Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart Of The Warrior (23 page)

“Is that possible?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Inca shrugged. “When I first saw you, I felt safe. Safe in a way I never had before. I knew you would protect me.”

“That’s a part of love,” Roan said, smiling lazily.

“I do not know much of what all love is about,” she began, frowning. “This is new to me.” She touched her heart. “I see others who are married. I see them touch one another, as we touch one another now. I see them kiss.” She pulled away and met his hooded eyes. “I think our kisses are more active than others I have seen. Yes?”

Grinning, Roan said, “
Passionate
is the word I think you’re searching for.”

“Mmm, yes…And I see married couples touch each other’s hands and hold them…and we do that, too.”

“Loving a person, Inca, means loving them in many ways. There’s no one way to tell that special person that you love them. You love them in many, many ways every day.”

“And you brought me flowers that morning after Grandmother Alaria told me I was a member of the clan
once again.” Inca smiled up at him. “I was deeply touched. I did not expect such a gift from you.”

“I wish I could have done more. I know what it meant to you, to be allowed to come home.” Roan caught several dark strands of hair that moved with the breeze across her cheek, and tucked them behind her ear.

“I must understand more of this love that we hold for one another. I try to learn by watching what others do.” Her eyes lit up with laughter. “And then I try it out on you to see if it works or not.”

He chuckled. “No one can accuse you of not being an astute observer,” he said dryly. “I like discovering love with you. Just give yourself time and permission to explore when it feels right to you, Inca.”

Sliding her hand across his dark, hairy one, she said, “My body is on fire sometimes. I ache. I want something…but I do not know what it is, how to get it, how to satisfy that burning within me.”

“I do.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.” Roan looked down at her animated features.

“Will you show me? I feel as if I will explode at times when you kiss me, or touch me, or graze my breasts with your hand. I ache. I feel…unfulfilled, as if needing something and I do not know what it is. I feel frustrated. I know something is missing…but what?”

Roan kept his face serious. Caressing her cheek, he said, “All you have to do is ask me, Inca, and I’ll show you. It’s something I can teach you. Something that is beautiful and intimate, to be shared only by those who love one another.”

Nodding, she sighed. “Yes. I’d like that.”

“A woman should always be in control of her own body, her own feelings,” he told her seriously, and pressed a kiss to her hair near her ear. “You tell me what you want, next time you feel like that—where you want me to touch you, where you want my hand placed. Making love to another person is one of the most sacred acts there is between human beings.”

“It is more than the mating frenzy,” Inca said. “I have watched many animals couple. It is because they want to make babies. I understand that. But…” She hesitated. “This is different, yes? Between people? Do they always want to make a baby when they couple?”

He felt her searching. Having lived her life in a rain forest, without any education about her own sexuality, about how a man and woman pursued intimacy, Inca was truly innocent. Gently, Roan took her hands into his. “Maybe we’re lucky, sweetheart. Humans don’t have to couple for the express purpose of having a baby. We can do it because it feels right, and it feels good for both of us. It’s the ultimate way to tell the other person how you feel about them.”

Inca smiled and closed her eyes. “Grandmother Alaria said I should go to the Pool of Life and bathe there. She said I need the healing water to help me. Right now I want to have a nap with you. After I wake up, it feels right for me to do that.”

Roan held her gently. Closing his eyes, he murmured, “Go to sleep, my woman. When you wake, go to the pool.”

Inca lay in the soft grass beside the Pool of Life, where she had bathed and swum for nearly an hour. Now she
understood as never before the healing qualities of the sparkling, clear water. The glade sheltering the oval pool was filled with flowering bushes and trees. As she lay on her back, arms behind her head, watching the lazy, late afternoon clouds move across the deep blue sky, she sighed. Never had she felt so whole or so much in balance. Her errant thoughts centered on Roan and how much he meant to her. She loved him. Yes, she knew now as never before that she loved him. When she left this wonderful place, she would search him out and tell him that to his face. A tender smile pulled at her lips as she lay there, enjoying the fragrance of the wildflowers and the warmth of the sun.

Dressed once again in her pale pink shift, her skin still damp from the pool, Inca dug her toes joyfully into the grass that tickled the soles of her feet. Birds were singing, and she could hear monkeys screaming and chattering in the distance. Life had never felt as good as it did now.

