Comanche Moon (10 page)

Grasping her waist, he tossed her on the horse and scooted her to the back of the blanket saddle. The hem of her nightgown rode high. She could feel all the men staring at her. Had he no decency? With trembling hands, she tugged at the gown and tried to cover her thighs. There wasn’t enough material to stretch. And it was so thin from years of wear, it was nearly transparent. The morning breeze raised gooseflesh on her naked arms and back.

With a grim set to his mouth, her captor opened a second parfleche, withdrawing a length of braided wool and a leather thong. Before she realized what he was about to do, he knotted the wool around one of her ankles, looped it under his horse’s belly, and swiftly bound her other foot.

‘‘We must ride like the wind!’’ he yelled to the others. ‘‘
Meadro!
Let’s go!’’

The other men ran for their horses. Grasping the stallion’s mane, Hunter vaulted to its back and settled himself in front of her. When he reached for her arms and pulled them around him, she couldn’t stifle a gasp. Her breasts were flattened against his back.

‘‘Your woman does not like you, cousin,’’ someone called in English. Loretta turned to see who spoke and immediately recognized the brave who had encouraged Hunter to kill her that first day. His scarred face was unforgettable. He flashed her a twisted smile that seemed more a leer, his black eyes sliding insolently down her body to rest on her naked thighs. Then he laughed and wheeled his chestnut horse. ‘‘She won’t be worth the trouble she will make for you.’’

Hunter glanced over his shoulder at her. The fiery heat of his anger glowed like banked embers in his eyes. ‘‘She will learn.’’ With an expertise born of long practice, he lashed her wrists together with the leather. ‘‘She will learn quick.’’

Behind the large group of warriors stretched an endless carpet of green grass dotted with blue petals. Ahead lay a dense grove of pecan and willow trees. The men had been riding nonstop fourteen hours, making a great circle back to the Brazos near Loretta’s home, an evasion tactic in case the
tosi tivo
tried to follow them. Come morning, if they felt certain they weren’t being pursued, they would take a direct route to their village.

To the west, the sinking sun was a red orb, streaking the evening sky with wisps of dark gray and pink. Loretta no longer sat erect on the horse to keep her breasts from touching the Comanche’s naked back. She slumped against him, her lolling head pillowed by the muscular cleavage of his spine. Pain shot up her cramped legs from the bonds of coarse wool braid. The rawhide around her wrists had cinched tight, cutting into her skin. Her tongue was a parched lump. One more mile, and she felt sure she would die.

She imagined herself sinking into blackness, escaping. It would be cool and dark in heaven. The water there would flow sparkling and icy. There would be no Comanche with cruel, midnight blue eyes.

Hunter’s voice rumbled inside him, vibrating against her cheek. Loretta felt the stallion slowing down. Angry words in a language she couldn’t understand ricocheted around her, high, low, growling, shrill. She fluttered her lashes, too miserable to care why the men argued, just thankful for the reprieve. She felt Hunter shift his weight backward, felt his hard hands fumbling with the tight band of leather that bound her wrists. The next second her arms were freed and fell like dead weights to her sides. Hunter’s strong back disappeared. She slumped forward on the horse, not caring about anything as long as she could rest.

Something cold touched her left ankle. In some distant part of her mind, she realized that someone was cutting the wool braid that bound her feet. She kept her eyes closed, her cheek pressed against the horse’s sweaty neck, her arms hanging. A moment later her right ankle was freed as well.

And then came a new kind of pain. Not fire, but thousands of needles pricking her legs, the agony shooting to her hips. She gasped and bolted upright. When she did, she pitched sideways. The world turned upside down. Arms caught her. The sky spun above her. Someone yelled.

Torture.
She was being carried, but the arms that cradled her were made of white-hot fire, singeing her wherever they touched. She didn’t think there could be any pain more excruciating. Then cruel hands lowered her to a soft mat of grass, but the blades of the grass turned to sharp spikes, piercing her flesh.

Loretta closed her eyes and gave herself up to the pain. Someone held her and rocked her—someone strong with a deep voice that whispered like silk through her mind. The words were sometimes strange, but the few she understood made the meaning of the others absolutely clear. She was safe where she was,
sure enough safe—forever.

