Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart Of The Warrior (25 page)

“Our normal way of contacting an individual is through the dream state. We appear and offer them an invitation, and if they want to come, they are led here through a series of synchronistic circumstances. We talk to them, educate them about themselves and their potential. It is then up to them if they want to walk the path of the Jaguar Clan or not.” She smiled softly. “Do you want to walk it?”

Roan felt the strong grip of Inca’s fingers around his own. He looked over and saw the pleading in her eyes. “I’ll give it a try, Grandmother. I still don’t understand what you see in me, though….”

Maya cackled and stood up, dusting off her black flight suit. “Men! Love or hate ’em. I don’t know which I’d rather do at times. The Neanderthals I know would be telling the elders they
deserved
to be here, and then there’s guys like you, who are harder to find than hen’s teeth—and you wonder why you’re here.” Maya threw up her hands and rolled her eyes. “Great Mother Goddess, let me find a man like you, Roan!” And she chuckled.

Inca frowned. “Do not worry about this, Roan. I came
to this village when I was sixteen without knowing anything. They will teach you and show you. You will be taught certain exercises to develop what you already have within you.”

“And,” Alaria said, “it is always heart-centered work, Roan. The people who are invited to come here have good hearts. They are terribly human. They have made many mistakes, but above all, they have the courage to keep trying, and they treat people as they would like to be treated. Two of the biggest things we demand are that people have compassion for all life and respect for one another. You have both those qualities. That is not something you find often. You are either born with it or you are not. One’s spirit must have grown into the heart, developed compassion for all our relations, in order to train here with us. And you are such a person. We’d be honored to have you stay with us.”

Roan felt heat in his cheeks and knew he was blushing. Giving the elder a humorous look, he said, “I’ll give it a go, Grandmother. Thanks for the invitation.” He saw Inca’s eyes light up with joy over his decision. She pressed her brow against his shoulder in thanks.

“I have to go, Inca,” Maya said reluctantly as she looked at her military watch on her left wrist. She glanced apologetically over at Grandmother Alaria. “Duty calls. My women are telling me it’s time to saddle up.” She hooked her thumb across her shoulder. “I’ve got my squadron of black helicopters winding up outside the gates of the village back in real time. We’ve got a drug factory to bust.”

Scrambling to her feet, Inca threw her arms around her sister. “Be safe?”

Maya hugged her fiercely and then released her. “Don’t worry. I watch my six, Inca. Six is a military term that means we watch behind our backs. The bad guys are the ones who are in trouble when I and my force of women are around. In our business, I’m known to hang ten over the surfboard of life. I scare my copilots to death when I fly, but I guarantee you that drug runner is going to be out of business when I get done with him.” She chuckled indulgently. Reaching over, Maya gripped Roan’s hand. “Take care of my little sister? She’s all the family I’ve got, and now that we have each other, I don’t want to lose her a second time.”

Roan gripped her strong hand. “That’s a promise, Maya. Be safe.”

Inca stood with Roan’s arm around her waist as Maya hurried up the path and disappeared behind the wall of ferns and bushes. “She is so different from me in some ways, and yet so much like me.”

Grandmother Alaria moved to Inca and gently embraced her. “You and Maya have twenty-five years to catch up on. She was raised very differently from you. Now you have time to explore one another’s lives. Don’t be in a rush, Inca. Right now, Maya is entering a death spiral dance with Faro Valentino. She will not get to see you very much until her own fate can be decided.”

Roan frowned. “A death spiral dance? What’s that?”

“Faro tried to kill Inca. Maya had freewill choice in this karmic situation, Roan. She promised that if Faro decided to try and kill Inca, she would take it upon herself to even out the karma of his actions toward her sister. She will be his judge and jury in this, provided all things work the way she desires.” Alaria shrugged her thin shoulders
and looked up at Inca. “You know from your own death spiral dance that things often do not go as planned. And many times, both parties die in the process.”

“I wish she had not taken the challenge against Faro,” Inca whispered. “I do not want to lose Maya.”

