by Julie Leto
She’d acted in many more mercenary ways in the span of her lifetime, but for some reason, this situation cut more deeply.
And yet, she was tempted. Oh, so tempted. He was warm. His scent, no longer reminiscent of horses or leather, but of fresh-chopped wood and a hint of mountain rain, was instant aromatherapy. Her eyes closed; she tried not to imagine Rafe’s hand, settled possessively across her middle, moving either higher to her breasts or lower to her suddenly pulsing sex. Both ways led to decadence—and regrets. At least, on his part.
“We should sleep,” she murmured.
He shifted closer. His erection pressed against her back. Along with his muscled thighs, strong arms and rock-hard chest, she was surrounded by a solid wall of man that made her want to do nothing less than melt against him.
“Is this natural?” he asked.
The question, so unexpected, made her turn toward him. “Is what natural?”
Languidly, he ran his hand from her stomach to her side, denying her fantasy, and yet firing her desire to nearly unbearable levels.
“This attraction we share.”
“It’s certainly not unnatural,” she replied. “You’re a very handsome man, Rafe. And I’m not unattractive—”
“You’re beautiful,” he countered.
She smiled, despite her natural inclination to modesty when it came to her physical appearance. Mariah knew she could turn heads. She knew she could flirt or seduce men in the name of manipulation. A pretty face and decent-size breasts made this a common reality for women everywhere. But as much as she needed Rafe’s help and craved his touch, she couldn’t imagine operating that way with him. Something about him engendered honesty.
“Thank you,” she replied. “I’m not sure what you’re asking, then.”
His fingers toyed with the edge of her blouse. “I met Irika when I was a child. I knew from the first moment I laid eyes on her that I would marry her.”
“Really?” she asked, genuinely surprised. “I’ve never met a man I thought I could marry, especially not when I was six.”
“Not even Ben Rousseau?”
She smirked. She’d walked right into that one.
“Maybe for a brief moment, I thought it would be possible,” she admitted. “He came into my life when I was seventeen, but I looked older, and I conveniently neglected to tell him I was still underage. He was supposedly an archeological intern studying at my mother’s museum. He was sexy and smart and unattainable, though he flirted with me shamelessly. And I ate it up and found a million excuses to follow him around. Anyway, when it turned out that he wasn’t actually at the museum to study the artifacts but to steal them, my constant presence became a liability. I could have ratted him out. Luckily for him, I was so enamored, I not only helped him take the pieces he wanted, I ran off with him. He taught me the ropes of the treasure-hunting game. By the time I was nineteen, we were lovers. I didn’t want marriage or a family—I wanted adventure and risk and excitement. And he gave me those things in spades.”
“And as a husband, he could not do the same?”
She chuckled. “Honest to God, Rafe, I never even thought about it. My parents divorced when I was five. Neither one of them married again. Even my brothers are still single. Marriage simply has never been on my list of things to do.”
As she’d hoped, Rafe’s fingers had drifted beneath her shirt. His touch skimmed up and down her sides, always stopping just shy of the curve beneath her breast and the low-slung waistline of her jeans.
“Such a shame.” His eyes were liquid silver, sharp and hot. His touch finally slipped beneath the lacy edges of her bra. “Imagine having someone to make love with each and every night. Sharing your secrets with them. Learning their bodies and having them learn yours until pleasure is both unspoken and yet assured.”
At that moment, he tweaked her nipple. She gasped as an orgasmic spike shot straight down to her clit, which suddenly needed his touch so much more. She snuggled against his erection, and yet he denied her. He remained utterly still, his only movement continuous sharp circles around her areola, softly scratching her skin until the itch became unbearable.
“You don’t have to be married to connect with someone that closely,” she said.
“How do you know?”
She bit her bottom lip, trying to answer quickly so that he’d continue his sweet assault on her senses. With Ben, Mariah had had a hot sex life. That much was undeniable. But she didn’t fool herself that they’d ever shared any real connection. What they’d enjoyed had been simple and direct, with none of the nuance that might have come with time and real commitment.
