by Vella Munn
What was she thinking about! If so much as a hint of his existence leaked, Loka would become a specimen fought over by hundreds of ambitious researchers, the press, maybe even the government.
If that happened, it would destroy him; he would hate her for as long as he lived.
Maybe he already did.
Head pounding, she placed her hand over one of the drawings. It looked rather like a sun being held aloft by a stick figure. It could mean that the early Modocs worshiped the sun. And it might be nothing more profound than a representation of one of their games.
No, not a game, she decided as her palm warmed. She stared at her hand, at the stone, and forgot to breathe. It wasn’t possible! Surely she was letting her imagination get away from her. Or was she? The back of her hand felt cool thanks to the cave’s temperature, but she could swear, almost, that her palm had become warmer.
Tearing her attention from what she was doing, she looked around for Fenton. He was down on his hands and knees gazing at the far side of the ferns, which grew up to the cave wall there. She could hear him muttering something but didn’t think he was talking to her. Not that it mattered.
Heat? Coming from an unknown source?
Eagle. Wolf howling.
She tried to swallow, but her mouth was too dry. Feeling as if she’d been dropped into a twilight zone, she simply asked herself if she’d become privy to something that couldn’t possibly be and yet was.
Loka existed. Being who she was had awakened him. That in and of itself was a miracle—only there was more to it than that. She couldn’t let this link with the past, this link between a man and a woman—remain locked within her.
But Loka would hate her if she told anyone, and a word from her might jeopardize his life. No wonder he’d remained separate from everyone. If she, who was a supposedly competent member of the here and now, couldn’t figure out his role in it, how could she expect more from him?
But he’d been alone, shut off, for so long. He hungered for some sense of belonging. Wanted to be touched by a living, breathing woman.
“It’ll work.” Fenton’s unexpected comment shook her from questions without solutions. “I’ll just have to make sure there’s plenty of signs around telling people what they can and can’t touch. We’ll have to have someone around to guide the tours. I thought I might be able to get away without tying up a ranger for that, since no one puts restrictions on other activities around here, but having an employee on hand will give people the clear message that vandalism won’t be tolerated. Yeah, I think it’s going to work.”
She didn’t realize she still had her hand over the drawing until she felt numbing cold seep into the bones of her fingers. Shocked, she drew back and held her palm up to her mouth. There was no denying it; her hand was as cold as stone.
“You’re not saying anything. You think I’m wrong, don’t you?”
“What?”
“I said—never mind. I’ve got to get back to headquarters. Are you about done?”
She nodded because she didn’t trust herself to speak. She took a single, tentative step and then another. If only she could tell someone what had happened. But what, if anything, had she experienced? And who, or what, if anything, was responsible?
Fenton started up the ladder. She gripped the railing, telling herself that sunlight and fresh air might bring herself back to reality, but couldn’t make herself leave. For a moment, her attention remained fixed on the drawings, but then, slowly and relentlessly, she felt something at the rear of the cave call to her. Turning, she stared into shadows. Fenton had told her the cave ended back there, that if there’d ever been another opening, boulders shaken loose by a long-ago earthquake had sealed it off.
She and Fenton were alone down here.
Or were they?
As her eyes became accustomed to the dark, she saw something in the shadows. Something—someone who stared back at her.
Loka.
Hours later, Tory sat in the only chair in her cabin and stared out the nearest window. After returning to park headquarters, she’d tried to get in touch with Dr. Grossnickle, but had reached only his voice mail. She’d left a message that she now regretted, a disjointed comment about having discovered something she had to try to understand better. She was sorry about this delay in getting back to work and would be there as soon as possible.
What would she say when Dr. Grossnickle demanded an explanation as she knew he would?
It was the strangest thing. I met this Indian who fought the army here in 1873. He’s got this pet eagle and we heard a wolf; you know, wolves haven’t been here for years. I—he touched me and I changed. I want him, need him.
No! She couldn’t say a word; it might risk Loka’s life. Certainly her emotions, splintered and dangerous and overwhelming, were too private to share.
But if she kept her secret, everything he represented—a proud and noble way of life—would remain locked within him.
Sighing, she leaned her head against the back of the chair and tried to think of nothing. Unfortunately, that didn’t work.
Darn Fenton, he’d refused to give her any privacy, and she’d been forced to call Dr. Grossnickle with him hanging on to every word. And the way he’d looked at her as she made her way out of the cave—it was as if her expression had given something away.
There wasn’t enough air moving in the cabin. She supposed she could go outside, but it seemed like too much of an effort. Maybe she’d spend the rest of her life sitting here listening to insects buzz and chirp and make other insect sounds. And maybe she had no choice but to head into The Land Of Burned Out Fires, The Smiles Of God, and ask Loka to make love to her.
As thoughts of his hands on hers grew stronger, she easily dismissed everything else. She wanted to know what his chest and back and arms and legs felt like, ached to lose herself in his embrace.
Needed to feel him entering her.
Her mouth parted; she didn’t care. Eyes closed, she allowed herself to be swept into a world of imagination and imagery. Loka would be waiting for her. It didn’t matter whether she went back to Fern Cave or climbed Spirit Mountain or took the trail through Captain Jack’s Stronghold, he would find her.