Ice. Loretta sucked in a whine of air as the shock of water washed over her body.

A warm arm encircled her waist. A large hand clamped over her ribs. She twisted her neck to see, then froze. The Comanche.

Instinctively she thrashed and squirmed in his arms. She tried to throw herself away from him. But it was all to no avail. Hunter held her fast with one arm hooked through her elbows behind her and walked deeper into the water until it hit her chin high. A convulsive shudder ran the length of her.
Cold.
Oh, mercy, it was so horribly cold.

He ran a hand down her belly. The touch was slow, effortless, leaving her in no doubt that he could explore any part of her he chose, at his leisure. ‘‘Ah,
mah-tao-yo,
you are so hot. Even where you are not burned.
Toquet,
’’ he whispered. ‘‘You will not fight.’’

Something about his voice seemed familiar, oddly comforting. Her father, she realized, somehow his voice put her in mind of her father. She fought back tears. Shivers racked her.
So cold.
The freezing ache of it blocked out everything else. Her teeth began chattering nonstop. When she could bear it no longer, she made one last attempt to get free.

‘‘It will pass,’’ he promised. ‘‘You will be still. It is a burn, no? From the sun. You have fire inside you. The cold will chase it away. You understand?’’

She tried to nod. When she did, she took a mouthful of water and choked. He exclaimed under his breath and turned her so her chin rested on his shoulder. The shock of his body heat against her breasts and belly made her gasp. In the moonlight, the cut in his flesh from Rachel’s bullet was a black line.

‘‘Toquet, mah-tao-yo, toquet.’’
His arms tightened around her, hard, powerful, yet strangely gentle. ‘‘Close your eyes, eh? Trust this Comanche. We will make war tomorrow.’’

Time ceased to exist. There was nothing but the night, the water, and the Indian. Loretta floated into a dream world. She was sick, so awfully sick. Too sick to care what happened. Too sick to fight it.

Chapter 6

HUNTER SPREAD HIS HAND UNDER THE cloth of the woman’s gown and stared at the clear outline of his fingers. As incredible as it seemed, the sun had gone right through the thin material and cooked her fair skin. Comanches sometimes got sunburned, but never like this. With a snort of disgust, he wadded the gown into a ball and tossed the useless thing on the fire. From now on he would dress the girl in leathers.

The material ignited explosively, and the light from the heightened flames played upon her body, flickering on her small breasts, shadowing her curves. He stared down at her, more angry than he had ever been, with himself. No matter how he tried not to think of it, his mind circled back to his behavior tonight, immediately after stopping to make camp, then later down at the river. How could he have treated a White-Eyes so kindly?

Rocking her in his arms had been unforgivable enough, but then he had caught himself calling her
mah-tao-yo,
little one, a name he had once used to address his wife, Willow by the Stream. It was the ultimate betrayal, not just of Willow by the Stream, but himself. Try as he might to justify it, there were no excuses.

He couldn’t imagine what had come over him. What bothered him most was that it was impossible to forget, even in the dark, that this woman was his enemy. Unlike some of her kind, she didn’t bear any resemblance to one of the People. Her hair was honey gold, as blinding as sunshine when the moonlight hit it right, and her skin shone as white as sun-washed silver. Every time he looked upon her, shock coursed through him. The woman of the prophecy? His woman? He yearned for a plump, comfortable female with beautiful brown skin and long curtains of black, shiny hair. Instead he got skin the color of buffalo fat, stretched taut over spindly bones, and hair the same yellow brown as parched grass.

The girl’s screams during her delirium had convinced him that she was indeed the woman of the prophecy. Just as the Great Ones had foretold, her voice wasn’t gone, only silenced by great sadness . . . the massacre of her parents. Long ago, Hunter had known another girl whose voice had been stolen from her in such a way. After examining that girl at length, the
puhakut
in the village had claimed that her heart had been laid upon the ground by seeing her family killed and that one day, when joy returned to her, she would speak again. Many winters later the mute girl had married a kindly man, and after the birth of her first child, which brought her great gladness, she regained her voice, just as the
puhakut
had predicted. This white girl would as well. How or when, Hunter couldn’t begin to imagine, but he knew it would come to pass. Beyond that, he refused to think. According to the song of the Great Ones, he was to be instrumental in her recovery.