“I don’t,” she answered.
“I do,” he replied. “And I am the one who was married.”
“Does it hurt to talk about her?” she asked, unsurprised when his hand stilled. She would have been sorely disappointed if he’d been able to continue arousing her when he was talking about his wife. And as much as she wanted him to use his last minutes of solid form to soothe her sexual ache, she couldn’t resist learning more about what made him tick.
“Yes,” he replied.
A single syllable, fraught with the deepest of emotions, cut straight through her. She pressed her forehead against his chest. “Then don’t say another word. I’m sorry I asked.”
For a long minute, she heard nothing but his steady breathing, commingled with a heartbeat. The sound wasn’t strong and seemed almost hollow, but phantom or not, Rafe Forsyth lived. He witnessed the new world with fresh eyes, and he mourned the woman he’d loved with an honest heart. She suddenly felt very inadequate, and she didn’t like the emotion one bit.
She forced a yawn. Rafe pressed his arm possessively around her back and whispered, “You are exhausted!”
She murmured her agreement, and then closed her eyes. In her entire adult life, she never remembered wanting a man to hold her until she fell asleep. This was certainly one for the record books, she thought, before the soft stroke of Rafe’s hand along her spine lulled her into dreamless sleep.
***
“If there’s one thing I love about thieves and reprobates, it’s that they don’t ask a lot of questions,” Mariah replied to Rafe’s inquiry the next evening about how she’d explained his disappearance to the man who forged their new passports. “By the time I took possession of our papers and paid him, he had a whole new set of customers.”
Rafe nodded, looking out into the inky black night and wondering how Mariah knew where she was going when there were no landmarks visible from this height and night was too cloudy to use the stars for navigation. He simply had to trust that she knew what she was doing, a task he found increasingly difficult since their talk just before dawn, when he’d learned how little she understood about something as elemental as relations between men and women.
In her century, sex no longer had the same importance that it had in his—but the basics had not changed. Attraction led to pursuit, which often led to pleasure. His study to become the next village shaman after his father-in-law, Belthezor, made him keenly aware of how sexual relations rooted not only a marriage, but families and, therefore, the clan. Only after he’d spoken vows to his wife had he taken Irika to bed.
He’d not been unknowledgeable of the mechanics of coupling, but he and Irika had discovered together what brought them the most pleasure. Skin to skin and heart to heart, they had shared dreams and wishes for their future and had created the life that had become their son.
Once Irika had been with child, they’d made love more gently. Even as a girl, Irika had never been robust. The puri women of the tribe predicted trouble for her and the baby if she did not rest. She obeyed them, drinking the herbal remedies they cooked up for her over the open flames in the center of the village, while Rafe learned to do without the comfort of his wife’s body.
After Stefan’s birth, Irika had taken a long time to heal. Then, just when the sparks of their passion had reignited, the mercenary threat arrived, Rafe had been cursed
and Irika had died. Rafe could not help regretting all he’d lost. His wife. His son. His future.
What could Mariah offer him, other than his freedom?
Or, more telling, what could he offer her?
Naught but the magic.
“How will you land this airplane in the dark?” he asked, knowing that the shadowy shapes beneath them were mountains and hills and thick treetops.
“Very carefully.”
She flicked on an instrument to her right, igniting a glowing green line that moved in a circular motion over a dark surface, blipping and beeping.
“Here we go,” Mariah said, pointing into the darkness.
Rafe saw only more shadows.
“I see nothing.”
“See that light? To the west, just there.”
He squinted and thought perhaps he saw a flicker of orange.
“It’s a bonfire. The locals keep it burning for the rangers who patrol this area, part of which is a preserve. It’s right on the edge of an airstrip the drug runners once used before the federales commandeered it. I’ve flown in here before. Rain and wind sometimes shift the path, but if I can touch down without breaking us up, we can hide the plane in a hut where narcotraficantes used to store their stashes before deliveries. Yeah, this will work. This will work perfectly.”
