Blaze of Lightning Roar of Thunder

by Helen A Rosburg

  Bane waited, patiently, but Blaze’s only response was a renewed fountain of tears. He didn’t understand, not at all. He wished to comfort the woman who had become his companion, and with whom he shared so much. He wanted to protect her, stop her pain. But all he could think to do was utter the words a village grandmother had once said to him when he was a very small boy:

  “Tell me where it hurts, Blaze. Tell me where it hurts and I will make it go away.”

  He was too close. She could smell his breath, faintly herbal and woody, and it was warm against her cheek. The hair that cloaked his shoulders was black as a raven’s wing. His dark eyes glittered with light like moonlight on a deep, deep lake. The planes of his face were angular, rugged, and Blaze found her fingers reaching to touch him even before she was aware of what she was doing. Just in time, before it could betray her, she snatched her hand away. But its treason was beyond her control.

  Blaze’s fingers brushed her lips. “Here,” she whispered, not recognizing the sound of her own voice. “It hurts here.”

  The simplicity of the gesture, its utter sensuality and invitation, stunned Bane. He tried to think, but rational thought eluded him. He knew, on some other, deeper level, that he must not do what he was about to, but found he had no control of his body.

  Blaze did not realize she had been holding her breath until Bane reached out and took her face gently in his hands. With his thumbs he stroked the ridges of her cheekbones, her temples, smoothed her furrowed brow, and, finally, traced the generous curve of her mouth with a forefinger.

  She could not believe it was happening. His touch was so tender, so gentle. Did he care? Care for a woman, and not simply a companion of the trail? Once again her traitorous body had its way, and more humiliating tears spilled from her eyes.

  Bane knew he must stop, but he couldn’t. He needed to say something, but was unable to even reason what it was, much less find the words to articulate it. He withdrew his hands from Blaze’s face and stared at them, and thought about the power that was in them. They had taken life, and they had saved life. They had been used both for violence, and for healing. What other power might he find in them now? Could they say to her the thing that he himself did not understand?

  Two tears tracked a path from Blaze’s eyes to the corners of her mouth. He touched them, lightly, with his thumbs, and drew them away from her face. His fingers moved to her luxuriant hair, and he pushed it away from her face, one hand tangled in black, the other in white. Then he kissed away the path the tears had left.

  The taste was sweet wine to him. Hands still bound in her hair, Bane pulled her head back so he might kiss her neck, her throat. He knew it was wrong, knew he must stop. But Blaze moaned, and the sound caused a sensual stab of pleasure that went straight to his loins. He felt her arms go about his neck, and he covered her mouth with his.

  Blaze was drowning. This time, however, she was not cold, but warm, and she did not struggle for the surface. She wanted to remain in the place where there was no light, no air, only her lover, her love. She wanted to breathe in nothing but him, his scent, his essence. She wanted only to join with him, as her heart and mind were already joined. She wished for their bodies to have one purpose, as their lives had only one.

  They were naked with no memory of undressing one another. They were frenzied to be close, closer. Their mouths devoured each other. Bane lay back and pulled Blaze on top of him. Her hair fell about him like a dark curtain.

  Despite the cool mountain air, their bodies were slick with sweat. Panting for breath, Blaze kissed his smooth, broad chest, and traced his nipples with the tip of her tongue. She felt the man part of him pressing hard against her abdomen, and fresh whorls and eddies of pleasure flowed through her body. She pushed herself farther down, and pressed her lips to the object of her desire. He throbbed, and the musky male scent of him suffused her with desire so intense it was almost unbearable.

  Blaze pulled herself back up and kissed Bane once again. Hunger and need drove her hips into his. But he did not cooperate. Holding her tenderly away, he turned her over onto her side, then her back. Despite the pain, she would not deny him, however. Could not.

  “Bane—”

  “Sssshhhh.” He heard her need for him in the tone of her voice. It inflamed him. But he did not ever want her to forget this time, this moment.