With a shaky sigh, he reached for the grease pouch and loosened its drawstring. Like it or not, he had to take care of her. If she died, the Great Ones would be displeased. If he had had only himself to worry about, he might have walked off and left her. After all, what could the Great Ones do to him that would be worse than this? But he must think of his people, of how his actions might affect them.

The hot flare of anger within him condensed into a hard little knot in the pit of his stomach. He dipped his hand into the grease and leaned forward to smear it on the woman’s tortured skin. His hand hovered above her leg. He couldn’t help but remember how jealously she had guarded her ruffled breeches that first day or how painfully ashamed she had been this morning when the hem of her
pitsikwina
had ridden up on her thighs. If she had any idea that she was lying here naked, he felt sure her face would turn redder than the sunburn had already made it. And if she knew he was about to run his hands over her? He could only guess what her reaction might be. Terror, probably. Accompanied by a good deal of spitting if her past transgressions were an indication. Stupid girl. Grown men had dared less and died for their trouble. Perhaps his brother was right, and she didn’t know who he was. Hunter was well aware of the fear he inspired in the
tosi tivo.
Most whites recognized him the moment they saw the scar on his cheek and looked into his indigo eyes.

A suppressed smile made the corners of his mouth twitch. Perhaps he would be wise not to tell her who he was. As much as he disliked her spitting, the thought of her being obedient and too easily cowed appealed even less. Something about her—he had no idea what—evoked confusing emotions within him. Anger blanketed those emotions, prevented him from having to deal with them. Ah, yes, he liked her much better when she was spitting. Much better. Sick and helpless as she was now, he found himself feeling sorry for her.

He glided his greased hand up her thigh to her hip, acutely aware of how hot her skin was and how fragile her jutting hipbone felt against the leathery surface of his palm. She tossed her head and moaned, her sooty lashes fluttering on her flushed cheeks. He studied her face for a moment, then lowered his gaze to her breasts. The tips were the delicate pink of cacti blossoms. In all his life, he had never seen such nipples. The anger in his gut tightened into a knot, fiery and churning. Skidding his hand along the ladder of her ribs, he cupped the underside of her breast, then feathered his fingertips over its crest and watched the pebbled surface go taut and eager, thrusting upward for more. She moaned again and tossed her head, her forehead wrinkling in a bewildered frown. Clearly he was the first ever to touch her there. His smile, no longer suppressed, lifted one side of his mouth into a mocking grin. She was not so haughty when asleep, he thought. Her body, the body he had paid so many horses for, betrayed her and responded to him. It gave him a perverse satisfaction.

His smile quickly disappeared when he realized with something of a shock that hers was not the only traitorous body.

Dawn came in wisps of pink against a blue-gray sky. Through the trees, shafts of misty sunlight formed luminous motes of warmth along the river. Birds sang. Squirrels chattered. The low rush of the water was ceaseless. Loretta woke slowly, aware before she opened her eyes that something was horribly wrong. Amy wasn’t this big. The arm around her was hard and heavy, the warm hand that cupped her breast distinctly masculine. She frowned and wondered where the hairy blanket touching her cheek had come from. Where was the gray down quilt? Why did she hurt everywhere? Through the spikes of her eyelashes, she stared at a gnarled tree root. A breeze stirred the leaves overhead. The moldy floor of the forest blended its musty smell with the rich, tantalizing aroma of coffee. Then the sound of men’s voices drifted to her, the tones conversational, interspersed with an occasional chuckle. Friendly voices. Normal-sounding voices— except for one thing. She couldn’t understand the language.

With a start, she remembered. Her sudden gasp of alarm woke the Comanche who held her in his arms. She knew without looking that it was Hunter, the most horrible. His hand tightened reflexively on her naked breast, and his arm hardened to steel around her. He grunted something and nuzzled her neck.

Loretta’s first instinct was to grab his hand, but she no sooner tried than she realized that her own were bound behind her. He pressed his face against her hair and took a deep breath. She could tell he was only half-awake by the slow, lazy way he moved. His thumb grazed her nipple, teasing the sensitive tip into an unwilling response. Her body sprang taut as well, jerking with every flick of his fingers. He yawned and pressed closer.