Rafe ignored the fact that her claims seemed more intended to convince herself than him. He braced himself, enduring the rocking of the airplane and the sudden, unexpected bounce that made her whoop with excitement. Just when he thought the experience of landing in the dark could not possibly get worse, the tires bounced hard on the ground, jarring him from his teeth to his toes.
She squealed with glee once the plane began to slow, though it tossed them from side to side until finally stopping abruptly. Rafe exited the aircraft quickly. When his boots touched the earth, he had to fight hard not to fall prostrate and kiss the unmoving soil.
Mariah tossed a bag onto the dirt beside him before she exited the airplane. “A little airsick?”
“Is that what you call it?” he asked.
She laughed and continued to unload. “Not everyone loves a bumpy ride. But we need to make this quick. Take our supplies over to that trail,” she said, pointing toward a thick line of trees. “I’ll take the plane into that hut of a hangar and get her secured.”
Rafe did as she instructed. The weight of the packs tempted him to use Rogan’s magic, but he resisted. After the second trip to the forest edge, hauling the supplies Mariah had insisted they’d need to reach the remote area where she’d dropped the coins, the sweat that soaked down his back and the pulling pain in his arms and neck invigorated him even as the effort exhausted him.
“Ready for another adventure?” she asked, carrying two bags on either shoulder when she joined him.
The moon overhead, a crescent of incredible brightness, threw a silver glow over the field and the adjacent forest. Rafe took a moment to breathe in the unfamiliar air and register the scents of verdant trees. The sun-baked earth beneath his boots seemed to drink in the moisture of the night. While the sensations of this place were completely unlike Valoren, they seeped into his blood and immediately became part of who he was.
He was Romani.
Gypsy.
One with the earth.
“Rafe?” she asked.
“This place has magic,” he decided.
“This place has you,” she replied, patting the bag where she kept Rogan’s marker. “And the stone. Where you go, magic goes.”
“No,” he said, taking her by the shoulders and pulling her close. “This is a new magic. One that may make Rogan’s evil sorcery utterly useless.”
12
Rafe intended to explain to Mariah what he meant, but angry voices from the south spurred them to grab their things and thrash into the forest for cover. The trees and thick foliage provided an instant blind of shadow, blocking them from a half dozen men, dressed in what appeared to be nightclothes, running toward them with crude but still dangerous weapons. Long blades and thick broom handles. A rusted old rifle. They cursed and spat in a language Rafe had never heard before, but judging by the way Mariah curved tighter into an invisible ball and grabbed his hand to encourage him to do the same, they were not spouting salutations.
Only twenty paces into the brush, he and Mariah were invisible to their pursuers. Rafe caught his breath and squeezed Marian hand tighter, not surprised that her anxiety matched his own. He would use the magic if necessary, but he could not allow the constant pull of the evil sorcery to become second nature. His soul was already infected. Willful command of the dark powers would send him down a path more perilous than any in this foreign jungle.
Mariah remained perfectly still beside him. The slice and chop of the swords against the leaves and branches that surrounded them sent them scurrying farther into the foliage, abandoning their belongings. They ducked low to avoid exposure from flashlights, but after a quarter of an hour of searching, the incensed group seemed satisfied with their disappearance and went back in the direction they came.
He and Mariah waited another ten minutes just in case. Once the silence was filled with the buzzing, cawing and rustling of what Rafe assumed were the native animals, they retrieved their belongings and eased back onto the path.
“What language were they speaking?” he asked.
“Spanish, mostly,” she said, moving their packs around to equally distribute the load. Rafe grabbed a haversack she’d intended to take herself and slung it over his shoulder. “The dialect was hard to place, though. Around here, there are quite a few natives, descendants of the Mayans, whose coins I’m after. The plane is probably walkabout,” she grumbled. “There’s an outpost of sorts not too far from here. I bought supplies from them last time, and I paid a more than fair price, so they should be somewhat happy to see me.”
