Disillusioned over this Kickapoo Indian chief, the man she had felt such sensual stirrings for, Kaylene was torn now with what to do with those feelings. When she had not known that he was a heartless, cruel man, it had been easy to envision herself with him—that he might be the man to take her away from the drudgery of carnival life. Even if she had to live in a tepee or wigwam, she would have finally had roots.
Now she doubted she would live long enough to ever have a solid footing anywhere and be anyone’s wife. Because of her father’s greed, so deeply entrenched in his soul that he had to put children into what would be considered slavery, her life might soon be over.
She closed her eyes and tried to will herself into that wonderful land of sleep, where nothing could harm her—where sweet dreams usually erased the ugliness of her life.
But sleep would not come. The steady rhythmic beat of the horse’s hooves, multiplied by the sounds of those other horses following them, kept her awake.
She glanced down at Fire Thunder’s arm that held her in an ironlike grip around her waist. He had not let up on his possessive hold. In the chill wind of night, she could feel the warmth of his breath stirring her hair as he would sometimes lean lower, perhaps fighting off the urge to sleep himself.
Bone tired, she turned a sour glance his way over her shoulder. “When will we stop?” she asked, her voice drawn. “We left the Rio Grande behind us a long time ago. How far into Mexico is your village? That is where you are taking me, isn’t it?”
Fire Thunder gazed into her defiant green eyes, wishing that he could have found a different way to bring them together than this. Now, since he had been forced to make her father pay for what he had done to Little Sparrow, he doubted she would ever feel anything for him but loathing....
Not unless he could somehow prove to her just how evil her father was, and that he deserved to die.
It was hard for Fire Thunder to understand why that had to be proved to this woman. It already had been. And he knew that she had not approved of what her father had done, for she had befriended his sister. Little Sparrow had even grown fond of her in the short time they had been thrown together.
“We will camp at the foot of my mountain,” Fire Thunder said gently, trying to make her trust him by being gentle and caring with her. “If you or my sister were not with us, my warriors and I would travel onward up the mountain. But I can see that you are weary. And not only from being tired from the journey. You are having to accept many things tonight that surely tear at your heart.”
“And you call that fair?” Kaylene argued. “I am not responsible for anything. Why punish me?”
“You are my guarantee that the carnival people will not come after us, causing much blood to spill on the ground tonight,” Fire Thunder said.
He rode onward, working his way into the dark shadows of his mountain. “Do you not recall? I warned them not to follow. I told them that if they did, your blood would be the first to be spilled.”
Kaylene paled and swallowed hard. “Would you truly do that . . . ?” she asked, her voice breaking. “Would you kill me in cold blood, knowing that I am innocent of any wrongdoing?”
“Do you truly think that I would?” Fire Thunder said, his eyes softening into hers. “That I could?”
The look in his eyes and the way he spoke to Kaylene made her eyes widen in wonder. Did he mean what she thought? she marveled to herself.
Had he truly had no intention of killing her?
Had he used her only as a ploy to ensure his escape into the dark with her and her father?
Did he plan to release her once he had returned his warriors home, safely among their people—their wives . . . their children?
Not wanting to let her guard down and be taken in by soft, alluring talk, which surely was lies, Kaylene again turned her eyes quickly away from him.
Fire Thunder understood. Trust had to be earned. Having taken her captive would make her trust come slowly, if ever.
It was a chance that he had to take. Now that he had her, he would never let her go. In time, his dreams of her in his arms would become a reality.
He smiled and his eyes warmly gleamed, having learned the art of patience long ago. Patience had been learned through the years of having to deal with white people.
Finally arriving at where he wanted to make camp, beneath a sprawl-branched tree where there were windfall branches for firewood, Fire Thunder drew a tight rein and slid from his saddle.
Black Hair dismounted beside him and helped Little Sparrow to the ground.
Little Sparrow ran over and watched Fire Thunder lift Kaylene to the ground, then took Kaylene’s hand and held it as she smiled up at her.
