Chapter 20 #2
Hawk took a bite from his own stew bowl. Skylar really was an excellent cook, the stew was very good, but…
Hot. Burning. There was enough pepper in it to season half the buffalo kill in the West.
Crazy Horse was wheezing. He Dog was coughing. Even Sloan was choking. Hawk grabbed his own brandy—guzzling it. He set his stew bowl down and rose, staring at Skylar.
She stared back blankly. With complete innocence.
He excused himself to his company striding toward the back of the tipi where she was standing.
His mouth, his throat, his eyes, nose, and body all still seemed to be burning from the pepper.
None of his guests said a word, of course.
Crazy Horse was being courteous, assuming Hawk’s wife could do no better.
“Lady Douglas,” Hawk said, keeping his voice low so that he could not be heard by those among his company who understood English.
He opened his mouth to continue. He was afraid to talk, afraid to move, so furious that he was afraid he would hurt her.
He reached to the ground, picking up a large skin gourd and shoving it into her hands.
“Water!” he ground out.
Her brows shot up. “What is the matter with you? I’ve done everything—”
“In the world to humiliate me. Get water, now!”
Her lips pursed, her eyes burned silver. She started to shove the gourd back. “Get your own damned water—” she began.
But never finished. He caught her wrist, twisting it around with such speed and determination that he had forcefully pressed her before him and was on his way out of the tipi with her.
He excused himself to his guests, explaining that his wife wasn’t as familiar with the use of her Mayfair seasonings in different surroundings as she was at her customary home.
“This time, Lord-Wretched-Manhandling-Douglas, I have had it!” she cried out, still propelled forward as they left the tipi.
She cried out, swearing at him, as his rush toward the river caused him to press harder upon her arm.
“I spent the entire day trying to entertain squaws who spoke no English, I welcomed one of your ex-mistresses into the tipi—since it seems you and Sloan apparently never minded sharing before. I worked the entire day and now—”
“You worked the entire day!” he exploded, shoving her forward and free from his grasp. “You plotted the entire day, is what you did!”
They’d come to the same alcove in the trees by the river where Sloan had been with Earth Woman that day. Night had brought a definite chill to the air, and Skylar was shivering. “Plotted! I beat the meat, seasoned it—”
“Enough to kill a herd of buffalo!”
“I did not!” she snapped back indignantly.
“You almost ended the entire Sioux problem all by yourself, choking to death half the leaders of the resistance!”
“I did not!” she repeated, appalled, her indignation growing, along with her tremors.
“I hope you’re freezing,” he told her, “Because I’d like to shake you until every bone in your body rattles, slap your perfect little derriere. String you up—”
“Me!” she shrieked, suddenly approaching him. “You ungrateful, swaggering egotist! How dare you!”
She came before him. Directly before him. She suddenly slammed both fists against his naked chest with a power that hurt.
“You get your own damned water and kiss your own damned butt! I’ve had it!”
She slammed her fists against him again and turned imperiously on her heels to walk off.
Incredulous, he watched her for a moment.
Then it seemed that his fury ignited, sending him tearing after her, not knowing what he was doing, but damned determined she wasn’t going to just walk away.
He caught her by the hair. She shrieked.
He grabbed hold of her shoulders, spinning her around.
He was down upon a knee, not really intending to drag her over it, but she tripped and fell there and was shrieking like a wild cat before he made a conscious move.
“Don’t you dare, don’t you dare—” she cried.
He dared. Her doeskin dress had been dragged up her body. His hand fell upon naked flesh.
She bit his knee.
To free himself of her teeth he shoved her down to the ground, then pounced hard upon her.
She was inhaling and exhaling in a rapid fury, her eyes silver daggers, her fingers clawing at him.
He caught her hands, then found himself staring at her, realizing in dismay that he wasn’t just furious, he was aroused. More than aroused. He was in agony.
“Bastard!” she hissed. Yet her fingers unclenched. She was reaching for him still, touching his shoulders, fingers digging into them, but not to draw blood. Tears stung her eyes. She brushed them away. His lips fell upon hers, and she responded wildly, her mouth crushing his in return.
Their lips parted. “I’m going to kill you,” she promised him.
“Only when I finish with you,” he responded.
