanya to take charge of the local Security Division. And she'd known later her get-go hr there that if the growing crowds got out of hand, there wouldn't be much she could do near it without some serious damage to life and limb involved. The Fanya Security Division was nothing only a bunch of young graduates who didn't know their phazor units from their communicators, the reason that they were never given combo-units. And if the cits decided to become destructive while rescuing the ugly little boskrats, she didn't see much promise in stopping them with the kind of fill-in available in this small boondocks.

With only twoscore Sec men on manus and at least a hundred citizens already breaking down the outer doors, Tedra thought about leaving quietly by the rear entrance. That was what those frightened scientists had washed, and she didn't give a farden damn about the scaly little creatures they'd left behind for her to defend. Defend, hell. She couldn't stand the creepy things herself. Why would she want to defend them?

With unkind thoughts for the man who had volunteered her for this temporary duty, Tedra lifted the computer link from her belt which gave her a direct line to Martha, her personal Mock 2 computer. "You know the stats, Martha, and they're breaking the doors downward at present. What are the odds on their grabbing the boskrats and running?"

"About lx to ane." Martha's very feminine vocalism came through the small, mitt-sized link unit loud and clear. "If it weren't for the Stress Clinic beingness closed—"

Tedra cut her off with a snarl, literally, returning the meaty unit of measurement to her belt. "Farden sex," she cursed to herself. "When did it get to be a be-all, cure-all, got-to-have-it-or-I'll-autumn-to-pieces—or become tearing?"

"Did yous say something, Sec 1?"

Tedra turned around to the kid behind her, and he was just a kid. Couldn't be more than eighteen years. Of course, when she was eighteen, she'd been at the peak of her class, had been actively working for a yr fifty-fifty though she continued her training, and was already unmatched in her field. That was 5 years ago. Four years agone she had earned her present rank, Security 1, the highest rating for an adept in weapons and paw-to-paw combat. The boyfriend who had spoken wasn't likely even a Sec 5, the lowest rating, though he would take to be to exist assigned to her. They shouldn't turn them out for active duty until they are fix, but y'all couldn't tell Administration that, not when there was such a shortage of Security available. Likewise many of the new crop of students elected to train for more fulfilling and less dangerous life careers, particularly on a planet not at war and in a league of planets devoted to peace and profitable trade.

"No, I didn't say anything to you, Sec 5, merely I'll say it now. We're going to allow the cits have what they want, because I don't believe a building and a bunch of smelly, ugly boskrats are worth anyone dying for. Stay out of the way and hope they settle for the bosk-rats. But if they come at you lot, shoot to stun. If that doesn't turn the tide, run like hell. Laissez passer the give-and-take; stun only. If a single cit ends upwardly dead when this is over, you Secs will respond to me."

She didn't have to add together they'd wish they were the ones who'd died if information technology came to that. A Sec 1 was no one to cross. Using yous as a rag to wipe the floor with was the least of what 1 could do to you, and the Sec knew it.

When the crowd came through the terminal door into the large, vaulted lab, there were unfortunately few of the ecology students amongst them. These were the unattached cits who had been denied their daily ration of sex therapy for a week, poor things, and they had no interest in the farden boskrats other than as an excuse to relieve stress and tension in the onetime-fashioned way, with a heady dose of violence. They went right for the equipment and the Secs, breaking and attacking what they could. Stunning didn't help much beyond thursday

e beginning horde.

Tedra De Arr spent the side by side one-half hour doing some breaking herself, on bones and faces. The local med-itechs would be decorated for the residual of the afternoon, merely at to the lowest degree no one was seriously injured. Merely she was yet angry as hell. She didn't like to break bones and hear men scream while she was doing it, not for no farden boskrats anyway. At least the women in the oversupply had stuck to damaging only the furniture and equipment, because she liked hearing women scream even less, and she didn't need anything to put her in a worse foul mood.

But it was still a fiasco and a waste of her talent, and she was nevertheless angry about it when she afterward returned to the temporary quarters assigned to her. That kid, the 1 she'd just known had had no concern being there, had shot his own human foot with his phazor unit. What she wouldn't requite to get hold of his teacher for 5 minutes. He wouldn't be releasing students before they were ready after that.

