Love in the Wild: A Tarzan Retelling

by Emma Castle

  He removed the crown and studied it, his long fingers curling gently around the delicate band of gold leaves. “White rock.”

  “White rock? Can you show me?” Maybe if she got him to trust and like her, he would change his mind about taking her to the forest guides.

  Thorne’s blue eyes focused on the forest behind them with sharp intensity. Birds chattered and monkeys called out. Eden heard nothing dangerous in the sounds, but she had not lived here in the wild the way he had.

  He seemed to be both man and animal, belonging fully in both worlds, yet forced to linger somewhere in the middle.

  “Is it safe?” she asked.

  He suddenly smiled. “Yes. Safe. Come. Meet Tembo.”

  “Who’s Tembo?”

  “Come see,” he answered with a smile.

  Eden gasped as Thorne grasped her hand in his and led her into the forest. They followed a trail that was well worn despite the overgrowth of vegetation. Large circular tracks could be seen in the muddy path.

  Thorne cupped his mouth with one hand and let out a reverberating sound that was oddly familiar, but Eden couldn’t place it. There was an answering trumpet call ahead of them, and Eden gasped. An elephant!

  They quickened their pace, leaping over small rocks and ducking between hagenia trees that grew close together, until they skidded to a stop. Eden bumped into Thorne from behind, but he barely budged.

  Just up ahead, seven elephants stood facing them on the path.

  “Tembo.” Thorne spoke softly, his lips curling in a delighted smile as he looked between her and the elephant.

  “Come, meet Tembo,” he encouraged and walked toward the elephant who led the herd.

  As Thorne approached the bull elephant, he walked right up to him and gently clasped his long trunk in his hands and laid his forehead against it. For a moment, Eden couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The man had just walked up to an elephant and was leaning against it the way a person might a very tame horse. But it was a dangerous bull elephant.

  Thorne closed his eyes, still smiling. Eden watched him, completely enthralled. He embraced this world with such joy and love. Who was he? How had he come to be here? Eden had to find out.

  “Come.” He waved to her, and she joined him, her heart pounding as she stood close to him and the elephant.

  “Tembo,” Thorne said as he patted the elephant’s trunk. The elephant lifted his trunk and gently tapped Thorne’s chest before touching Eden’s cheek and exploring her.

  “Tell him name,” Thorne said.

  “Eden,” she said. “I’m Eden.” She realized she hadn’t told Thorne her name until now.

  “Eden,” he repeated with a reverence that sent shivers of excitement through her. She touched the elephant’s trunk and gazed deep into his dark-brown eyes. The animal had a quiet majesty unparalleled by any other animal on the planet.

  “How did you become friends with an elephant?” she asked.

  Thorne stroked the weathered gray trunk, and Tembo playfully lifted the end of his trunk, delicately poking around Thorne’s neck.

  “He was young calf. Two female lions chased him across here.” He waved at the meadow. “I stopped them, chased them away. Took Tembo back to his family.”

  Eden watched as Thorne and the elephant shared a look of gentle, friendly affection that made her heart swell.

  “Nature’s great masterpiece, the elephant; the only harmless great thing.” Eden echoed the old quote by the philosopher John Donne as she was pulled into the bull elephant’s quiet, contemplative gaze. Peace like she had never known before settled into her soul.

  “What does that mean?” Thorne asked.

  “It means . . .” She thought it over carefully before responding. “It means that elephants are not predators like lions. They are dangerous when provoked, yes, like all animals, but at their core, they are kind, they are loving, and as one of the largest creatures on the planet, that is a rare thing, to have power and not use it to hurt others. Elephants are compassionate and gentle.” Which made it all the more painful to think of how often these creatures, like the gorillas, were slaughtered by poachers.

  “No sadness,” Thorne whispered as he brushed the pads of his thumbs over her cheeks, wiping away tears she hadn’t even been aware of.

  “I’m not sad,” she confessed. “I’m full of joy.”

  “Eden is happy?”