“You’ll be on your knees to apologize,” she told him. Her hands moved over his throat, his chest, hungrily. Her hands. Oh, God. Fingers running up his thighs. Beneath the breechclout. Stroking, rubbing, caressing…
He caught her hands. Pressed her back hard into the earth.
The stars above them danced madly in the heavens.
She thrashed, undulated, strained against him.
The stars erupted. He climaxed in a wave of passion, need, fury, and confusion, crushing her against him and feeling the same response within her as she jerked with each little after-climax that seized her body, bringing them both back down to the dirt on the forest floor in the cool night by the river.
She stared up at him, her eyes misted. He felt like an ass. A fool. Still angry, and yet…
He heard a rustling behind him. Close.
Damn her! He should have heard it before!
With lightning-quick reflexes, he instinctively leaped to his feet, drawing her dress down the length of her body as he did so. He felt her halfway rising behind him as he swiftly scanned the brush and the night-shadows surrounding them.
She inhaled sharply, looking past his shoulder. He turned to her quickly, just as she began to scream out a warning. It was too late. Even as she cried out, the end of a war club struck him at the back of his head, and he knew no more.
Her scream was abruptly cut short as suffocating fingers clamped over her nose and mouth.
Skylar had seen that the brave coming out of the darkness wasn’t alone.
The other came from behind her. She struggled insanely, trying to free herself, trying to see Hawk.
Darkness and shadows seemed to be closing in around her.
Her attackers didn’t seem to care in the least that they might suffocate her.
The world was spinning, turning black, stars were dotting the blackness…
No! She couldn’t lose her senses. Hawk!
She twisted. Saw her husband’s body, fallen on the earth. She bit into the fingers pressing so brutally against her mouth. The grip upon her slipped. She let out a long, shrill scream.
Another hand clamped down upon her, more brutal, more punishing. She was vaguely aware of the face atop hers. Dark-eyed, dark-skinned, a scar running atop the forehead. “Another sound, I slit your throat.”
English. He was speaking English. He looked like a Crow. Or did he? Something about him was subtly different. She hadn’t been here long enough to learn the different ways of dress and manner and adornment between the tribes.
The fellow holding her so tightly dragged her to her feet.
She threw an elbow back into his ribs with all the force within her.
He gasped. For an instant, he released his hold.
She flew forward, trying to reach Hawk. She nearly touched him but was drawn back before she could do so, drawn back by a hand around her throat.
Yet even as she gasped and choked, seeing stars again, she thought that she saw Hawk’s chest move. She thought that he breathed.
Someone snapped out an order in an Indian language. Not Sioux! she thought. Not Sioux.
She was dragged back, unable to breathe. She saw stars. She heard the man whisper in English again. “A sound, and I take my knife where my arm wraps around your throat. I slice the vein where I see it pulsing now. Watch the blood flow down your breast…”
She was certain they meant to kill her anyway—but they weren’t taking chances on her now. There were a number of men, how many, she wasn’t sure. Four…five…six.
The man’s left hand slipped from her throat as they reached his horse. He kept his right pinned firmly over her mouth. Another man was there to help him get her quickly up on his horse. Within seconds, they were racing away from the camp.
They slowed after twenty minutes of nearly breakneck speed. One of the other men came up by them as they rode. She didn’t understand his words, but she saw his movements and realized the fellow was saying that she needed to be tied. The other disagreed, looking back.
They were in a hurry. A desperate hurry. As well they should be. When someone within the camp realized that Hawk had been attacked, that she…
Oh, God, would anyone come after her? Any of the men who assumed that she had peppered their meals to humiliate her husband? And if Hawk lay dead, did any of it matter? Would she ever be rid of the terrible pain in her heart?
The Sioux warriors would come, she thought. They would come because they were warriors, because they were proud, because they wouldn’t let such an insult go unavenged. They would come because…
They had to!
Oh, God, they had to. This could not happen. Not now. She was desperate to live if Hawk lived. If they had killed Hawk, then…
She didn’t dare think.
She abhorred the smell of the man holding her so cruelly as they rode. She despised the sound of his voice, the look in his eyes. He meant to kill her, she was convinced. Somehow, she knew these men were…evil.
Monsters.