by Andrea Jones
She’d imagined what his hands would do. She had not dreamt of his weapons. Now, truly, she felt like the vixen. Fear clouded her mind. No new scheme entered her thinking. The only ploy she could conceive was that of a creature, rushing, running. Her senses grew more acute; the predator’s tread juddered behind her. The sound of his breathing reached her, and the slap of fringe against his leggings. She smelled his scent. It was sharp, and excited— like her own.
Raven ran.
Gratified, White Bear saw Raven shy from the path. He had headed her off from the warren of caves. His arrow quivered, embedded in a tuft of grass. He didn’t slacken his pace as he bent to scoop it up. It felt hot in his hand. Guided by its maker, it had missed her cheek by a wing’s width, that fragile, woman’s cheek, unprotected by her brief yield of hair. Her shearing had annoyed him before, but now he appreciated it as a victim’s vulnerability.
As he raced with her, White Bear broke a grim smile. Exertion enhanced his vision. With the eyes of an eagle, he watched Raven’s body move, lithe, limber, hardly struggling in spite of her effort. Her brown legs worked supplely beneath her white dress. Slimmer than her sister’s, her hips held a graceful sway. Her neck looked exposed, appearing elegant under her odd crop of hair. Concentrating on this female as he had never done before, White Bear discovered that she grew in significance. Soon, she was more to him than just his wife’s sister. She became other than a handsome burden, and more than reward for protection. Now, newly, she was Raven. She was the goal of the warrior White Bear’s pursuit.
Through this physical challenge, White Bear gained mental insight. Gradually, he understood that the object of his pursuit was a worthy object. As Raven evaded her hunter, she became a greater prize. Her every bound made her more precious.
White Bear found himself committing to this ritual. As with any other creature, a pact governed the hunt. It connected its participants. The aims of huntsman and hunted diverged, but once the contest was over, its opponents must combine. A tradition was followed, with reverence for sacrifice. After he caught her, like a deer to be devoured, her flesh and his would be one. When engaged with a woman, the process amounted to a ceremony. Their two lives ran toward a purpose— they ran to unite.
And, now, in his body, White Bear knew something other than the anger that had set off this pursuit. He felt a spur of stimulation, a thrill beyond that of the chase. Suddenly, he was filled with desire, so strong that his body felt as vital and hard as a tree trunk. The air leaving and filling him served his lungs more efficiently, his legs lost the wobble of fatigue. White Bear was a tree, his element was the forest, and he moved like a master within it. There was no question he would catch her, in the end. He was strong as the oak that held up its arms, heavy with branches, centuries old. He was hardy as the acorn that dropped from its budding. He required fertile earth to receive his seed. Moved now by the urge of his lust, White Bear ran.
With his presence at her back, Raven searched her memory for a place of sanctuary. A second of White Bear’s arrows was sure to hit its mark. If she kept straight on, the woods would rise up and up, thinning as they climbed, until they vanished altogether, opening onto a mossy hillside. A slippery hillside, and an abrupt end— the cliff that hosted the waterfall. That cliff was too steep for a plunge in the water, even if the pool below were deep enough to catch her— and it was not. She must seek out a place to hide, before the uphill slope slowed her down, or her weariness.
The woman darted to the left, but White Bear was one with the woods that admitted her. Its growth here was thicker, the trees wider— oak, alder, and pale-skinned birch. His pulse surged as her white dress disappeared behind a tree trunk, then she leapt into sight again. Nearly stumbling on a knot of root, White Bear slowed to pry off his moccasins. The earth was moist beneath his feet, and giving. He gained traction, and quickly regained his speed. A jay screamed overhead, its lonely call piercing through the wood. The noise lodged in White Bear’s soul. He was that jay— raucous and urgent— calling to his female.
As the jay cried, Raven recalled the flash of feathers on the arrow that had buzzed past her cheek. Her bones ached now, her breath speared her chest. Afraid she might drop at any moment, she scanned the land ahead, seeking shelter. She became aware of the sun again, beating down upon her face; the wood was thinning. All around her, bright birch bark made her blink. These small, slender trees offered no protection. Raven sought an older one, a mother tree, whose broad base could shield her, could shadow her, until the hunter and his arrows passed her by.