He would know why she was there.
Her fingers began moving restlessly up and down the chair’s wooden arms. They needed not hard wood, but a man’s flesh. It didn’t matter how he took her; she didn’t need foreplay. To come together in heat and need—to reach for and find that sensual explosion, to—
She wasn’t alone.
Sitting up, she looked around, but the cabin hadn’t changed. This wasn’t Fern Cave and Loka wasn’t staring at her from the shadows. Still, she had no doubt that he was near. After kicking back into her shoes, she stood and walked over to the window. Although she peered in all directions, she saw nothing that hadn’t been there before. Just the same, the belief that he was here intensified.
She opened the door and stepped outside. The insects became noisier. The afternoon’s heat should have made her feel lethargic. Instead, anticipation and raw hunger surged through her.
“Loka? Where are you?”
Nothing. Slightly apprehensive now, she looked around more carefully. Loka wasn’t some high-spirited lover. He might not know that men and women sometimes teased each other, that it was possible for them to laugh and play.
He didn’t trust her; she knew that. And he wasn’t her lover.
“Loka?”
She didn’t really expect him to answer. Still, when the silence stretched on, she experienced a moment of abject loneliness. They’d spent most of a day and a night together and he’d been in Fern Cave with her. Now they were apart, and she felt more alone than she had in her entire life. The weariness she’d been experiencing a few minutes ago no longer mattered. Nothing did except finding him.
The wilderness stretched out around her, called her to it; she had no urge to fight its pull. She made her way around rock and brush, over rises and into small gullies drawn by a powerfu
l and undefinable force. With every step, she felt herself moving farther and farther from civilization and toward the only place she wanted to be.
With Loka.
She became aware of his presence by degrees. At first he was nothing more than a shadow beneath a scraggly evergreen, but slowly, hauntingly, shade became substance—his substance. Shaking a little now, she continued toward him. She felt the afternoon’s sun beating down on her head; the summer heat filled her with energy. She’d told Fenton she would be leaving soon but now, coming closer and closer to Loka, the future meant nothing.
He looked no different from the last time she’d seen him, and yet it felt as if she were absorbing him for the first time. She’d never known a man who took his body so much for granted. None had ever accepted near nakedness as if it were as natural as breathing. Loka did. And the way he was looking at her—not like a warrior studying his enemy but like a man watching his lover approach—did she dare believe?
“I sensed—somehow I knew you were here,” she managed.
“I have been watching you. You do not look where your feet take you.”
How can I? You’re all that matters. Feeling as if she might splinter at any moment, she waited while he stepped out of the tree’s shade and easily, effortlessly, covered the space separating them. His eyes were so intent on her that she wondered if he was trying to strip her naked. She didn’t mind. Nothing mattered except that they were together again. For this moment. Finally she found her voice. “You were there earlier today, weren’t you? In Fern Cave.”
He nodded, the gesture allowing his ebony hair to slide forward. He pushed it out of his eyes with a practiced gesture. If they were ordinary people, she would ask him if he wanted her to cut his hair, and when he said yes—she needed him to say yes so she could touch him—she would draw out the act until taking lock after lock of hair between her fingers became part of the act of lovemaking. “How did you get in there?” she thought to ask. “There’s only the one entrance, the one Fenton and I used.”
“You do not understand.” He’d stopped just out of her reach. She wondered if that was because he didn’t trust her, or didn’t trust himself around her. “No one but a Maklaks can.”
“No.” She felt as if she were starving, sustenance just out of reach. “I can’t believe that. You took me up Spirit Mountain. I saw Eagle. Impossible as it is, I believe in Eagle, and in Wolf. I want to know everything, Loka. Everything about you and your world.”
For the briefest fraction of time, she knew he wanted to give her what she’d just asked for. But then, all too soon, the window between them closed, and he was again a warrior testing his world for safety.
“I heard,” he said. “I listened and I heard. The man you were with seeks to dishonor a holy place.”
“I—yes.”
“I will kill him.”
“No! Loka, you can’t!”
“What would you have me do? Allow him to bring uncounted numbers of the enemy to where my people spoke with the ancients?”
“Spoke with the ancients? I, ah…”
His eyes narrowed. Much as she hated it, she understood he was questioning the wisdom of saying anything more to her. She didn’t blame him. Given what had happened to him and his people, would he trust anyone, even her? “Loka,” she said softly. Tears crowded her throat. “Fern Cave was a sacred place for the Modocs, wasn’t it?” She took a deep breath, not because she needed to, but to give herself time to consider what she might say next. In the end, only the truth mattered. “Sacred because that’s where the spirits of your ancestors dwelled. At least where everyone believed they’d once been.”
He didn’t move so much as a single muscle, and yet she felt his intensity. Whether he believed she had no right being privy to what had been his secret she couldn’t say, but then it didn’t matter because she’d spoken with every ounce of honesty in her. “Loka, I felt something that first day out at Captain Jack’s Stronghold. I told myself I was simply reacting to standing where the Modocs once had, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe—oh, I don’t know what I’m saying.”
