The Warrior's Captive Bride

by Jenna Kernan

  Truthfully he wanted this woman because of the challenge. None had taken her. None dared. But he dared. And he would make her his own. Gentle this wild mustang until she fed from his hand like the horse beneath them.

  He enfolded her in his arms and brushed his mouth across her cheek. Her skin was softer than the velvet of a deer’s antlers. He took her lower lip between his teeth and sucked. She shuddered and pressed closer to him.

  “I have watched you at the gatherings. You have power. Great power. You are respectful and loving to your aunt. But all say you do not stay put.”

  “That will not change. I wander. It is my nature.”

  “Wander as you will as long as you do not wander into another man’s arms.”

  He wondered if he had found the one in his vision. The woman who stepped from the flash of lightning to join him in the forest? His desire for her was strong as a lightning strike.

  “I have had a vision of a woman. I think you are she.”

  She turned to him, lifting her chin to stare up at him. He lowered his lips to hers. She made a sound on an exhalation and then gave a hum of pleasure as he explored her mouth with his tongue. She tasted of mint. Finally he cradled her head against his chest and found her the perfect fit.

  Her words were low, intimate, though she spoke not love words but words of warning. “Let me go before it is too late.”

  He stroked her hair.

  “Too late for what?” he asked.

  Other men thought she was dangerous. But it was that danger that appealed. She was perfect for him. She simply needed convincing and he knew just how to do that. He glanced to the bed of thick, spongy moss and his body ached, pulsing with need.

  Night Storm pressed Skylark tighter. He had been attracted by her face and figure. Intrigued by her skills as a healer. Now he wondered just how powerful she was.

  He winced as the dull headache that had plagued him all morning changed to an expanding pain that now made his stomach churn. He sucked in a breath as the pain grew worse.

  He looked to the heavens for some answer and saw instead the bright spring leaves of the birch trees above them, flashing like swimming fish against the blue sky. They swam and swam, coming closer.

  His dog began barking again. But, unlike earlier, this was that high, frantic bark that he used when he was frightened. Night Storm told him to be quiet but Frost only barked louder.

  “Night Storm? What is happening?” Her words seemed to come from far away, even though he held her in his arms.

  He heard the humming that went on and on. He swayed as he smelled burning flesh. Night Storm slid from his horse. He could not see the woman in his arms because his vision dimmed and his hands began a tremor that rolled throughout his body like thunder.

  Chapter One

  Three Moons Later

  Skylark’s father often hid in the trees, so she searched the branches overhead for any sign of movement. Earlier in the day she could hear him laughing at her from a thick canopy of pines and, after that, from a grove of brambles. But now the woods had gone silent except for the jays warning the other creatures that one of the people walked in their midst.

  “Father. I know you can hear me. Come out now.” She waited in the silence, broken only by a rustling that turned out to be a ground squirrel. Skylark flapped her hands in frustration. “They are striking the tepees! We are moving today. Auntie says you must come with us.”

  She wondered if she tried ignoring him, rather than searching, whether he might come out. Skylark crossed her arms. Such games might have been amusing when she was a girl. But she had seen twenty winters and spent much of each summer chasing after her father. What had begun as a game had become a burden.

  Her father was a trickster. She longed for a father who did not throw mud at her when she had just bathed in the river or who sat in the snow when everyone else huddled in their lodges close to the fire. His contrary ways were sometimes wonderful, but mostly they were just trouble.

  “I’m leaving without you.” Skylark waited, tapping her foot with impatience. “Fine,” she muttered, and began walking back the way she had come. With each step, she listened carefully for the thump of her father dropping down behind her or the creak of branches that might reveal him as he moved from tree to tree like a possum.

  This was the time of the Hunting Moon and the leaves above made good cover. Too good. She might pass directly underneath him and never know. Back at the river, the camp was struck. Some of the families were already moving and they would not wait for her. So of course, when the tribe was in a hurry, her father dawdled.

  Skylark sat on a downed log.

  Some said she was already a heyoka, because of her powers to heal. They came to her for care and treatment. But no man ever played his flute for her or asked her to stand wrapped in a buffalo robe before her aunt’s lodge. Only one man had dared touch her and look what had happened to him.

  Was it true? Did the young men avoid her because they feared her father’s power or because they feared having to take care of a man who was as unpredictable as the rain in the Fast Water Moon. If it was hot, her father shivered. If there was ice on the water, he went swimming. By doing everything the wrong way, he taught the people the correct way of doing things. When the people were sad, he could make them laugh. When they were happy and behaving foolishly, he wept, cautioning them against their folly.

  Or was the reason men avoided her, as her uncle said, because a man chose a wife who could make his clothing and keep their cooking pot full. That was something she would never do. She hated the stink of tanning hides.

  Her aunt said that if she stopped wandering in the woods she would not seem so odd. But the truth was she did not want to be like other women. Perhaps she was more like her father than she cared to admit.

  She missed her mother. Gathers Quills did not think Sky’s wandering was odd. But her mother had left this world for the Spirit World in the Freezing Moon of Sky’s seventieth winter.