Alaria held up her hand. “Child, your sister knew what she was getting into when she promised revenge against Faro Valentino. Right now, she and her squadron of helicopters are working to free the Indians at those five other factories that Colonel Marcellino never got to in Brazil. Be at ease. She and her women warriors know what they’re doing. Maya is highly trained for military warfare. But more about that at another time. You need to trust your sister in the choices she’s made. And not worry so much.”

Roan squeezed Inca’s tense shoulders. “I think it’s only natural, Grandmother,” he murmured.

“Of course it is,” the elder replied as she moved up the path. “Come, it’s time for siesta. I know you’re both tired. You need to sleep and continue your own, individual healing processes.”

As they followed her out of the glade, Roan asked, “You said Maya is going to free the Indians at those other factories we had targeted?”

“Yes.” Alaria turned and stopped on the trail back to the village. “Colonel Marcellino was completely successful in his attack on the first compound. His men captured forty drug runners who worked with the Valentino Brothers. Sebastian was captured, too. They marched them back to the Amazon River, where Brazilian military helicopters took the company and the prisoners back to Brasilia. Of course, the colonel was worried about his young son, Ju
lian, so he called off the rest of the attack. And he didn’t have Inca to lead him or his men.”

“I see….” Roan murmured, relieved. At least one of the Valentino Brothers was out of commission.

“Does he know that Maya and her helicopter squadron are going to take over the assaults?”

“Of course not. In our business, Roan, we are like jaguars—you see us only when we
want
you to see us.” She smiled mischievously. “Maya is going to continue to clean up Inca’s territory for her. That way, Inca won’t have to worry about drug runners putting her people into bondage during the year she’s with us. By the time you’re both done with your education here, you’ll return to the Amazon to live out your lives. You’ll be caretakers of the basin, and of its people and relations. The difference is, this time you’ll have our help and intervention, when asked for. Previously, when Inca was banished, she had no support from us whatsoever.” Alaria eyed Inca. “Now it’s different, and I think the drug barons are going to find it much harder to carry on business as usual in Brazil.”

Roan moved down the path that led to the rainbow waterfalls, a small cloth in his right hand. The morning was beautiful, with cobbled apricot-colored clouds strewn like corn rows in the sky above. Inca had left much earlier to go down and wash her jaguar, Topazio, in the pool below the waterfalls. It was a particularly beautiful place, one of Roan’s personal favorites. As he stepped gingerly down the well-trodden path, away from the busy village, his heart expanded with anticipation. With hope.

He knew that time at the village was not really based upon twenty-four-hour days, as it was in the rest of the
world. Still, it had been three months, by his reckoning, since they’d arrived here. And today, he felt, was the day. Inca knew nothing of the surprise he had for her.

As he moved along the narrow, red clay path, he watched as a squadron of blue-yellow-and-white parrots winged above him. The lingering, honeyed fragrance of orchids filled the air. Early mornings were his favorite time because the air was pregnant with wonderful scents. What would Inca say? His heart skittered over the possibility that she’d turn him down. How could she? They had drawn even closer together over the months. And although it was a personal, daily hell for Roan, he patiently waited for Inca to ask him to love her fully. Completely. They had time, he told himself. But he had long waited for the day he could physically love her, fulfill her and please her in all ways.

More than once, Roan had talked to Grandmother Alaria about the situation, and she’d counseled time and patience.

“Don’t forget,” the elder would remonstrate, “that Inca was a wild, primal child without parental guidance or direction. She was loved and cared for by the priests and priestesses who raised her, but she never experienced love between a man and woman before you stepped into her life. Let her initiate. Let her curiosity overwhelm her hesitancy. I know it’s challenging for you, but you are older, and therefore responsible for your actions toward her. Wait, and her heart will open to you, I promise.”

Today was the day. Roan could feel it in his heart. His soul. As the path opened up and he left the ferns and bushes, he spotted Inca down at the pool. Her male jaguar was standing knee-deep in water and she was sluicing the
cooling liquid lazily across his back. Her laughter, deep and husky, melted into the musical sounds of the waterfall splashing behind them. Because of the sun’s angle, a rainbow formed and arced across the pool. Yes, Inca was his rainbow woman, and made his life deliriously happy.

“Roan!”

He smiled and halted at the edge of the water. “Hi. Looks like Topazio is getting a good washing.”