They stood together, their hands clinging, until a warm campfire was built, its coals glowing a deep red under a steaming coffeepot.
“Come, little sister,” Fire Thunder said, placing a gentle hand on Little Sparrow’s shoulder. “Bring your friend. Sit by the fire. We will eat a few bites, then get some sleep before heading on to our village tomorrow.”
Little Sparrow gave Kaylene’s hand a tug, to encourage her to go with her and sit down with the others who had circled around the fire, sitting on blankets, and taking food from their parfleche bags.
Kaylene stood stiffly, her jaw tight, as she glared at Fire Thunder. She had seen the warriors take their bedrolls from their horses. She had seen Fire Thunder remove his own.
She had to wonder if he was going to force her to sleep with him.
If he tried, she would fight him every inch of the way. For certain she would not allow him to fool her with his gentle voice and sweet talk. She would never trust him.
Never!
After Little Sparrow yanked on Kaylene’s hand enough times, and Kaylene finally looked at her, Little Sparrow gazed up at her with pleading in her dark eyes.
Touched by the child’s sweetness and innocence, Kaylene found it hard to refuse her anything. She went with her and sat down on a blanket before the fire, truthfully wishing she had not waited so long. Her bare feet stung from the cold. Her cotton nightgown was not enough to ward off the chill wind.
She placed her feet next to the fire and sighed as the warmth bled into the soles.
Fire Thunder sat down and watched Kaylene, thinking that he had been lax in not realizing how cold she must be. The way she was soaking up the warmth of the fire was proof of that.
He went back to his horse and grabbed another blanket from his supplies and took it back to Kaylene.
She started when his hand grazed against her cheek as he bent and gently placed his blanket around her shoulders.
Loving the feel of the wool blanket, Kaylene grabbed the ends and drew it more snugly around her shoulders. She smiled a weak thank-you up at Fire Thunder, then looked quickly away from him when, as before, she felt his mystical blue eyes troubling her sensually.
It was as though they caressed her.
And his smile seemed genuine enough.
Kaylene’s heart thumped wildly within her chest. She was finding it harder and harder to fight off her attraction to Fire Thunder—his handsomeness, his noble presence, his demeanor.
She had never been as attracted to a man as now, and she had been approached by many men. Dressed in her seductive outfits while performing on her panther at the carnival, many men became intrigued by her and had approached her with invitations—some to sleep with them; others to marry them.
She had not found any of them to her liking and had turned them all down flat.
Until now, no man had caused her heart to become crazed with a need she did not understand. It seemed like a sexual longing that started at the tip of her toes, languorously working its way throughout her.
She trembled even now at Fire Thunder’s closeness.
“All I can give you to eat now is beef jerky and black medicine,” Fire Thunder said as he offered her a piece of the jerky in one hand, and held out to her a steaming cup of coffee in his other.
Wanting to fight her fe
elings, Kaylene glared up at him and slapped the jerky out of his hand, and then the coffee, spilling it. “Keep your food . . . and . . . your so-called black medicine, which you so dumbly call coffee,” she hissed out. “I’d as soon starve to death as be your prisoner.”
“You are foolish if you do not eat and drink,” Fire Thunder said as he glared at the spilled coffee. He sat the empty cup aside and settled down next to his sister. “In time, you will get hungry enough to eat anything I offer you. I will wait now, until you ask. I do not force many things on women.”
“Hah!” Kaylene retorted angrily. “How can you say that? Aren’t I your captive? Would you not say that was forced on me?”
“Not by choice I took you in such a way,” Fire Thunder said sullenly. “I would prefer being with you under much different circumstances. Your father caused me to go about knowing you better in a much different fashion than I had hoped for, should we have ever met by chance.”
“You . . . wished . . . to know me better?” Kaylene asked, her voice trailing off in her wonder at his words. “You remembered that one time we chanced to see one another?”
“Yes, that is so,” Fire Thunder said softly.