Marching to her door, she slapped her hand against the identilock without slowing her pace, and slammed right into the unmoving obstruction. She cursed a blue streak before calming enough to put her hand again to the lock for the required two seconds for identification. The door quietly slid open then nether her violent glower, but she wasn't pacified, not in the least. The next time Garr Ce Bernn got the idea that she'd appreciate the actress substitution tokens an exterior assignment could earn, she'd tell him what he could practice with them himself, and she didn't intendance if he was the head honcho of the whole planet.

She was a Sec 1, and the chore of a Sec 1 was to protect and defend the leaders on the planet, not to be loaned out to any farden section. Her ain job was the highest-paying in her field, assigned to Goverance Building and the Managing director himself. But to requite him his due, he'd known she'd only bought a house in the suburbs outside the city, and likely thought she needed assistance paying for information technology. He idea he'd been doing her a favor. After she calmed downwardly she'd come across information technology that mode, and probably even thank him when she got back to Gallion Metropolis, but she had to calm down get-go.

Picking up her pace again, she went straight to the Germ-free wall in the corner of the i-room quarters, pressed the wall activator, and started stripping equally the walls slid out to enclose her in a five-human foot-square area. The lights came on automatically as the newly created room inside a room closed with a soft click effectually her. Out came the toilet if she should need it, a hair-and-eye changer, and a drawer full of lotions and perfumes and a few male colognes left over by the last occupant. All she was interested in, nevertheless, was the bath.

She stepped out of her jumpsuit uniform, made of all-conditions solarcloth in the standard silver-gray that denoted her rank. The body revealed in the mirrored wall to her left was long-legged, tightly muscled, in prime condition. Strength was at that place without the bulge of muscle, leaving lines femininely curved and deceptive. It was a torso that had undergone fifteen years of intensive practise and preparation, turning information technology into a fighting machine. She still regretted the 3 years that had been wasted as a student of World Discovery, her second option in careers, before her height finally became apparent and she was allowed to switch to her first selection.

She paused when she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored wall and noticed the frown withal marring her fine-boned countenance. She needed a tension relaxer but knew the bathroom wouldn't do information technology. What she needed was her massager, but as the machines were rare and used just by a few residents on Kystran, they weren't standard in temporary quarters. The apartment had most of the other amenities she would find at home, merely a massager wasn't one of them.

She knew what Martha would tell her to do about it, and was glad that Fanya'south Stress Clinic wasn't operational, because for the get-go time she was actually tempted to visit i. The benefits would be the aforementioned, just achieved with a different kind of body pounding, the kind she had yet to experience, though not for lack of offers. Men were attracted to her despite her size, and information technology was just her Sec i rating that kept them from becoming nuisances about information technology in pursuit of her. She often wondered how bad it would exist if she weren't every bit alpine as she was. But she was above boilerplate in height, about an inch above the male average of five feet nine inches. Half dozen feet was tops for men on Kystran, merely rare, and all of those 6-footers were in Security, which would have been nice if she was interested, only she wasn't.

Eventually would come along the man she couldn't make mincemeat out of, and so she would be glad that her body was sleek and nicely proportioned, her breasts an arable scattering, her waist narrower than most, and her hips marginally curved rather than bony or thrusting. The peach-gold pare tone, big almond-shaped eyes, patrician nose, and soft coral mouth were cipher to ignore either. The stern brown hair and eye colour were but for effect and not her ain today, just they couldn't backbite from features that went together just right to from a very pretty bundle. Tedra didn't bewail that parcel. She had only never had a reason to capeesh any of it except for her superlative, which was one of the primary requirements for a career in Security.