  Winter Moon was the sister of her father and she said it was not seemly for a single woman to live alone with only the occasional company of her heyoka father. So Sky had moved in with her aunt and uncle, Wood Duck. Would Winter Moon have been so insistent that Sky live in her lodge if she had known that after the move there would still be no warriors to offer a bride’s dowry for Sky?

  Familiar laughter reached her. She did not pursue. Instead, she rested her head in her hands.

  Her father called himself Falling Otter, choosing that name because otters never fall. And because otters are playful.

  Once her father had been perfect in her eyes. Important. More important even than the chief because only he could question the chief and even sometimes mock the medicine man, something no one else was brave enough to do. He made the people think of things they had not before and that made him a powerful teacher. Didn’t it?

  Skylark indulged in tears and immediately heard laughter. She lifted her head to see Falling Otter dancing off with his loincloth on his head. This was exactly the sort of behavior that she found embarrassing, and then she felt guilty for her reaction.

  “Wait. Papa. We have to go.”

  “Daughter. Stay, stay. Stay all day,” he sang, and vanished into the thick shrubs.

  She hurried after him and decided that when she saw him again she would insist that they stay, stay, stay all day. Maybe that would get him moving back to camp. He was so thin now. Her aunt tried to feed him, but he insisted he was too full. Then he would beg food from someone else. Where had he left his horse?

  The ground changed from thick ferns and dried leaves to a stretch of exposed rock. She paused, glancing about the clearing, and a chill climbed up her neck. This was the very spot where she had met her warrior.

  He wasn’t hers, of course. But he had tried to make her so. She wondered w
hat would have happened if she had let herself be taken.

  “Papa. I’m going to stay here. You should stay, too! No reason to go back and eat breakfast with Auntie. Your sister said to stay away. She doesn’t want you there.”

  She noticed the sunlight streaming down in golden beams through the tall trees, illuminating the small clearing. She spotted something of interest and paused to gather goosegrass. The roots made a nice red dye, but she collected the entire plant because it could also make the bowels move and cool a fevered body. She stuffed several handfuls of the spindly plants into her pouch noticing the tiny white flowers that bloomed all the way to the War Moon.

  She glanced about the clearing, recalling the man, his horse, his gray dog. Then it had happened. The sun had streamed down upon them, the light flashing off the new green leaves, shimmering like water from a lake. His dog had started to whine and then bark, his pointed ears up and alert. The warrior’s smile had dropped away, his eyes had rolled white and he had fallen as if shot. They had tumbled together from his horse, rolling on the soft mossy ground. But his body had gone limp and she feared he had died. His dog had been near frantic, but the animal had let her tend him. She’d had time to check him for wounds before the tremors began, shaking his entire body. She had seen it before. It was not the palsy of the old or a simple hand trembling, but full-out witchcraft frenzy. He was cursed by a witch or perhaps an enemy. At least, that was what she had learned from Spirit Bear, their shaman. That the ghosts of the fallen might haunt the living. Despite what some of her tribe said, she could not lift a curse or rescue the haunted. Only a shaman could do that.

  But her grandmother, Smiling One, had said that plants could heal any ills if only we knew which one to use. Was it true? Could all curses and maladies be healed?

  It was that possibility that sent her searching for the plant that could cure her mother. Her first and greatest failure. There had been others since, ones she could not save. She could heal many things, but not all things and not the malady that sent her warrior into fits.

  She had kept him from choking on the blood from his lacerated tongue, set him on his side and waited at a distance until he woke. His dog had not left his master’s side and had watched her go, giving a whine as she slipped away.

  Now she wondered if she should have stayed.

  Her father broke her musings by dashing across the clearing waving his loincloth in one hand and a thick stick in the other. He ran in the direction of their village.

  “Can’t be late, daughter. Everyone must take a nap at midday.”

  Skylark turned to follow him. Of course, everyone would not nap at midday. They would be doing the complete opposite of resting, which was exactly why her father had said this. By midday the entire village would be struck and moving to their next hunting site. The Hunting Moon was a busy time with the buffalo hunts and preparation of meat and hides. All would be working hard except, of course, her father.

  * * *

  Night Storm led his horses through the dense undergrowth with his dog at his heels. He didn’t know if lightning would strike twice, but he was growing desperate. This was very near the place he had met her, during the Many Flowers Moon. Only three moons ago and his life had changed completely. The time of first meeting her had also been the last time he had ridden his horse. She had looked like an ordinary woman, but now he knew better. What they said was true. She had unnatural powers. Her exceptional beauty was just a lure. A trap. He recalled her thick ropes of hair and wide eyes that sloped upward at the edges. That was what he remembered most, her eyes and her smiling mouth. But her form had also been perfect, full and lush as the ripe berries she gathered. Perfect, too perfect, he now realized.

  He had been so taken with her that he had tried to carry her off. And she had warned him. Told him to let her go before it was too late. He had thought the warning odd. But he had not recognized then that she had cursed him.