Laughing, Inca pushed several strands of damp hair behind her shoulder. “We have been playing.” She straightened and gestured to her wet clothes, which clung to her slender, straight form. “Can you tell?”

Roan grinned. Inca was dressed in an apricot-colored blouse and loose, white cotton slacks that revealed her golden skin beneath them. “Yes, I can. When you want to come out, I have something for you.”

Instantly, Inca’s brows lifted. “A gift? For me?” She was already turning and wading out of the clear depths of the pool.

Roan laughed heartily. “Yes, something just for you, sweetheart.” Inca had changed so much in the last three months. She was no longer guarded, with that hard, warrior like shield raised to protect herself. No, now she was part playful child, part sensuous woman and all his…he hoped.

As she hurried up the sandy bank, Roan gestured for her to join him on a flat, triangular rock. It was their favorite place to come and sit in one another’s arms, and talk for hours. Often they shared a lunch at the waterfall on this rock, as their guardians leaped and played in the water. Of course, her jaguar loved the water, and Roan’s
cougar did not; but she would run back and forth on the bank as the jaguar leaped and played in the shallows.

Breathing hard, Inca approached and sat down next to him. She spied a red cotton cloth in his hands. Reaching out, she said, “Is that for me?”

Chuckling, Roan avoided her outstretched hand and said, “Yes, it is. But first, you have to hear me out, okay?”

Pouting playfully, Inca caressed his recently shaved cheek. Because the weather was warm and humid, all he wore was a set of dark blue cotton slacks. He went barefoot, choosing to no longer wear sandals. His feet were becoming hard and callused. Sifting her fingers through the dark hair on his powerful chest, she teased, “Can I not open it first and then hear what you say?”

As he sat on the rock, his legs spread across it, Inca sat facing him, her legs draped casually across his. “No,” he chided playfully. He warded off her hand as she reached for the gift lying in his palm. “It’s not a speech, so be patient, my woman.”

A wonderful sense of love overwhelmed Inca as he called her “my woman.” It always did when that husky endearment rolled off his tongue. Sitting back, she folded her hands in her lap. “Very well. I will behave—for a little while.”

Smiling, he met and held her gaze. “I love that you are a big kid at heart. Don’t ever lose that precious quality, Inca. Anyway—” Roan cleared his throat nervously “—I’ve been thinking…for a long time, actually…that I want to complete what we share. With your permission.” He saw her eyes darken a little. His heart skittered in terror. “Among my people, when we love another person,
Inca, we give them a gift of something to show our love for them. In my nation, if we love someone, we want to make a home with them. We want to live with them—forever. And if it’s agreed on by both the man and the woman, children may follow.”

She tilted her head. “Yes?”

Fear choked him. Roan knew she could turn him down. “In the old days of my people, a warrior would bring horses to the family of the woman he loved. The more horses, the more he loved her. The horses were a gift to the family, to show the warrior’s intent of honoring the daughter he’d fallen in love with, wanted to marry and keep a home and family with for the rest of his life.”

“I see….” Inca murmured, feeling the seriousness of his words.

Clearing his throat again, Roan said, “I don’t have horses to give your parents, Inca. But if I could, I would. I have to shift to a white man’s way of asking for your hand in marriage.” He opened his fingers and gave her the neatly tied red cloth. “Open it,” he told her thickly. “It’s for you—a symbol of what I hope for between us….”

Roan held his breath as Inca gently set the cloth down between them and quickly untied it. As the folds fell away, they revealed a slender gold ring set with seven cabochon gemstones.

Gasping, Inca picked up the ring and marveled at it. “Oh, Roan, the stones are the color of my eyes!” She touched the ring with her fingertips, watching it sparkle in the sunlight. “It is beautiful!” She sent him a brilliant smile. “And this is a gift to me?”

“Yes.” He tried to steady his voice. He saw the sur
prise and pleasure in Inca’s expression, the way her lips curved in joy as she held up the ring. “It symbolizes our engagement to one another. An agreement that you will marry me…become my wife and I’ll be your husband….” His throat became choked. He saw Inca’s eyes flare as she cradled the ring in her palm.