He held a piece of jerky out toward her again. “Eat, we will talk later,” he said, going back on what he had said he would not do.
Feeling as though he was drawing her into something she still could not trust, thinking that he might be a skilled liar, Kaylene turned her eyes from him and folded her arms across her chest, again refusing the food.
Enjoying her own piece of beef, Little Sparrow had sat watching what was transpiring between her brother and the beautiful woman. She had not managed to read their lips. All that she could tell was that Fire Thunder was trying to make friends and Kaylene would not trust him enough to allow it.
And Little Sparrow understood. If Little Sparrow’s brother had been left staked to the ground, would not she hate the very one who did it?
But why could not Kaylene see how evil her father was, and that he deserved to be left to die? Surely if Little Sparrow’s brother had been as cruel, surely she would have understood the vengeance of those whom he had wronged.
Wanting to persuade Kaylene into loving both herself and her brother, hoping that her brother had finally found a woman he desired, Little Sparrow took the beef from her brother’s hand and scooted closer to Kaylene.
She placed a gentle hand on Kaylene’s cheek, drawing her eyes around to see her. With sign language, Little Sparrow asked Kaylene to eat. She even formed the word “eat” with her lips as she handed the beef jerky to Kaylene.
Nervously, Kaylene glanced over at Fire Thunder. When she saw that he was not watching, she took the beef jerky and gobbled it down.
Afterward, she hugged Little Sparrow and kissed her softly on the cheek.
Little Sparrow placed her hands together and leaned her face sideways into them to show Kaylene that she was sleepy.
Kaylene nodded, smiled, and watched Little Sparrow go to Fire Thunder’s bedroll and get comfortably between the blankets.
She nervously watched the other warriors as they retired for the night.
Before long, she saw dark lumps made by the bedrolls of the sleeping men, scattered at random around the fire.
“You must also have your rest before we venture up the mountain to my village at daybreak,” Fire Thunder said, taking one of Kaylene’s wrists as he attempted to bring her to her feet. “Come. We will make a pallet in a more private place for you. I have seen you look uneasy in the presence of so many men.”
Kaylene jerked her wrist away from him and refused to stand. “The men are all asleep. I’ll do just fine here,” she murmured. “That is, if you will sleep elsewhere.”
“You will sleep where I tell you to sleep,” Fire Thunder said, again grabbing her wrist. “Why do you fight me every inch of the way? I do not plan to harm you. So do you not see how much easier it would be for you if you just go along with what I ask of you?”
“And just what else are you going to ask of me?” Kaylene said, glaring into his blue eyes. “Aren’t I at your mercy? You are a man who has shown interest in . . . in . . . possibly seducing me. Everyone is asleep. No one would be the wiser if you forced yourself on me sexually.”
Tired of bantering with her, especially now since she had brought something into the conversation that incensed him, that she actually thought him capable of raping her, Fire Thunder yanked her to him.
“Is that what you want?” he hissed between clenched teeth. “To be seduced? Surely you must, or you would not have mentioned it for, woman, I have not made any wrongful advances toward you to give you even an inkling of an idea that I will take advantage of you sexually.”
“You . . . are . . . hurting my wrist,” Kaylene was only able to say as their eyes locked in silent battle. “Please unhand me.”
“If I do, will you behave?” Fire Thunder spat out. “Will you quit sparring wrongfully with me? I have no intentions of forcing myself on you. If we ever come together in that way, I would hope that it would be something desired by both of us at that moment. I cannot lie. I have dreamed of kissing you, of holding you. But not this way. Not while we are facing one another as enemies.”
Kaylene was at a loss for words at his confession of feelings toward her. They matched her own, how she felt about him. She saw even more danger in that. She had to hate him for what he did. And she could never forget that he was holding her hostage.
How on earth could he ever believe that she could show him how she truly felt while he was holding her against her will?
She saw no future for them whatsoever, for it had all begun between them in the wrong way. What she had dreamed of, their being together in ways that men and women come together when they loved one another, was doomed.