Clicking on the light she’d attached to her shoulder, she illuminated the narrow dirt alley that would lead them to their first destination. She started walking with surprising speed. Despite having flown for hours on very little sleep, despite the danger and uncertainty she’d faced over the past several days, Mariah’s voice hitched higher with excitement the deeper they went into the jungle. She was in her element—the uncertain and unknown.
Though the atmosphere quickly grew steamy and sweaty, Mariah kept up a steady pace. Unlike the dry forests of Valoren, this jungle hung on to moisture like a sponge, then dripped it onto his skin. They’d hiked for what Rafe guessed was over two miles when she finally declared they should stop for a rest and a drink.
She pulled out a canteen filled with cool water and offered him the first swig, which he declined. She drank greedily, swiped her mouth with her sleeve and then pressed the container into his hands. They did not speak. Between quenching their thirst and attempting to regulate their breathing, there wasn’t much energy left for chitchat.
At least, not for her. Rafe sat still, closed his eyes and listened to a heartbeat in the jungle that had nothing to do with the pounding in his chest. This place overflowed with magic. The farther into the wildness they wandered, the stronger it became. The sensation was familiar and yet utterly foreign. He had no idea whether proceeding would make Rogan’s dark magic stronger or, perhaps, defeat it altogether.
“The outpost is just down that slope,” she said, packing the water again and slugging it back into her bags.
Rafe grunted his understanding. It had been many years since he’d worked this hard. If, however, the slope proved farther than she thought, he’d call upon Rogan’s magic to, at the very least, conjure up a cart and horse.
As promised, the outpost, which consisted of a single thatch-roofed hut surrounded by a ramshackle fence that somehow managed to contain several asses, a half dozen snorting and snuffling pigs, nesting chickens and one loud, barking dog, was less than a ten-minute walk from where they’d rested. Mariah motioned for him to remain at the edge of the jungle. She draped the bag that contained the Valoren m
arker around his neck, and then proceeded toward the dwelling alone.
Only he knew that she had a pistol hidden in the waistband of her jeans, covered by the hem of a loose, long-sleeved shirt.
From the hut, a woman armed with a rifle emerged from behind the blanket that served as the door. Mariah held a stack of what she’d told him were twenty-dollar bills and spoke in the woman’s native tongue. The woman shouted over her shoulder for a compatriot, who came out and shone a light in Mariah’s face.
Seconds later, the rifle disappeared, the man whistled for the dog to quiet and the woman came out beyond the gate to talk with Mariah for a solid five minutes before money was exchanged and Mariah returned.
“Okay, we’ve got us a burro.”
“A what?”
She pointed to one of the asses. “We’ll move faster if we don’t have to carry all this stuff ourselves.”
“We keep traveling tonight?”
Mariah started arranging their bags so that the heavier items, like a supply of bottled water, would go with the beast. “There’s a river about a kilometer northeast of here. We’ll follow it until we’re safely away from any civilization, then set up camp. With old Pedro to do the heavy lifting, I can do most of the hiking tomorrow. Now that we’re here, it’s safer to travel in daylight. This jungle is on the edge of a preserve, so there’s a lot of wildlife. Not to mention natives who’d rather not be bothered by outsiders.”
In less than an hour, they were hiking down a slightly more traveled path. The deeper and denser the jungle became, the more invigorated Rafe was by his surroundings. Several times, he thought he caught glimpses of curious spirits trailing beside them, watching them, but by the time he turned his head, they were gone. As they walked, Mariah told him a bit about the natives of this area and their Mayan ancestors. His visions began to make sense.
“They understood magic,” he concluded, after hearing about their attitudes and rituals in regard to the land. Like his Gypsy forebears, the Mayans communed with the land they lived on, and in return, the earth showed them her secrets. Unlike the Romani, the Mayans did not wander. They did not comprehend the true nature of the conquistadors and were, therefore, destroyed. Of course, Gypsies never trusted the gadje, and the people of his village were just as dead.