As if in answer to her need, the tree appeared. Raven shot one last look behind her. The jay called again, but the birch blocked her pursuer from view. Raven fought the desire to keep running. Instead, she flung herself before the mother tree. Shoving her back flat against it, she opened her palms to press the chalky bark. It felt dry to her touch, fresh and calm. She took two panting breaths, then ceased breathing to listen. She counted. One…two— White Bear barreled into sight, his bow in his hand. Raven didn’t move, didn’t blink.
The sun dappled his copper shoulders. He was rushing through the birch grove— away from Raven. But the jay shrieked a third time. White Bear’s head jerked toward the sound, to the side, and his long lock of hair whipped with it. He stopped. Frozen in midstride, he listened. Raven heard his heavy breaths. She fought to stop her own. With her heart in her throat, she allowed only the thinnest passage of air to enter her nostrils. She kept her mouth closed, her eyes open. She wished a breeze would rise to rustle the leaves, to mask the throb of her body. But the wood between prey and predator stood motionless. The blue jay flapped to its nest.
White Bear held still, an oak among birches. Only his head moved, as he read the grass for signs, then searched every shadow.
Raven was grateful for the camouflage of her white tunic, the brevity of her dark hair. If only he would turn to look to the right, she could slip to the other side of her tree. She thought of kicking a twig, to make a noise that would send him hurtling the wrong direction. But any movement would catch his eye. She watched instead, as his gaze scanned the trees, closer and closer to her own. Her blood pounded at her temples. She knew what he must do, if he spied her.
When he spied her, for she held no doubt now. White Bear was too skilled a tracker. The trail was dead; he wouldn’t move on. Raven’s impulse hovered between fight and flight. But she couldn’t run any more. Even a doe reached her breaking point. Raven understood: she waited now at the end of her path.
But to fight? How? With what weapon? In the past she used the defense of avoidance. She had eluded White Bear, turned away from him. But always, in the past, Willow was near. No kind of confrontation could take place before his wife. Raven realized, with a plunge of her stomach, that she had been wrong to run. Better to have remained at the Clearing, where Lily and the others were watching. But Captain Cecco stood there too, and his recognition of Raven was obvious. At that instant, diverting White Bear from Cecco had seemed the right thing to do. And, at that time, Raven believed she could outrun anyone. Running was her shield. For the first time, it failed her. White Bear used it better.
Submission, then, was her recourse. If Raven played along, she might placate White Bear’s pride. If she promised to come with him, to do as he demanded, would he be pacified? Yet he had seen her seem obedient many times in the past. How could acquiescence now appease him? Seeing him crouching, his body poised to pounce, Raven doubted if any word or any gesture, save one, could satisfy him today. She had run, and she had run out of options.
After so many moons, her fight was finished.
As she reached this realization, her head drooped, her eyes closed. No escape remained open. At last, Raven’s spirit released its stubborn hold. When, finally, she looked at her feet, she saw that they were bleeding.
White Bear’s feet bled, too. Raven’s tired eyes opened a little wider. He had abandoned his moccasins. Willow’s moccasins! Where had he left them? She raised her face to see he
r sister’s husband, and his gray gaze lay upon her, pinning her to her tree. His eyes were hard as ever, and triumphant. As his black-striped face gained a lordliness, he straightened. Slowly, he set the arrow to his bow. He raised his weapon. He dragged back the bowstring. Angling his head, White Bear drew a bead, his eyes intense, lining up along his arrow shaft.
He growled at her, “Make no move.”
Raven saw the glint of his eye, the edge of his arrowhead. She pressed against her tree. She inhaled one final breath.
White Bear pulled the bowstring back, another inch. Sure of his aim, he lifted his head, to observe her. As if pegged to the tree, Raven watched. His fingers opened, slowly, delicately, like a flower coming into bloom. The air parted as the arrow cut through it. It made a sharp sound, like wind ripped in half. Then, ages later, came the thwack of bark at her ear, and the spray of wood chips hitting her cheek. White Bear stood before her, his bow still raised, his chest puffed with pride…and a firm, erect staff beneath his breechclout. Raven knew what he was doing to her— now.
