The caiman.
“That was you?”
“Yes. Yes.” A toothless grin spread across the old man's face. “That was me. A giant caiman.”
“Did you make the storm in Manaus? The rain that moved faster than the wind?”
“Yes, yes. That was me.”
Somehow, Will didn't doubt it for a minute.
“You should take your woman to the river,” the shaman advised. “Wash her in the warm water and put your seed inside her to calm her down. Do this every day and feed her only fish and fruit. Then she won't be so wild.”
And according to Dakú wisdom, that would be that. Will couldn't fault the old man's reasoning. The Dakú considered all women inherently wild and kept tame only by regular doses of their husband's semen.
But he didn't think Annie would concede him or his semen that much influence.
No, he thought, that was a long shot at best, a damn long shot.
The Dakú also stole women when they could, and Will didn't doubt for a minute that Annie had been as much stolen as saved, no matter who she was, how much bounty was on her, or where she'd been found.
“I have run her hard to wear her out,” Tutanji went on. “She shouldn't give you too much trouble, if you want to take her now.”
Will glanced back to where Annie was sleeping, and had to agree with Tutanji. She didn't look as if she could put up much of a fight, but that wasn't exactly the way he'd planned on making love to her, when she was too tired to give a damn.
Hell, he was too tired to give a damn. He'd only had an hour's rest here and there for the last four days. The hammock looked almost as good to him as the woman inside it.
Almost.
It had been a long time since he'd shared a hammock or a bed with a woman.
“Go,” Tutanji said, rising to his feet. “Go, and in the morning, take her down to the river. She will be more content.”
So would he, but that didn't mean it was going to happen. In the short week he'd known her, contentment hadn't been anywhere on the priority list.
Will watched the old man leave, then looked around the hastily prepared camp. Only the fires proclaimed it a place of men. The shelters and the hammocks were nearly invisible against the backdrop of shadows and tangled vegetation, no more than cradles of leaves and lianas turned with a deft hand out of the forest itself.
Climbing into Annie's hammock, Will considered the shaman's advice. It hadn't been lightly given. Dakú men took the taming of women very seriously, as did Dakú women. More than sex, it was the order of things, a claiming of responsibility, a way of taking care.
Slipping his arm around her, he rested her head on his shoulder and relaxed, letting her settle against him, and nearly was content.
The tree frogs had grown silent, allowing the other night sounds to be heard: the distant flowing of the river, the descending notes of a nightjar's song. He could smell the leaves on the trees, the rich greenness glossed by the fire's smoke. Rain was coming before dawn, building in the clouds coursing across the moon. Six months ago, he'd drunk Tutanji's yagé and seen the serpent vision again. The moon tonight was a portent from that vision, a silver scythe cradling Venus through streams of mist, heralding the coming darkness of the new moon.
He wanted to take Annie and run.
He wanted to keep her safe.
He wanted to kiss her—and when she sighed and settled in even closer to him, he did just that, sliding his fingers through her hair, brushing it back off her forehead, and lowering his mouth to press against her skin. She was warm, and soft, and so very sweet to hold, her body sleepily pliant. He'd found her before anything too awful had happened, and for tonight, that was enough.
Or would have been, if she hadn't rearranged herself, sliding her leg up between his.
Interesting, he thought. Damned interesting and bound to get even more so, if she didn't move her leg someplace other than where she had it.
She did, but only to make things worse—or better, depending on how much he thought he could take. With her now lying half across him, her thigh pressing up against his groin, he was ready to say to hell with contentment. Then she sealed his fate, running her hand up his chest and bringing it slowly back down, her fingers absently tracing the ridges of his muscles.
It was heaven, pure and simple, her soft breasts cushioned against his rib cage, her hand warm on his skin, and her thigh creating just enough pressure to make arousal hum throughout his entire body.
He kissed her forehead again, then the bridge of her nose, and in an act of unconscious acquiescence, she tilted her face toward his. The offer was irresistible. Knowing she wasn't quite cognizant of what she was doing, he gently touched his mouth to hers, and when her tongue instinctively came out to taste him, he discovered he wasn't nearly as tired as he'd thought.