  “Very happy.” She curled her arms around Tembo’s trunk and hugged, unafraid of him now. She laughed as the tip of his trunk tugged on her hair, which was falling loose past her shoulders. The elephant trumpeted, but the sound was soft, sweet.

  “Tembo says you have hair of sunlight.”

  “Hair of sunlight?” She loved the sound of that, but then it hit her what he’d just said. “Wait, you understand him?”

  Thorne nodded, but he did not explain further. He reached up to touch her hair, his fingers coiling in the strands. He must have been using the elephant as a means to say what he actually wanted to say. That was it.

  Eden knew she had to look terrible right now. Humidity was not her friend. But from the look on Thorne’s face, he clearly thought she was beautiful. There was a mix of innocence blended with a primal desire in his eyes that made her tremble. How could this stranger fill her with such a potent longing for things that she didn’t think she’d ever find?

  Thorne peered down at her, his fingertips moving from her hair to her face. He explored her cheek, her forehead, then her lips. She stared back up at him, her heart beating like a bird trapped in a cage, desperate to be freed. Was he going to kiss her? She wanted him to, as crazy as that was.

  “Beautiful female,” he whispered. His hand moved to her neck, touching her collarbone, and then slowly moved down toward her breasts. She almost leaned into his gentle, exploring touch but recalled herself and flinched back. He became tense and sniffed around them, as though he expected to find a reason for her pulling away.

  “Sorry. It’s just, we don’t know each other. People shouldn’t touch like that unless . . . they know each other, you know?”

  Thorne’s head tilted to one side. “Thorne know you. You are Eden.” He said her name in that husky tone of his. “Mates.”

  She blinked, dazed by that simple declaration. He thought she was his mate? Men. “Thorne, have you been with a woman before?”

  “I am with you,” he replied confidently.

  “Yes. Yes, you are.” She tried not to stare at his muscled chest, which was calling for her to touch it. She wanted to explore his body as he’d been exploring hers.

  “What I mean is, have you mated with anyone before?” She hoped to God he understood what she meant. Understanding crossed his stormy eyes, and a blush stained his cheeks. He looked away toward the elephants, who had wandered past them.

  “No. Eden is Thorne’s first mate.”

  A virgin jungle god. I’m either blessed or cursed. She honestly wasn’t sure which.

  “Look, Thorne, we are not mates.”

  “You have mate? I will fight for you.” He puffed up his chest, and she couldn’t help but notice how tall he really was. The idea of him fighting for her should not have been hot, but it was. No modern woman would ever admit that, but she was in a primal world with a primal man.

  “No, I have no mate, Thorne.”

  The ferocity in his expression softened. “Good. You are Thorne’s mate.”

  Men.

  He reached for her face again. Eden caught his hand between hers, holding on to his palm. His skin was rough and calloused, his fingers strong and the backs of his knuckles scarred with faint scratches. She wondered what he had endured out here. Her heart was strangely heavy at the thought of him alone in the jungle for what seemed like his whole life. Where was his family? Why hadn’t he stayed with them? He still gazed at her with that sweet, intense hunger. She had to get him off the idea of mating and back to the answers she needed.

  “Can you take me to the white rock?”

&n
bsp; His eyes narrowed, as though he sensed she was distracting him.

  “Thorne take you. Then talk mates.”

  “Okay, sure.” She would agree to that if she could get some answers.

  Thorne led her through the forest for almost an hour before they paused at the edge of a small clearing. Eden peered over his shoulder as he pointed to a shape covered in undergrowth but still visibly white. Her lips parted, and she covered her mouth with her hands.

  A wrecked plane lay on the forest floor like the skeleton of some great beast. Thick vines hung over it. Rust rimmed the edges of the open door and windows.

  “My God . . .” Eden stared at the wreck. It answered so many of her questions—or at least hinted toward the answers. She touched Thorne’s shoulder. “How long has this been here?”

  He tensed beneath her hand. “Always.”