  Blaze had not thought she could experience sensation any more keenly than she already had, pressed to her lover’s body, held in his embrace. She was wrong. When he nuzzled her breast, sucked it between his teeth, and gently tugged, she feared she might swoon. First one breast, then the other, until she cried out. He had only just begun.

  Bane lay against her side, propped on one elbow. With his free hand, he lightly traced the outline of her form. His fingers ran from the hollow of her throat down between her breasts, then back up again to circle each one. His touch was featherlight, and he watched with satisfaction as small bumps were raised on her flesh. Blaze groaned and her back arched.

  It was almost more than Bane could bear himself. But he forced himself to remain at her side, and his fingers continued their journey, down to her belly this time, to the moist and secret treasure of her womanhood.

  The sensation was beyond imagination. Blaze arched and writhed, passion ignited past all boundaries, all restraints. Her fingernails bit into the flesh of Bane’s upper arms as she clawed at him, grasped him, and pulled him down upon her.

  Their coming together, at last, was shattering in its intensity. Their cries of ecstasy tangled with the song of the wolves, and was one with the primal music of the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DARKNESS LEACHED EVERY BIT OF WARMTH FROM the mountain. The air was brisk enough to sting the nostrils, and heavily laden with the scents of pine and moss, fertile earth. Blaze became slowly aware of the night around her as she rose lazily from the arms of sleep. She felt and breathed the cold, smelled the growing things. Then remembered why her heart was filled with such joy.

  The memory passed through her entire body as a spasm of delight. From head to toe, she tingled. The sensation increased as she became aware of Bane pressed against her length, warm against her side. She became aware of what had pulled her from sleep.

  He moved against her, so gently she wasn’t certain if he twitched in the throes of a dream, or was slowly turning to his side. She only knew that the feel of him was glorious, wondrous. If he turned to her to love her again, to rouse her from sleep to passion, she would willingly, eagerly, open her arms to him. She was as open to Bane as a flower to sunlight and rain.

  Blaze lifted a shoulder, prepared to meet him and welcome him with her body, ready to press her breast once more against his broad, smooth chest. But her world was turned suddenly, and violently, upside down.

  One moment she was cocooned in blankets at her lover’s side, anticipating the pleasures of their bodies; in the next the warmth was torn from her body as Bane shoved her roughly away from him. She rolled from the blankets onto the cold, damp grass, and gasped with the shock of it. An instant later her mind screamed in silent protest. What was wrong? Why was Bane treating her this way?

  Blaze had no more time to think. Bane was abruptly on top of her, pressing her into the freezing earth. He wrapped his arms around her and rolled until it was she on top, then again, and she was on the bottom. What was happening? Panicked, Blaze tried to push him away, but his grip was like a band of iron about her wrist.

  Which was loosened before she could find her voice to scream, and now Bane thrust away from her. She tried to rise, but he stopped her with a snarl.

  “Don’t move.”

  Terrified, Blaze watched Bane move into a crouch. Naked, he sidled, inch by inch, toward the tousled pile of clothing they had abandoned mere hours earlier. She watched him reach into the tangle, withdraw his knife …

  Blaze’s terror found its voice. She screamed. And the sound of it was drowned in the roar from the great, dark, shaggy grizzly that rose from a
ll fours to challenge the trespassers who had crossed into his territory.

  “Back, Blaze … get back.”

  She shrank away from the horror that towered over them, jaws gaping, slavering. Bane did not move from his crouch. Starlight glittered from the blade he held in his hand. The bear roared another angry challenge and dropped back down to the ground. A scream that Blaze did not recognize flew from her throat as the huge animal charged.

  Bane leapt to one side at the last possible moment, and the grizzly rushed past. It wheeled as, in the same instant, Bane jumped sideways. He reached again into the tumbled pile of clothing, and his hand emerged with one of Blaze’s pistols. But the bear was almost upon him. Stumbling backward, Bane fired.

  Blaze became aware of several things all at once. She saw the muzzle flash from the pistol against the dark of the night; heard the terrified squeals of the horses; saw the beast wince as a bullet impacted somewhere in his massive form; heard Bane grunt as the animal engulfed him and bore him to the ground.