Perfect.
He opened his mouth wider, hoping for more of her, and she did not disappoint, licking at his lips and teeth in a delicate exploration, making him wet, and playing inside his mouth with a lazy indulgence that told him she was still at least half asleep.
As a kiss it was artless seduction, his body awakening to hers in quickly escalating degrees, the muscles she lingered over tightening at her touch. Her unconscious desire fascinated him. He wasn't even sure she knew it was him whose mouth she was mating, but her body knew. He recognized every move she made, every response from when they'd kissed before, right down to the way her hand slid down his chest and over his abdomen toward his groin, leaving a trail of heat in its wake—but this time she didn't stop. She went the extra inch and then some.
He stifled a groan, his body slowly arcing into her hand. In the back of his mind, he remembered they weren't that far away from the next palm-thatched lean-to, but he wasn't going to stop her. Everything she was doing, he wanted more of.
Yes. His hips rose again to meet her, a primal reaction as her fingers wrapped around him, the soft warmth of her palm sheathing him.
God, it was too good.
He captured her mouth with his own, filled his hand with her breast, indulging himself in her softness, the taste and feel of her a powerful catalyst to his arousal. He'd been hard since her first kiss, and now he was hard and aching, too hot to be teased, and not yet hot enough. He wanted every stroke of her hand doing to him exactly what it was doing, and through the haze of his thoughts, he knew he wanted to be inside her when he came.
But, God, she was all over him, languorously, with drowsy, seductive imprecision, the catch of her breath in his ear, damp licks of her tongue along the side of his neck, her teeth grazing his chin—and her hand. She was going to devour him and take him right over the edge without ever waking up—and he would have let her do it, if he hadn't wanted more.
He flipped the button on her shorts and slid the zipper down, and with a wonderfully unselfconscious grace, she moved to help, lazily sliding one leg out to free herself. It was a haphazard business at best, but she was wet, and ready, and more than willing when he pushed up between her legs and slid inside, her breath coming in short, panting gasps against his shoulder that went into overdrive when he slipped his fingers into her soft folds and gently, so gently, rubbed the soft, sweet place on her body designed for her pleasure—and for his. He wanted his tongue on her there, promised himself that next time he would lick her until she melted into his mouth. Just the thought of it added intensity to what he was feeling, made him thicker, harder. He thrust once, moving his mouth to hers to kiss her deep, and her body tensed. Holding her to him with his other hand, he thrust again, losing himself in her soft, wet heat, and she started coming undone. He thrust again and caught her cry with his mouth over hers, her contractions rippling down the length of his shaft, her climax tautening her like a bow. Again, and every muscle in his lower body tightened and pulsed with the need for release. Again, and he jerked against her, shattering into ecstacy, pouring himself inside her.
Minutes later, he slipped free of her body, and still felt as if he'd bee
n hit by a freight train. Annie had fallen asleep on top of him and was softly snoring in his ear, completely oblivious to the fact that they'd just set some sort of world record for a quickie in a hammock with one partner asleep.
That had been sex, pure, unadulterated sex. Animal need had met animal need and refinements had gone out the window. Tutanji had been right, though. She was about as calmed down as he'd ever seen her. For that matter, so was he, more relaxed than he'd been in years.
With a little bit of effort, he got her shorts back on her and zipped and buttoned without precisely waking her up. She'd mumbled a little bit, and complained, and made him feel like some sort of pervert for having unadulterated sex with someone who hadn't been precisely awake—but then he remembered where her hands had been before he'd even thought about her shorts, and absolved himself of all guilt.
Amazon Annie.
Good God, he thought, a tired grin spreading across his face. They were a long way from a first-class hotel suite with hot towels, clean sheets, and room service, but she was reminding him of all the luxuries he'd been so long without, and of a luxury he'd never had.