And she could not altogether blame him. They could never be together as lovers because of her father’s greedy, evil ways. Her father had forced Fire Thunder’s hand so that Fire Thunder had had no choice but to react in the way that anyone would, should their sisters have been held captive in a dreadful cage.
Fire Thunder released his hold on Kaylene. He took the blanket from around her shoulders, grabbed up the one that he had spread beside the fire, then gave her an angry stare. “Come with me,” he said sternly.
“No,” Kaylene said stubbornly, not budging. The chill wind swept around her. Missing the warmth of the blanket around her shoulders, she hugged herself. “I refuse to sleep anywhere near you, the murdering vile man that you are.”
At his wit’s end, finding this situation with Kaylene hopeless, Fire Thunder slung the blankets over his left shoulder and with his right hand grabbed Kaylene by the arm. “If that is what you truly want, to sleep totally alone, especially away from me, I think that can be arranged. I will see to it that you are far enough away to satisfy you. I will take you far from the campsite and tie you to a tree.”
Kaylene gasped as she stared up at him. “You wouldn’t,” she said, her voice trembling with shock.
Fire Thunder ignored her. In angry, determined steps, he yanked her along with him, Kaylene struggling against his hold.
In truth, Fire Thunder had no intentions of leaving her tied to a tree. He was hoping that by making her think that, it might force her to say that she would cooperate with him after all.
He was anxiously waiting for her to say that she would cooperate with him; that she would sleep anywhere he told her to, if only she wasn’t left tied to a tree.
But the farther they walked, the moon lighting their path, the more doubtful he became of her begging him for anything. She was proving to be a stubborn woman. He just might be forced to leave her out there alone, tied to a tree, or look like a fool in her eyes from having backed down from something he had said he would do.
“You would leave me alone like that,” Kaylene cried. “I know it. Did you not leave my father to die in a horrible way? You are capable of anything.”
She laughed throatily. “
And look at you,” she taunted. “You say you are an Indian, yet you have the eyes of a white man! And you speak English as well as a white man! I would say you are only half Indian! You are a ‘breed.’ Does my saying so insult you?”
“Nothing you can say insults Fire Thunder,” he said, giving her a smug smile. “I am proud of my heritage, having French kin somewhere in my background. As for my speech, my ability to speak your language? I am proud of my excellent command of English. It has come in handy when I have been forced to deal with cheating, lying white men!”
Before Kaylene could think of another way to rile him, hopefully enough to have him release his tight hold on her so that she could try to escape into the darkness, she noticed a hint of movement in the shadows of the trees; something she sensed, rather than saw.
When they stepped out more into the open, where the trees had thinned and the moon had a chance to illuminate things around them, the moonbeams outlined the tawny body of a panther traveling directly toward them in their path. The big cat stopped in midstep, the gleam of green eyes staring at Fire Thunder, white fangs quickly showing as the animal hissed a snarling growl and crouched, ready to spring.
Kaylene quickly recognized Midnight. But before she could explain to Fire Thunder that this panther was her pet, Fire Thunder released his hold on her and drew his knife from his sheath at his right side, his rifle having been left at the camp.
Knowing that she had no time to stop her panther from leaping onto Fire Thunder, Midnight surely having sensed that Fire Thunder was Kaylene’s enemy, Kaylene now wanted to protect her panther—the same as he wanted to protect her. Kaylene stepped quickly between Fire Thunder and Midnight just as the panther leaped and Fire Thunder threw his knife.
Midnight twisted sideways to avoid landing on Kaylene just as Fire Thunder brought the knife down.
Instead of hitting his target, the panther, Fire Thunder’s knife plunged into Kaylene’s left shoulder.
Kaylene screamed with pain. She gazed pleadingly up at Fire Thunder, then collapsed in a dead faint at his feet.
Fire Thunder stared disbelievingly down at Kaylene, and then at the panther as the animal went to Kaylene and licked her face.
Wild Whispers Page 6