  For a second Blaze remained frozen with shock and horror. Then the squealing of the horses penetrated her numbed brain. The horses … Bane’s rifle in the saddle sheath.

  The bear’s enraged snarls were interrupted by a rumble of pain. Had Bane managed to get his blade into the animal? There was no way to tell. The bear embraced the man so tightly she could scarce tell one body from the other. Then she heard another voice cry out in pain. Bane’s.

  Blaze dove to the place where they had carefully laid their saddles on the ground. Her hands found the sheath. The grizzly roared again, and she saw Lonesome’s pale body in the background. The horse reared and whinnied shrilly. Her fingers groped the wooden stock. The rifle was free and in her hands. She lifted it to her shoulder.

  The animal had risen once more to his hind legs. He was crushing the life out of Bane. Blaze watched Bane’s left hand stab ineffectually at the beast’s chest. The pistol had dropped from his right. His knees buckled, and now only the bear’s grasp kept him from falling.

  Bane’s body blocked a clean shot at the grizzly’s torso. There was only one place to aim, and only one chance to hit the target. Blaze sucked in her breath. The bear’s claws raked down Bane’s back, leaving torn and bloody trails. Bane’s head lolled on his shoulders. Blaze let her breath out slowly as her finger tightened on the trigger. She fired.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  THE SUN BEAT DOWN RELENTLESSLY THROUGH THE thin mountain air to warm Blaze’s back, now long healed. Rivulets of sweat ran down from her temples to drip from her chin. She watched the drops darken the hide she examined for any sign of imperfection. Seeing nothing, she sat up straight and, laboriously, turned it over, fur-side up. She glanced at Bane.

  Tears mingled with sweat. Blaze swiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “Bane,” she called softly.

  His profile remained turned to her, his gaze on a distant peak. He was motionless but for a barely perceptible tic working just above the jawline. Ever so slowly, he swiveled his gaze in her direction.

  “I … I think I’m ready for the next step.”

  Silence. She watched his gaze flicker over the incipient robe in her lap. Tensing, she waited.

  After several long moments, Bane unfolded from his cross-legged position on the ground and rose stiffly. It hurt her to watch him, although she knew he was healing, faster than she would have believed. When she had shot the bear, and finally managed to roll its corpse from his body, she hadn’t believed he would live through the night. The wounds were hideous, long, deep troughs dug into the flesh of his back by the grizzly’s claws. His loss of blood was profuse, frightening, and his bronze-toned skin had turned as white as snow.

  But he had remained conscious and told her what to do, how to care for him. It was ironic, Blaze had thought, that only earlier that day he had been soothing the welts on her own back. Now she was tending to his, and trying to save his life. It had been a very long night, and even when dawn pinked the horizon she had still feared for his life. His pallor remained appalling; his eyes were closed, and she could not see the rise and fall of his chest. For one horrifying moment she thought he had slipped away from her. A soft cry had escaped her then, and his eyes opened slowly.

  “Take … my knife,” he had said, voice like the creak of a rusty hinge. “Skin it. I will … guide you. You will make a … cape … for the winter. When it is done I … I will be healed. We will leave.”

  Blaze had opened her mouth, but no words would come. Skin the bear? Make a cape? How did he know how long that would take? How did he know he’d be healed …?

  Blaze remembered closing her mouth, pressing her lips together to stop her foolish questions. If Bane said it would be so, it would be so. She knelt beside him to reassure him, to tell him she would do as he asked, but his eyes had closed again. And this time she knew he slept. Deeply.

  Bane’s long shadow fell over her, and Blaze looked up, returning to the present. She hoped to catch his gaze, but it roved the bearskin, inspecting for flaws, perhaps. She looked away quickly, before he might see the damning tears building in her eyes.

  Bane grunted and she recognized the sound. Approval. Grudging, but approval nonetheless. She heard his knees creak as he crouched beside her.