Her, with her tough-girl reputation, her Israeli rifles, and the softest mouth he'd ever kissed. He hoped like hell she didn't hate him in the morning when she realized what had happened, because he was afraid he'd just fallen in love in a hammock.
CHAPTER 21
Corisco walked along a jungle path bordered by a hundred flaming torches, one for each cordeiro to be sacrificed on the noite do diabo. He was carrying a well-wrapped package close to his chest. Soot wafted up into the trees in smoky ringlets, blending into a night lit by a bare sliver of moon. In two nights, there would be no moon at all, only a dark circle in the sky, an opening to the netherworld and the hell he would bring into the glade.
Excitement thrummed through his veins. His long years of labor would soon be rewarded. Major Vargas would no longer exist. In his place would be King Corisco, sovereign of four thousand miles of river and three million square miles of mountains, and forest, and plains. Fear would rule where politics forever failed.
No government truly understood power. Bureaucracy tied their hands and their minds. He'd been in the army long enough to see firsthand what kind of mess bureaucracy created. Half-measures were the hallmark of government.
But not in Reino Novo. In Reino Novo, he ruled, and because he ruled, he was creating what other men had only imagined—a true El Dorado, its central plaza already in place, the keystone of all that would come, and all of it in gold.
The path flared at the end, opening onto the golden plaza, the torches continuing around its outer edge, their light caressing the sinuously curved statue rising out of the middle of the square—El Mestre in the shape of a truly giant anaconda, ten feet wide and towering twenty feet above the forest floor, its mouth open and gaping, its fangs—like the rest of it—glinting gold in the flickering light.
The emeralds and diamonds Fat Eddie had brought had been added to the statue's eyes, completing Los Olhos de Satanás, making them shine with demonic life. The coils of the snake made up the base of the building. A spiral of stairs incised into the snake's scales led to a door in the serpent's throat.
All around the plaza, he heard the sounds of fear, wailing women and the mutterings of old men. Indians and caboclos alike became afraid when he lit the torches at night. In a very real way, the torches illuminated their fate, to be consumed by El Mestre, their blood to flow over the plaza. He knew they whispered of it. How could they not? He'd made no secret of his plans.
The cages ringed the plaza, a circle of iron bars set into concrete pilings. As a concession to the weather, he'd had thatch roofs laid on top of the top bars to keep out the rain. In the short time since he'd constructed his prison, the rain forest had added its own touches, sending up shoots and vines to twine around the rusting bars and leaf out, making the whole thing nearly picturesque.
He took the stairs up the snake tower to the first level and the small room he'd had built into the golden anaconda's throat. The upper level was the snake's mouth, built like a platform and flanked on either side by seven-foot-high fangs. He'd killed a small paca earlier in the day, using the slightest amount of ground beetle carapace, and the bowl of blood would be well congealed by now. He would build a fire under it, get it boiling and steaming, add a few select ingredients, some powders and pastes he made himself from jungle plants, and one highly poisonous and highly hallucinogenic frog skin. It was a risk to drink the blood potion. It was always a risk, but he was in need of visions, of a night given over to strange pleasure and carefully skirted terror. Uyump the frogs were called, vision beasts—and the visions they gave were beastly, indeed. Less than an inch long, the tiny frogs exploded a man's mind into an infinite number of pieces. Only the truly strong came back whole.
He had… barely. After the first time, he'd had to struggle to regain his sanity, and yet he'd been drawn back to the shaman's shack up on the Rio Papurí again and again, until one night he'd seen his shining path to greatness open up and spread out like a path of stars.
He opened the door to his sanctuary and was greeted by a heartening sight. Beetles, everywhere, scuttling over tables and walls. Thousands of five-inch-long kingmaker beetles, their iridescent carapaces adding a surreally colored and ever-shifting surface to everything inside the room.
Hungry beetles, he thought, moving to the nearest table and ripping open the package. A pile of raw and bloody monkey parts spilled out, and the beetles descended in a horde to feed on the fresh kill.
A thoroughly satisfied smile curved the corners of his lips. Even without his gold, he was a rich man, a very rich man—and he was unstoppable.