Inca suddenly sat up, alert and on guard. She felt a vibration—something powerful that distinctly reminded her of someone teleporting in to see her. Who? The energy was very different, like none she was familiar with. Turning, Inca looked toward where the energy seemed to be originating. She saw a woman—a stranger—standing near the bushes, no more than twenty feet away from her. She was dressed in a black military flight suit and black, polished boots. As her gaze flew upward, Inca gasped. Instantly, she was on her feet in a crouched position, her hands opened, as if prepared for an attack by the unexpected intruder to her reverie.

Shock bolted through her, made her freeze. Her eyes widened enormously as she met and held the dark emerald
gaze of the intruder. Her gasp echoed around the flowery glade. The woman looked almost exactly like her! Head spinning, Inca slowly came out of her crouched position. All her primal senses were switched on and operational—those instinctual senses that had saved her life so many times before. The woman who stood relaxed before her had black hair, just as she had. Only it was caught and tamed in a chignon at the base of her slender neck.

Breathing hard, Inca shouted, “State your name!”

The woman gave her a slight smile and lifted her hand. She took off her black flight gloves. “Be at ease, Inca. I’m Captain Maya Stevenson. And I come in peace.” Her smile disappeared and she took a step forward. “I’m unarmed and I’m not an enemy. I’m here to fulfill a prophecy….” Tears glittered in her narrowed eyes.

Gulping, her heart pounding, Inca was assimilating all kinds of mixed messages from this tall, darkly clad woman warrior whose face was filled with emotion. “Y-you look like me! Almost…” She took a step back, not understanding what was going on. Her pulse continued to race wildly and she had to gasp for air. She felt like crying as a sharp, jolting joy ripped though her heart. Inca understood none of these wild, untrammeled feelings as the woman walked slowly down the slope toward her, and halted less than six feet away.

Searching her face, Inca saw that there were minute differences between them. This woman—Maya—had a square face. Though her eyes were slightly tilted like Inca’s, Maya’s were a different color—emerald and not willow-green. Her mouth was full and her cheekbones high, but her face was broader. Her bone structure was different, too; while Inca was slender, Maya was of a
larger, heavier build, and more curved than she. Still, the woman in black warrior garb stood equally tall, with that same look of confidence, her shoulders thrown back with unconscious pride.

“I—I do not understand this. You look like me. A mirror image. What is going on? What prophecy?”

Maya wiped her eyes. She tucked the gloves, out of habit, into the belt of her flight suit. “I think you’d better sit down, Inca. What I have to tell you might make you faint, anyway.” And she gestured to the ground.

“No. Whatever you have to say I will take standing.”

“Okay…have it your way. You always did have one helluva stubborn streak. Me? I need to sit down to say this to you.” Maya grinned a little and sat down in front of her. She pulled her knees up and placed her arms around them, hooking her fingers together. “Of course, your stubbornness also gave you the guts to survive and flourish.”

Breathing hard, Inca stared down at Maya. “What do you speak of? Who
are
you?”

Maya looked up, her emerald eyes dark and thoughtful. Her voice lowered, soft and strained. “I’m your fraternal twin sister, Inca. Our mother birthed us minutes apart. I came out first, and you, followed. We’re sisters, you and I. I was finally given permission by the elder counsel to come and meet you, face-to-face, to initiate contact with you.” She shook her head sadly. “And I’ve waited a long time for this day to come….”

Inca staggered backward. Her eyes flared and her lips parted. When she felt her knees go wobbly, she dropped to the grass on her hands and knees. Staring at Maya, who sat calmly watching her, she could not believe her ears.
She saw the compassion in Maya’s strong face, the tears running freely down her cheeks. In the next moment, Inca felt a shift of energy taking place between them, and she swallowed, unable to speak. Indeed, Maya was almost a carbon copy of her. Shaking her head, Inca clenched her fist.

“I do not understand!” she cried in desperation. “How can you be my sister? I was abandoned by my parents at birth! I was left for dead until a jaguar mother came and carried me back to her den to raise me.” Inca’s nostrils flared. Her breathing was chaotic. Her heart was bursting with pain and anguish.