  “Listen, and I will tell you what next to do …”

  Blaze flexed her aching fingers, turned them over and examined them. She wasn’t surprised to see the blisters in the fading light of the sun. The primitive bone needle and rawhide thread Bane had produced, once she had shaped the hide, had been difficult to work with. No wonder he’d told her he’d be ready to travel by the time she was done with the cape. At the rate she was going, it would be next year before she was finished.

  Sighing, Blaze shoved the bulky skin from her lap, folded it, and laid it to the side. With the tip of her tongue, she attempted to fish out from between her teeth a piece of the dried meat that had been her dinner. Failing, she plucked at it with her fingers, one eye cocked on Bane. He paid her no attention. Would he ever look her way again with the desire in his eyes she had seen the night they had been attacked? Or had their interlude been just that … a moment out of time, a stop along the way? She had thought …

  But, no. Blaze shook her head, scattering the traitorous thoughts. She had vowed not to dwell on what-might-have-beens, or even what she truly believed had existed between them. What good would it do? She must focus on her one goal, her one path. Bane had even spoken aloud the words that formed the stepping stones of that path.

  The scarred man … He will be delivered to hell by you, Blaze of Lightning …

  The scarred man.

  Blaze forced her thoughts away from the here and now, from Bane, back into the past. One slow, agonizing step at a time she took herself back to her village. She ran through the gate, heard the screams, witnessed the carnage …

  … saw his face. Looked into his eyes. Watched Tomas …

  Harsh, bitter tears scalded her eyelids, slid down her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away. Their heat ignited the embers that had been banked within her breast. The flames flickered to life, and she welcomed them.

  Blaze took a deep breath as the renewed passion of her quest filled her, flowed through her limbs, consumed her. Something thick seemed to clog her throat, and she coughed.

  From the corner of her eye, Blaze noticed Bane’s head turn in her direction, but willed away the sudden emotional flutter. There was room in her life for only one emotion; she would do well to remember it. As it seemed Bane was doing.

  A second quick glance assured Blaze of what she had expected. Bane had turned away from her, his gaze apparently focused on a distant white-capped peak. He did not blink, did not move. What was he thinking? Of her? Or of the road ahead?

  It didn’t matter. Not anymore. All there was, for either of them, was the road ahead.

  It was long dark when Bane finally moved his gaze from the faraway horizon. He allowed his mind to relax its focus, let it flow thr
oughout the rest of his body, bringing him alive again. He turned his head and let his eyes flick over the scene before him.

  Blaze lay sleeping, curled around the bearskin. The remains of their fire crackled faintly in the nearly silent darkness, the only other sound a rustling in the treetops. Bane licked his lips, aware suddenly of his thirst. And hunger. He had denied himself too long.

  Muscles flexed painfully when Bane rose to his feet, and there was a sharp twinge in his back as the skin stretched, but he welcomed the discomfort. It reminded him of something he must never forget again.

  He had one goal, one purpose. To lose sight of it would mean failure. Just one small distraction had almost cost him his life. One small distraction …

  Against his will, Bane was drawn once more to the sleeping figure. One small distraction.

  Bane almost laughed. Immediately, he caught himself. It must be the white part of him, he thought with disgust. The part that valued life so little. The part he must put aside. Forever.

  He straightened. Pushed past the pain in his back, his aching muscles. His hunger and thirst. Avoided another sideways look at the woman sleeping by the fire. She was trouble; he had known it from the first. Trouble to his soul. To his future. To his purpose. He had known, but ignored it. He had seen the same fire in her that burned in him. He had felt union with her. And when he discovered they sought the same prey …

  Unaware, Bane clenched his teeth. He needed her. That was a fact he knew in the very core of his soul. He needed, wanted her, with every fiber of his being.

  But only to bring down the beast. The twin symbols of lightning would be brought together, and the resulting conflagration would consume the monster. Bane knew he must not be consumed as well. To touch her again, to be lured from his path again, would spell death. On an elemental level, he knew it.