He dropped his bow. He shrugged off his quiver and lowered it, deliberately, to the earth. He divested himself of his broad hunting knife, and his eyes never left her.
Raven felt surprise to be still alive. She felt too much alive. She was too much a part of her world, and that world gaped open to White Bear. Tearing her hand from the tree, she seized the arrow. She yanked it from the bark and clutched it like a knife. In a long-denied declaration, she worked her throat in ululation. The resonance of her cry rang through the wood, jeering and jubilant all at once. And then she ran again. But this time, it was White Bear who was surprised because, this time, she did not run away.
Raven ran right at him.
White Bear stared in astonishment. He took one step back. He hunched over, his arms bowed, his hands open to catch her, bending and bracing for the blow. Raven rushed at her hunter, covering the distance in only moments.
She leapt. He dashed the arrow from her fingers. Their bodies slammed together, and her legs locked about his hips. White Bear caught her in the branches of his arms. The impact forced him backward, stumbling, and although her momentum sent him spinning, he held her secure.
He had prepared himself for the force, and he compensated, rocking as he rounded. What he did not anticipate was her next attack. The moment she was in his grasp, Raven launched herself at him again. She seized his head in her hands and, snarling, she crushed his lips with her own.
Hugging her to his body, White Bear didn’t try to protect himself. His mouth pressed against her aggression; he returned her embrace. They both tasted blood before he recovered command, taking her lips in with his to shove his tongue in her teeth.
Like a cornered vixen, she was feral, and she was brazen. At her core, a ferocious joy erupted, and, as she had expected— as she had dreaded— White Bear matched her. A potent emotion, too long untapped, pervaded her senses. Raven let it run.
White Bear carried her toward Mother Birch. He pressed Raven’s back to the bark, a living wall, and used the tree to support her. Inflamed by the chase, he had craved Raven. Now, goaded by her hostility, he was just as rough as she. He jerked her skirt up. Beneath it, her skin was heated, and damp from exertion. He scented the musk of her eagerness. Baring her hips, too, he laid his hands there. She dropped her belt, then pulled her tunic over her head to discard it. He felt her tugging at his breechclout next, loosening it to free his vitals to the air, as he had done for her. They stood naked among the white trees of this woodland, primed to combine her flesh and his into one.
But every impulse of this brave lay grounded in tradition. Under Mother Birch, the hunter White Bear ceded to custom. Symbolically, his arrow had lodged in her heart. Acknowledged in his conquest, still he delayed his indulgence. Gazing in her eyes, he murmured, reverently, “Spirit of the Woodland, I honor your sacrifice.” The contest was over, proper homage was paid, and, here at the end, opponents must now unite. He leaned closer to claim her.
This act of respect touched Raven’s heart. It resonated more deeply than the feeling she had veiled until now. Tears burned in her eyes, and, in a final deed of agreement, she pressed a kiss on his throat, just above the white ring of bear claws. At last, she tasted the skin of the warrior White Bear, the brave she admired, the man she desired. At the touch of her lips, the quest began again but, this time, its participants were both of one mind, and both of one spirit.
And Raven was eager to proceed. With her legs she held tightly to the sinews of his thighs, which pulsed with strength between hers. This man before her was one who fought for what he loved, and the scars on his ribs stood as testimony. She brushed them with her fingertips, felt the rough within smooth of his skin. As, at last, she allowed the indulgence of touching him, she accepted him wholly, as a man, and as a lover. She was impatient, now, for this rite that she’d so long evaded. She took the weight of his branch in her hand, while her woman-place ached to admit him. As his grip tensed on her hips, she denied him no longer. Setting the head of his manhood to the entrance of her womb, she gripped his arm and rose to it, and she gasped as he drove deep within her.