  That single word made Eden think. Was the plane connected to Thorne? He acted as though he hadn’t spoken English in . . . well, years. Was it because he hadn’t? Eden walked toward the plane, even more desperate for answers, but when she realized that he wasn’t coming with her, she turned back to him. A wave of apprehension rolled through her, and she saw the stark pain in Thorne’s eyes.

  “Thorne, are you okay?”

  He squared his shoulders and moved with resolute steps toward her and the plane. A tense silence surrounded them as he reached her.

  “Is it safe to go inside?” she asked.

  He didn’t say anything at first. His gaze seemed to go straight through her and into a place where she could not follow.

  “Safe,” he finally said.

  Eden ventured inside first, stepping into the darkness of the plane. It felt like she was entering another world. The humid jungle air left a sickly sweet scent inside the cabin. Eden flinched as she glimpsed two human skeletons, rags of clothing hanging off them. They were slumped in their chairs as though they had fallen asleep a century ago and had left nothing but their bones behind.

  “Gods.” Thorne nodded at the bones with solemn respect.

  “No, those are human,” she whispered. “Like you and me.”

  Eden moved down the aisle toward the bodies and studied them. One had a large, elegant signet ring on its index finger. The other wore a necklace with a ginkgo leaf pendant. She guessed based on what was left of the clothing that one was a man and the other a woman. She knelt by one empty seat and saw a pile of moss-covered cardboard children’s books. She lifted one up.

  The Jungle Alphabet.

  Thorne’s eyes focused on the book. His face drained of color, and his eyes widened in apparent shock.

  “G is . . . for gorilla,” he uttered in broken syllables, as though in great pain.

  “Thorne?” Eden stepped toward him, but he fled the plane and vanished into the trees.

  “Thorne!” She ran after him but froze as something fell out of the book and onto the grass between her boots. She bent and picked it up.

  Her heart shattered. It was a photo of a beautiful young couple holding a small boy between them. There was only one conclusion that made any sense to her. There was no mistaking the truth that came to her in a blinding rush.

  The child was Thorne.

  5

  Thorne couldn’t breathe. He leapt over fallen trees and dug his fingers into the bark of the hagenias as he tried to claw his way to freedom from the ghosts that now chased him.

  “I’ll be back soon.” A deep voice came out of the past and into Thorne’s heart and mind. Strong arms held him tight, and he was safe. Safe always in this man’s arms.

  “Be careful,” the woman said. She smelled like flowers, and her laughter made him smile.

  Screams. A black beast with silver on its back. Red mist . . .

  “Please . . . Please leave us alone. We won’t tell anyone anything.”

  Thorne came to a stop. His chest heaved as he leaned against a tree that was four times his body width. The ancient wood gave him support, but it could not stop the weight of the past.

  “Please, we won’t tell anyone. My son’s only three. I need to take care of him.” Choking fear knifed Thorne’s heart as he failed to escape the memories of the past.

  “Please don’t. Not my baby!”

  He remembered now. Remembered holding on to the female—his mother—with all his might, but he hadn’t understood how to save her or to protect her.

  “A mother’s love—how touching.” The cold voice cut through the memory. That voice. The monster who had killed his mother and father.

  Thorne threw his head back and roared. The tree he leaned against vibrated down to its very roots, and the birds above him scattered. Hundreds of wings flapped wildly as they fled from the white ghost and disappeared into the sky far above him.

  Thorne sank to his knees, one arm still clutching the tree, and the other hit the earth and he clawed at the dark soil as he started gasping.

  A pain he hadn’t experienced in many seasons gripped his chest, squeezing the breath from his body. He tried to suck it back again, making a strange sound in his throat. Moisture gathered in his eyes. Tears, like the ones he had wiped from Eden’s cheeks when she’d greeted Tembo.

  The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt before. He had battled leopards, poachers, and even silverbacks from rival bands to protect his family. He had fought crocodiles, hippopotamuses, and even deadly snakes. Scars covered his body from his battles, yet all of that paled compared to the scar ripping open inside him now.

