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a great deal of force, only to encounter another force field.”
    She reached up and rubbed the aching lump on her forehead.   “Is that what happened?”
    He nodded.   “There is enough space for a person to lean her head out of the window, but if you attempt to throw yourself from the window, the force field will prevent it.”
    “I see.”   Another escape plan thwarted, she thought ruefully.   Getting out of the Antler keep was going to be more difficult than she had originally anticipated.
    “What you tried to do was incredibly stupid.”
    “It wasn’t—” She broke off, remembering the distance to the nearest rooftop far below.   Very well, she admitted to herself.   It had been stupid.
    “Yes, it was indeed stupid.   But I had guessed you would try something, so I left you alone to discover for yourself that you cannot escape.”
    Rubbing her head, she began to sit up, and he caught her other arm and helped her to a sitting position.   “Shall I take you back to the medical chamber?”
    She cringed, remembering the sharp smells of the room.   “I am fine.”
    “You seem all right.   But I will have Otwa come up and look you over, just to be on the safe side.   Were anything to happen to you, my father would impale me on his antlers.”
    “And that would be a terrible pity, I’m sure.”
    Hart grinned at her sarcasm, lifting her into his arms and dropping her onto the circular bed in the center of the chamber.   He looked down at her with a mocking smile.   “You wound me, Claw.”
    “I’d certainly like to,” she said.

Chapter 4
     
    Later that afternoon Katara sat at the window in her tower, the setting sun bathing her in golden rays.   She heard the door open behind her and didn’t bother to turn.
    “Am I to be afforded no privacy?”
    “It had not occurred to me that you would wish privacy.   Do your people not live crowded into small, one-room huts?”
    At the unfamiliar voice, Katara turned to see a tall, regal woman regarding her with frank curiosity.   The woman wore no coronet on her head, but a heavy silver bracelet on her upper arm appeared to be constructed of interwoven antlers.   She guessed this was the monarch’s consort.   A doe, in human form.
    “We live with our Pride in a longhouse,” Katara admitted.   “It is a bit crowded when all ten or twelve members of a Pride are inside.   But we spend most of our time alone in the forest.   It is the trees that afford us the privacy we crave.”
    The woman walked into the chamber.   Like Hart, she moved smoothly, with the cool arrogance that befitted her station.   Katara stood up and took a few steps forward, standing stiffly, almost belligerently, her chin held high.
    The woman walked around her in a circle as if she were an object to be studied, displaying none of the fear that had been so evident in Otwa, the old woman.   Perhaps she believed the collar rendered Katara helpless.
    If so, she was a fool.   Because even in her human form, Katara was very far from helpless.
    “My sons seem very impressed with you,” the doe said at last.   “They tore the breakfast chamber apart this morn, shifting and locking antlers as if they were in rut.”
    “I did nothing to incite such behavior.   Indeed, I did not realize the Antler behaved thus.   I had always believed you prided yourselves on being civilized.”
    “Rarely do our men behave so poorly.   Obviously you have brought out the animal in them.”
    Katara let her upper lip curl back.   “I suppose you think that is because I am but an animal myself.”
    The other woman did not flinch at her snarl.   “Not at all.   But you are a lovely woman, and they are but foolish males.”
    Katara gave a disbelieving snort at the assertion that she was lovely.   Her hair fell loose and tangled over her shoulders, because she had not been offered a thong to tie it up with, and she wore the odd alien clothing that the Antler affected, rather than the animal