He shrugged, the gesture slow and studied. If he’d thrown a thousand words at her, the impact couldn’t have been greater. Heedless of any danger, she stepped closer and touched the back of his hand. He looked down at what she’d done, still motionless, still as much a part of his surroundings as any wild animal. She would never say there was a vulnerability to him, but something—maybe it was the loneliness he’d endured since awakening—was etched on every line of his body. He had his memory of his son, Eagle and Wolf, the essence of his people still living in the air around him, but she was the first human being who’d touched him in six months—no, in over a hundred years.
Thinking of nothing except putting an end to that, she slipped closer. She could plainly see his chest rising and falling and focused on that. The wilderness-scented air seeped into her lungs, into her pores and memory even. She saw nothing except brush and trees and rock, heard only the beating of her own heart and the faint call of some unseen bird. All hesitation fled, leaving her with nothing except longing.
He continued to watch her, his beautiful eyes seeing things in her she knew no other human being ever had. I’ve been alone, too, she said with her heart. I know what you’re feeling. Not everything, but enough. Please believe me. Enough.
His powerful fingers closed over her wrist, laid a molten trail up her arm, heated her shoulder, covered the back of her neck. He drew her close, closer, gentle despite his strength. Her heart now pounded; she could barely remember how to breathe. Silence still coated the air between him, and yet, because his eyes no longer kept anything from her, she knew. He wanted her. Nothing else mattered. He wanted her.
Could she give herself to a warrior, to a man who had killed?
Could she not surrender to the only human being in her world?
Don’t think, she warned herself. Just take, and give.
Chapter 13
The sun loved his hair. Although it was black as the darkest night, today, red highlights ran through it. His jaw, squared and hardened by nature and what he’d endured, called to her. Keeping to her vow to let no outside thought filter in, she stood on tiptoe and touched his jaw lightly with her lips. When he ran his fingers up the hair at the back of her head, she followed her first kiss with another.
Her body seemed to be losing form. It flowed warm and liquid around her, and she drank hungrily from what she found of his essence. Growing bolder, she rested her hands on his shoulders, feeling the hint of velvet on his flesh.
She tried to remain calm, struggled to stay in control of her emotions, but the feeling that she might never return to what she’d once been continued to grow. Afraid of and yet craving him, she ran her lips over his throat, his cheeks, the tip of his nose. He flattened his free hand against the small of her back, guided her to him.
Her belly was now pressed against him, increasing her awareness of him, her knowledge that they’d stepped over a line from which they could never retreat. Her face felt flushed; surely he knew what was happening to her. But maybe, maybe his own body and emotions overwhelmed him. If they did… Breathing. Feeling. Need. Nothing except that.
When it was the last thing she wanted, he gripped her waist and drew her away from him. She continued to cling to his shoulders, her mouth slack, breathing quick and honest.
“You want this?” he whispered. “I must know. You want this?”
No! If I give myself to you, I’ll never be the same. “I don’t know how to answer.” She should look around and assure herself that they were alone and he safe, but she couldn’t take her eyes off him, might never have enough of looking at him. “I don’t…” She’d been about to tell him she wasn’t the kind of woman who jumped into bed with a man she’d just met, but in his world maybe something like that didn’t matter. She tried to remember what male/female Modoc relationships had been like, but the sun still colored his hair with life and his eyes were dark and
his lips waited for her.
“I have watched,” he said. “Watched men and women who think they are alone. Something happens between them which I know little about.”
“You’ve seen them making love?”
He nodded with no hint of embarrassment, with nothing except loneliness in his eyes. He’d been alone, had wanted it that way. But he’d still needed to know what it could be like for others. Not sure how much longer she could put off experiencing him—all of him—she pressed her hand against his chest. She should be able to say something, anything, shouldn’t she?
“Making love,” he said. “I do not understand what that means.”
“You don’t?”
“They were filling their need. Copulating. What is this making love?”
How could she ever explain romance to a man who thought of sex as simply that and no more? “When people care for each other,” she began, “when they want to be with each other and no one else, when they’re ready to take certain emotional risks….” The words died inside her, unmourned because maybe they weren’t needed at all.
Leaning forward, she kissed first one hard breast and then the other. She sensed him sucking in his belly, had no doubt that he was physically ready for her. In that private and uncivilized part of her that she’d always kept at bay, the wanton woman she could be struggled for freedom. Lovemaking didn’t matter. She would take sex, raw and wonderful.
But if that happened between them, he would never really know her and she would never know the man she believed he could be. Reining in what she could of her need, she gripped his hands, which were now cupped over her buttocks, and placed them firmly by his side.
“I don’t know what it was like between you and your wife, Loka, but I’m not that woman. I need—I need…” She swallowed, but that did nothing to help recapture her failing self-confidence. “I don’t know if I’m going to say this right. All I can do is try. I want you—never think otherwise.” He started to reach for her again, but she stopped him, firmly placing his arms back by his side. He was so damnable powerful, so male. Not thinking about that was impossible. Not responding took every bit of self-control she had in her.