CHAPTER 22
Annie was awakened at dawn by a soft touch on her shoulder, the woman Ajaju coming to take her to the river as she had every morning. She looked around as she swung her legs over the side of the hammock. The camp was breaking up, everyone packing and shouldering whatever they would carry for the day.
At the river, the same sense of urgency prevailed. Children were part of the women's morning time, and mothers quickly washed their broods in the pool of clear water below the waterfall rushing over a rocky ledge in the river.
The morning was lovely and cool, with mist pooling along the forest floor and rising off the water. Birds were awake and taking to the air from their nighttime roosts.
With the children washed up, the women hurried back to the camp. Being the only one with clothes to put on left Annie alone at the riverbank, a surprising occurrence it took her a moment to realize. She hadn't been alone since the Indians had caught her. The possibilities weren't lost on her, but as she slipped on her shorts and looked around the forest, the realities weren't lost on her, either. Striking off on her own might not be in her best interest. The Indians hadn't harmed her, and Will—
Will.
She stopped with her shirt only half on.
Will had come into the camp.
How could she not have remembered? She'd been so relieved to see him. So incredibly relieved.
Maybe too relieved.
She finished slipping on her shirt, and clipped her fanny pack back around her waist, her gaze going to the trail the women had followed back to the camp. A warm blush coursed up her cheeks. She'd had a dream in the night, an incredibly erotic dream in which William Sanchez Travers had played the starring role, his body lithe, and lean, and hard—and for a few, brief, wondrous minutes, a part of hers.
Inexplicably, a warm blush coursed over her cheeks. The dream had felt real, damned real.
Maybe too damned real.
A birdcall to her right brought her gaze back to the waterfall just as a flock of egrets burst out of the trees on the shore. As one the birds took flight, flashes of white against the blue sky, dipping over the misty falls to the water, and then rising again against a backdrop of lush, green forest. At the top of the canopy, they turned, changing direction, and came flying down the river.
And there he was, standing on a slab of rock jutting into the water at the top of the falls, nearly invisible within the rising mist of early morn and the long shadows of the rain-forest trees. Her heart slowed in her chest. He had feathers tied into his hair, green parrot and blue macaw, and long, black toucan. His face had been painted with genipa stripes on both cheeks. Another line of paint went down the whole side of his body, all the way to his foot. He was armed with a spear and his machete, its long blade hanging down the length of his thigh tied by a strip of twisted cloth, a line of white against his body. A bamboo quiver and a bow were slung diagonally across his chest.
He was naked except for a loincloth, and the sight of him started a tumult of longing inside her.
It had been no dream. Looking at him, she knew. They had made love, and it had been wonderful—the taste of his mouth, being cradled in the strength of his arms, that first slow thrust of his body into hers.
The memory washed through her, turning longing into an ache of desire she wouldn't have believed herself capable of feeling, not after Yavareté.
From where he stood on a rock in the river, he turned and caught her gaze with his own. A warm blush coursed up her cheeks. They had made love. It seemed impossible to her that she'd let him get that close, even more impossible that she might have been the one to initiate their closeness—but she remembered the way he'd felt beneath her hands, the tautness of his muscles, the silken softness of his skin, all of him hers to explore—and explore him she had.
Her blush deepened. The more she looked at him, the more she remembered.
He started down the rocks at the side of the falls, and she let herself look her fill, her gaze trailing over a landscape of lean muscles and brown skin to his face. He was beautiful, physically elegant, an animal in his prime, and looking at him, she was afraid what she was feeling was more than lust, a truly disturbing turn of events. She hadn't been in love with the wrangler in Wyoming. She'd been in the midst of a teenage crush, but when the pro rodeo circuit had called him back, she'd also been relieved at how easily she'd gotten out of the relationship. She and the professor had shared a passion that was more intellectual than physical, at least on her side. It had been his mind that had attracted her, and her heartbreak had been pretty damned minimal when he'd dumped her for the next coed in line.
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