  “Mummy, wake up.” Thorne remembered trying to wake his mother, and the dark-skinned man who held out a crown of leaves to him to stem his crying.

  Thorne had visited this place only once before as a child, daring to step foot inside, where he had found the golden circlet on the ground. He had examined the strange thing as he’d backed away from the white rock and returned to the forest. Something about the white rock had left him uneasy all those years ago. Now he remembered why.

  This place was a tomb. A grave. A place of ended lives. Tembo and his herd visited their fallen loved ones once a year, at the same place within the jungle. That place was one of peace. This white rock was a place of horrific tragedy. Thorne had not wanted to remember his past—or perhaps he couldn’t, until now. But it was still only bits and pieces. Sharp fragments that sliced him deeply.

  “Thorne!” Eden’s distant shout broke through his rush of painful thoughts. “Thorne! Please come back!”

  He got to his feet and, filling his lungs with air, made his way back to his future mate. Eden stood near the plane, still holding the picture book. When she saw him, she dropped the book and ran to him. He opened his arms to catch her, and she wrapped herself around him.

  “I’m so sorry—I didn’t know. I didn’t know,” she said and pressed her cheek to his chest.

  He put his arms around her slowly, embracing her the way he had embraced Keza as a child, but this was different. With Eden, everything was different. A fierce need to protect her, even stronger than the first moment he saw her, took hold of him now. Deep down, he knew that it was his job to protect this female, to care for her, to cherish her as a mate should be cherished. She raised her head, and he saw tears coating her lashes. The sight tore at him. A mate was sacred, and he’d made her cry, which meant she was in great pain.

  He brushed her tears away. “Eden cries . . .”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that was your family who . . .” She swallowed thickly before continuing. “I didn’t know your family was in there.”

  “Family . . .” He thought of Keza and Akika, and the others who had raised him. Keza . . . Her face came back to him in a new—or rather, very old—memory. She had rescued him when he’d been all alone. She had carried him to safety and made him her son. She was his mother, but not his only mother.

  “Do you remember what happened?” she asked him. “I found a journal in the cockpit. I only skimmed it, but it looks like your family crashed here and survived two we
eks before . . .”

  “What is journal?” he asked her.

  “It’s a book, sort of like a story, but it was written by your father. It tells people about what happened in the past.”

  Father . . . Memories of a handsome face, much like his own, and strong arms holding him close. Safe. Always. Until he wasn’t.

  “Do you want to know who they were?” Eden asked. Her gaze softened the tension inside him.

  “Yes.”

  She relaxed and stepped out of his arms, but she took one of his hands, leading him back toward the white rock. No . . . airplane. More words, words that Bwanbale hadn’t taught him, were coming back. He remembered.

  Eden did not go back inside the plane. She retrieved the child’s book from the ground and opened it up, removing something small tucked inside.

  “This is your family.” She handed him the flat object.

  He looked down at it, and his heart quivered deep within him, sending reverberations straight to his soul as he saw the faces of his parents for the first time since they’d died. He dared not speak lest he cry again. He touched his mother’s face and his father’s, then stared at his own tiny self in the magical reflection.

  “Amelia is your mother, and Jacob, that’s your dad.”

  He repeated the names under his breath, vowing never to forget them again, just as he would never forget Keza’s face or name.

  Eden sat down on the grass outside the plane’s open door. “Do you remember what happened to them?”

  Thorne joined her on the ground, resting his arms on the tops of his bent knees. They sat side by side, looking into the jungle.

  “Bad men came. Men with guns.” He’d learned that word from Bwanbale while the man had treated the wound on Thorne’s arm where a bullet had grazed him. Thorne had demanded to know what the sticks were that made such a terrible noise and caused such pain. Bwanbale had taught him much about the violence of men, and that was why Thorne had never sought them out.

  “Men with guns? Did your parents know them?”

  “No . . .” Thorne struggled to remember that awful day that had robbed him of a life he would never have remembered if not for Eden. “Father came. Took Mother and Thorne away. Bad men found us, used guns.”