  Now he understood why she had not shown the least bit of fear at his approach. Because, like the puma, she was beautiful, powerful and deadly.

  How had she cast a spell without his notice?

  He was uncertain. What he did know was that he must find her, capture her and then, somehow, he must make her remove the spell.

  But what if she was not even a witch? What if she was a spirit? Anog Ite, Double-Faced woman, or Kanka, the greatest of all witches? Night Storm knew that it did not matter. If he found this woman, he would succeed in getting her to restore him before someone found out. Even his father had asked him why he did not ride. Any day now those of his tribe might discover he was cursed. And then he would be outcast.

  At the very least he would lose his status as hunter and warrior and that was a fate worse than death. His malady even kept him from fulfilling his promise to wed Beautiful Meadow, the niece of Thunder Horse, who was their shaman. Her uncle was very strict. Men unfit to hunt or raid were stripped of their duties. If Beautiful Meadow discovered his affliction, would she help him or tell her uncle?

  It was his doubts that kept him from speaking the words that would make her his wife. But she was growing impatient.

  He must find Skylark and make her reverse her magic. Then he would kill her so she could never do this to another man.

  An unfamiliar sound drew his attention. Something large was crashing through the forest in his direction. Frost whined but he ordered him to heel and the dog sat, his ears alert.

  Night Storm slipped his bow from his shoulder and notched an arrow. From the sound it was an elk, though soon he realized that it made too much noise. He sighted down the long shaft. Perhaps he would bring home meat for his mother and father after all. If it was an elk, there would be more than enough to share with many families. His mother would be so happy to have the fine white teeth to decorate his sister’s dresses.

  But the creature thrashing his way now howled like a wolf and then quacked like a duck. Night Storm lowered his bow and watched as a naked man leaped over a rock and headed straight for him. The man waved his arms and shouted.

  Falling Otter, he realized. Skylark’s father. He glanced about. Was she here?

  “Napping at noon. Everyone nap. Feasting, napping and then games!”

  The man spotted Night Storm and slowed. He grinned and came forward at a trot, holding out a stick.

  Night Storm returned the arrow to its quiver and slung the bow across his shoulder.

  “For your new home, unless you think to live with your mother forever.”

  He didn’t live with his mother. “Here.” The man extended the loincloth. “Put this over your eyes for a napping. It will block out the light. Have to go. She is after me again.”

  She? Night Storm looked back the way the man had come. Skylark was here. He knew it.

  The man did a little circle dance, a dance reserved for women and then continued on.

  “Tell her she’ll be late for staying put. Hurry, hurry. I’m so full.”

  He lifted a new stick and used it to hit each tree trunk he passed. The knocking sound continued long after he was out of sight.

  Night Storm turned in the direction the man had appeared. He had a certainty growing within him that he would find her soon. He had first found her here on a day when the new green leaves were so bright with sunlight that they hurt his eyes. He dropped the stick and tucked the scrap of buckskin in his pouch. Then he moved as quietly as he could, but still the jays called out from the treetops warning all creatures of his approach.

  He saw her then, moving with a delicate tread in his direction. He ducked behind a thick tree trunk and drew out one arrow, gripping his bow. He pressed his naked back against the rough surface of the tree’s solid trunk.

  He peered around the tree to watch her approach. She was just as lovely. The fringe of her simple dress swayed with her graceful stride. If he killed her would it break the c
urse?

  He didn’t know.

  Could he force her to remove it? If he captured her, would she trade his freedom for hers?

  He could only try. Night Storm lifted his eyes to the heavens and offered a prayer to the Great Spirit asking for his help. Then he stepped from behind the tree and drew back the bowstring far enough to send an arrow cleanly through her heart.

  Her step faltered and she stopped, staring with widening, mysterious eyes. Her mouth dropped open next as she gasped.

  “You,” she said.

  “Me,” he answered, and sighted the arrow.

  Chapter Two

  Night Storm held his bow poised. Beside him, his dog whined and crept forward, gray eyes fixed on the woman as he wagged his narrow tail. He ordered his dog to stay and Frost dropped to the ground.

  Skylark’s eyes went wide as he held her in his sights. Had she now realized that he had not mistaken her for game but was intentionally targeting her?

  She lifted her hands and waved them before her.

  “You know me. I am Crow!” Her voice rose in volume and pitch on her last word.

  “I know you.” He held the bow steady.

  She shook her head, her expression bewildered.

  “Witch. Remove the curse,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Witch! You cursed me.”

  Her head shook from side to side. “I am not a witch.”

  “It is what a witch would say. Remove the curse or I will shoot.”

  Her eyes narrowed, sparkling bright as she fixed them upon him, and for just a moment he feared she would bring on another spell. But his vision remained clear and he heard no ringing in his ears.

  “Even if that were true, killing a witch would not end a curse.”

  That made him hesitate. He had not expected the witch to do anything but what he asked. Why did she not fall to her knees and weep like an ordinary woman? Instead, she met his gaze with an unwavering one.