She left her compatible where it dropped on the floor, knowing the robocleaner would zilch out to selection upwards later on her equally before long as the walls opened. No one could charge Tedra of being tidy, but then robocleaners had been around longer than she had and they tended to spoil a person awful, keeping everything sparkling and sanitary and in its proper place. The automobile stood no higher than her hips, moved on silent rollers and so information technology never made a nuisance of itself; in fact, most of the fourth dimension she barely noticed the thing equally it worked around her. Her home unit was fifty-fifty programmed to take her social club and bring her meals to her in bed if she felt too lazy or tired to get up and press the buttons on her Repast Provider herself. Hell, the farden matter would castor her teeth if she'd let it.

The solaray bathroom was smaller than her home unit by nearly a pes, the tubelike bath nearly a human foot and a half circular, just barely adequate for someone her size. The curved door slid quietly close every bit before long every bit both anxiety were on the floor of the unit of measurement, and the tall cylinder filled with a red light that bathed her in scarlet hues. The beam of light turned off by itself afterward three seconds, the door opening automatically, a silent suggestion that she stride out, which she did, squeaky clean now from head to toe, even the tedious brownish of her pilus given a soft sheen in the cleaning. She didn't know how the thing worked, but the solaray bath had come into use more than than 50 years agone during what was now termed the Corking Water Shortage, and stayed in use because of the fourth dimension-saving efficiency of the thing. Her home unit, a newer model, was designed to exist uniform with the solarcloth of her uniforms, to clean them besides, and since the uniform was thin and comfortable enough to slumber in, too, information technology saved her even more time in non having to change clothes unless she was going somewhere other than on duty. Few citizens on the planet remembered what it was like to take baths any other way.

Simply her assignment was finished hither now, and so she dialed a two-piece outfit, which the closet promptly delivered, the pants and vestlike top being the only other manufactures of clothing she had brought with her for her short stay in Fanya. The perfume she favored had been applied just last week, so she didn't demand to refresh it. And the little flake of eye makeup she preferred, a thin awarding of black liner that matched her lashes, and the barest smudge of blusher were permanent. She was done with the nondescript pilus color now that the chore was finished, and spared the 20 seconds required for a new color, a vibrant lemon yellow that she couldn't wear well with any but the brown eye shade. She kept her long hair in the tight folded roll required past her job, since it was unnecessary to loosen information technology for cleaning or coloring. A quick swipe with the styler over her shortened bangs to get them off her forehead, and she was ready to depart, the whole process having taken less than five minutes.

The robocleaner was already heading toward her equally soon every bit the walls opened and disappeared in their slots. "Pack me to get, fella," she told it, non having bothered to name a temporary unit, afraid her habitation model might get jealous if she did. Even though it wasn't a free-thinking machine like Martha, she didn't desire to take any chances of upsetting her smoothly ru

due north household.

While she waited for her personal items to be collected and bagged, she headed for the audiovisual console to telephone call her boss to tell him she had happily failed her mission. Every single boskrat had been whisked out of the lab when the ecology students had finally stumbled their mode over the bodies on the floor to rescue their scaly friends. Actually, she hadn't really failed. The building was withal standing, no one was expressionless, and at that place was just modest damage to the interior of the lab. No one had said she had to prevent the boskrats from leaving the bounds.

Dropping into the adjustichair earlier the console, which immediately adjusted to her summit and contours, she was just nigh to activate the long-altitude channel for direct access to Gallion City, nine hundred miles away, when the three-by-iii-foot screen flashed on in front of her, and a homo she vaguely recognized filled the screen in vivid color. Her hand stilled in midair and she sat back, a little in shock that the screen was on without having had the vocalisation command of "Answer," nor had the console chimed that at that place was a call awaiting her attention. People didn't announced on audiovisual consoles without permission, since the viewing was 2-way and information technology would be an invasion of privacy otherwise. Yet there the man was, looking at her, sitting backside a desk in an function she did recognize, the office of the Director of Kystran, merely he was almost definitely not Garr Ce Bemn.

The shock dissipated before he spoke as it dawned on her that he couldn't see her, that she was seeing what many other people were likely seeing at that very moment—a multiple manual. She knew information technology could exist done, that every single audiovisual unit of measurement could circulate simultaneously planetwide, but it had never been done before, and so she couldn't be faulted for being thrown past information technology. But the stupor returned as he began to speak.

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