Foxlike, her frenzy pounced again, and it snapped at him, too, and he shoved her up against the birch. Pressed between the rigidity of the tree and the tension of his chest, Raven’s soft body yielded. With each savage stab, the breath chuffed from her lungs, and like claws her nails snatched his skin, and she baited him, and she loved him, and their senses scaled the height of the sky while their bodies moved, brutish, below it, in the shade and the shelter of a tree. Like creatures coupling in season, at the end of their race they were panting, rutting, and sore.
When they stopped to breathe, he leaned his forehead on the smooth, cool bark of the birch. He pressed his lips to her neck. Again, he thought how gracefully this neck held her head, and how the shearing of her hair left her vulnerable to his touch. Her hands stroked his back, and her shoulder rose to cradle his face to her chin. The beat of her heart— his heart— vibrated against his chest. Gradually, the sounds of the woodland returned to him, the whirr of grasshoppers; a chatter of squirrels. His remembered that his feet hurt, and he looked down to see blood on her toes.
He gathered her in his arms again, and turned his back to receive the birch tree’s support. He slid down, easing to sit at its root. With a handful of moss, he dabbed her wounds, and cleaned them. She winced, but he found only small cuts, like his. He mopped the blood from his own feet, too, and when he looked up, her black eyes shone with a wild light again, and his mind turned alert as before, with a warning. He remembered how many times she had dodged him. Wary that she might turn tail to run, he shot out his hand to grasp her ankle.
At the heat of his touch, she felt a thrill of belonging. It was the satisfaction for which she had longed, and which she had wished to avoid, knowing that she must soon reject it. For the moment, though, her throat purled with pleasure. Kneeling over him, she straddled his lap, and set her knees on the soft, yielding earth. Now his hands gripped her face, and, demanding, he kissed her. She joined in eagerly, reaching down to feel his male strength rebounding, and she led him to enter her valley again.
Raven grasped the tree’s trunk, as solid as her brave, and its vital aliveness sent a charge up her arms and into her being. She settled upon him. Then, slowly, she raised up, and now let herself down. This time, she didn’t hurry, and, with his hands on her waist and his lips brushing her breasts, the passion budded and blossomed. A rumble rolled deep in his chest, and, more leisurely this time but just as intense, bliss burst through the bodies of Raven and White Bear, to surge through their hearts once again. In a flash of white and turquoise feathers, the jaybird rose from its nest to call down at them, circling over the lovers. A single blue plume whirled as it fell to the ground.
Exhausted, Raven collapsed in White Bear’s arms. He laid her with care on the grass, and he stretched out beside her. As he let her rest, he saw in the gentle light that filtered through t
he birch leaves what he’d never noticed before: small beads of perspiration above her lip, the shell-like shape of her ear. Her form was comely and capable, yet some tension seemed to warn of an independent nature. Still, he found peace on her features this afternoon, a contentment invisible before, not just to White Bear, but to all the tribe, since the day his friend Ash left her widowed. White Bear was a practical man, a man toughened by experience, yet the signs of his effect upon Raven caused his spirit to stir, not with pride, but with humility. To hold such a woman was honor.
When her eyes opened to behold him, White Bear rolled above her. She embraced him, welcoming the weight of his body and the earthen bed that supported them. She felt the possessiveness of his hands on her shoulders, and the coarseness of his lone, long lock as it lay across her throat, just as she had imagined. She memorized these feelings, knowing she must indulge them again only in remembrance.
Harmonious as the moment might be, the two halves of this couple still strove at cross purposes. As if to contradict her thoughts, White Bear said, “Now that I have caught you, I do not want to let you loose to flee again.” He frowned with the expression Raven had grown used to viewing on his noble face, and asked, “All these moons. All those nights. Why did you turn from me?”
She looked past him, up, into the green, leafy branches etched against a bird’s-egg-blue sky. Now that she had risen in his esteem, now that tenderness warmed his tone, she was unsure how to disappoint him. She was unwilling to cause him hurt, for Raven knew a true test of love: causing pain to a cherished one hurt herself even more. She felt that, in answering his question, her voice would be too heavy. She uttered only, “White Bear.”