Maya leaned forward, her hand extended. Gently, she said, “I’m sorry you had to suffer so much, Inca. You were so alone for so long. And for that, I’m sorry. We agreed to this plan long before we ever entered human forms. We each did,” she stated with a grimace. Looking up, she took a deep breath and held Inca’s anguished gaze. “I have a story to tell you. Listen to me not only with your ears, but with your heart. Sit down, close your eyes and let me show you what happened—and why. Please?”

Unable to catch her breath, Inca sat down and faced Maya. She had a sister?
She
was her sister? Maya looked so much like her. How could this be? Tears escaped from Inca’s eyes. “Is this a trick? A horrible trick you have come to play on me?”

“No, my loving sister,” Maya said in a choked tone, tears filling her eyes again, “it isn’t. Please…try to gather yourself. Close your eyes. Take some deep breaths…that’s it. Let me tell you telepathically what happened to us….”

Inca rocked slightly as she felt the energy from Maya
encircle and embrace her. It was a loving, warm sensation and it soothed some of the ragged feelings bursting out of her hurting heart. Transferring her full focus to her brow, between her eyes, Inca began to see the darkness shift and change. Like all clairvoyants, Inca could literally see or perceive with her third eye. Her brow became a movie screen, in color. What she saw now made her cry out.

She saw her mother and father for the first time. Her mother was breathing in gasps, squatting on the ground, her hands gripping two small trees on either side of her to stay upright. She saw her father, a very tall, golden-skinned man with black hair, kneeling at her side, talking in a soothing, calming tone to her. His hands opened to receive the baby that slid from his wife’s swollen body. Within moments, the child was wrapped snuggly in a black blanket made of soft alpaca wool. To Inca’s shock, she saw a second baby being delivered shortly thereafter. The infant was wrapped in a gold blanket with black spots woven into it. Inca knew at once that it was she—the second baby born from her mother’s body. Twins…she had a twin! And she’d never known it before this moment.

Heart pounding, Inca zeroed in on her mother’s gleaming face as she slowly sat down on another blanket with the help of her husband, and then reached out for her babies. She had a broad, square face and her eyes were the deep green color of tourmaline gemstones. Her hair was long, black and slightly curly as it hung around her shoulders. She was smiling through her tears as her husband knelt and placed each baby into her awaiting arms. Both parents were crying for joy over the births of their children. The exultation that enveloped Inca made her in
jured heart burst open with such fierceness that she cried out sharply, pressing her hand against her chest. She felt her heart breaking.

For so long she’d thought her parents did not want her, did not love her. That that was why they had abandoned her, to die alone.

But she was not alone! No, she had an older sister! Inca watched with anxious anticipation as her father, whom she most closely resembled, put his arm around his wife and his babies. He held them all, crying with joy, kissing his wife’s hair, her cheek, and finally, her smiling mouth. It was a birth filled with joy, an incredible celebration. That realization flowed like a healing wave of warmth through Inca’s pounding heart. She was loved! She was wanted! And she had a sister!

Staggered by all the information, Inca could no longer stand the rush of powerful emotions that overwhelmed her. She opened her eyes, her gaze fixed on Maya’s serious, dark features.

“Enough!” she whispered raggedly. “It is so much…too much….” And she held up her hand in protest.

Maya nodded and stopped sending the telepathic information. She threw her shoulders back, as if to shake herself out of the trancelike state. When she looked up, she saw Inca’s face contorted with so many conflicting emotions that she whispered, “I’m sorry it had to be revealed to you like this. You’ve been through a helluva lot…almost dying…but they said you needed this information now, not later.”

Staring at Maya, Inca whispered unsteadily, “Who are ‘they’?”

Smiling a little, Maya lifted her hand. “The Black Jaguar Clan. The clan I come from.”

More shock thrummed through Inca. She sat there feeling dizzy, as if a bomb had exploded right next to her. She’d heard talk of this mysterious clan, and of those who volunteered their lives to work on the dark side knowingly, in the service of the Sisterhood of Light. Blinking, she looked strangely at Maya. Hundreds of memories came cascading through her mind. For several minutes, she sat there trying to absorb them all. Finally, Inca rasped, “I remember you now…. You saved my life, didn’t you? I was shot in the back of the head and Roan was carrying me to your helicopter. You came around the end of the compound fence and shot two drug runners who were taking aim at us.”