Page 12 of The Mentor
Christina listened and spoke in a calm way, and after a while they returned to the rest of us.
“I’m sorry we didn’t make it clearer that you would have to work together, and that you somehow misunderstood each other’s roles,” Christina said.
“There was nothing to misunderstand,” I pointed out. “I asked about her role and was told she would help me make up the curriculum. No one mentioned I had to work with her as anequal.”
“You don’t!” Christina said calmly. “No one is forcing you to work with Kya as her equal. I’m sure she’ll be okay with you being her assistant.”
“Very funny!” I said without a trace of laughter.
Boulder sat on a bench with Raven in his lap. “Look, you can blame this on Khan and Pearl when you see them but for now I think you need to ask yourself an important question,” he said. “If you two can’t work together despite your cultural differences, then how do you expect your students to do it?”
“Boulder is right,” Christina said. “You two are adults and should be able to talk this out.”
“I already said I’m okay with sharing power as long as I get to be the boss,” I declared.
Kya shook her head. “That makes no sense.”
Christina held up her hand. “Kya, don’t forget that Archer has no experience with democracy. He has never seen power shared before. They have no boards or councils, only rulers and bosses.”
Kya angled her head and closed her mouth.
“How about this,” Christina said and looked at me. “You call yourself the boss but when it comes to making decisions you and Kya have to agree on everything.”
“Then I’m not really the boss, am I?” I objected. “I’m willing to listen, but I want the final say.”
“That’s not happening,” Kya said firmly. “We’re sharing the responsibility.”
I tried arguing but she wouldn’t budge and when the others backed her up, I was forced to either walk away or work with her. After a whole lot of cursing, I chose the latter.
CHAPTER 4
Suffocating
Kya
After nine days in the Northlands, I was suffocating in testosterone.
Magni was being overprotective and controlling!
Archer was being unreasonable and stubborn!
The only thing the two men seemed to agree on was calling me naïve, and although I argued that I wasn’t, they did have a point.
After listening to Christina sob over Boulder for months, I might have romanticized the Nmen, which was the only explanation for what had happened between Archer and me when we kissed.
Now that I’d gotten to know him better, I was horrified that I’d actually felt attracted to him in the forest that first night. The man was a bigoted, prejudiced, and opinionated male chauvinist.
And he was primitive. They all were!
Sarcasm, insults, curses, and general crudeness was their native tongue and I worried how I would protect my impressionable students from their bad influence.
With his confrontational nature, Archer had cornered me on my second day here, hoping for a repeat of what happened in the forest, but I had told him calmly that it had been an unfortunate mistake on my part and wouldn’t happen again.
Archer might be the best-looking of the Nmen but not even Christina’s wistful sighs when she spoke about sex had me curious enough to sleep with a man like him.
Now, it was the night before the Motlander students arrived and I was alone at the school with Magni and Archer, who were arguing with each other, again.
“Will you stop it before you end up in another fight?” I said after Magni growled and narrowed his eyes at Archer.
