The Soul Survivors Series Boxed Set

by Vella Munn

  Despite the occasional fire now far to his left, he was aware of a bone-deep stillness, a kind of peace that defied all logic. Maybe the peace came from somewhere in the past—from that place where her people had begun and in some indefinable way still existed.

  He didn't believe in ghosts, laughed at the notion of going on spirit quests or giving human form and meaning to mountains, lakes, and prairies. Shamen were a joke. So was praying to one's ancestors and leaving gifts to appease something no one had ever seen. He'd believed that—until he watched an eagle greet a slightly built young Modoc woman.

  Now he didn't know.

  From sound and sight, he guessed himself to be a good quarter of a mile from where Modocs and soldiers sporadically fired at each other. Why he'd come here he couldn't say. But it felt right, felt a little like coming home.

  Home? Home had been rich earth and hot, humid summers, parents who loved the boy he'd once been, horses to ride and care for, devotion to the land and what it could produce. Digging one's fingers deep into warm soil and feeling a part of the land.

  That it had been before soldiers and politicians and an insanity called the Civil War had taken it all away from him. Now home was hard and inhospitable rock thrust centuries ago from deep within the earth.

  Where he'd met a woman.

  "Luash." He had no memory of having decided to speak aloud. Surely if staying alive meant anything to him, he would have remained silent. But he hadn't—maybe because he'd known he wasn't alone. "Luash?"

  "Jed."

  The sound, soft as eagle down, strong as a winter north wind, floated to him and wrapped itself around him. He found himself breathing deeply and then not being able to breathe at all. "Are you alone?" he finally asked.

  "Yes. I felt you coming."

  That was impossible, of course. If he'd been able to avoid armed and watchful braves, how could she know he was here? Still, hadn't he sensed something? When she slipped out from behind a massive bush, she looked more animal than human, a shy and wary creature clad in a shapeless garment that barely touched her knees and was in danger of sliding off one slender shoulder.

  Luash felt naked under Jed Britton's stare. He stood, exposed to any watching warriors. Maybe his life still meant next to nothing to him; maybe he trusted her this much.

  She came a few steps closer, then stopped. The moon wasn't bright enough to show her what lay in his eyes, but she'd seen enough to believe his wound bothered him little if at all.

  "I saw the killing at the peace tent," she whispered.

  "I wondered if you did," was all he said. When she explained that she'd insisted on going along but that her uncle and Cho-Cho had ordered her to remain hidden, he nodded but still didn't speak. "When you were hit, I tried to run to you. They stopped me," she finished.

  "I heard a woman scream. I didn't know if it was you or Toby."

  "Kaitchkana, not Toby. Maybe we both screamed," she said. The stars were like the sun on frozen snow, glittering and sparkling, cold and yet somehow warm. She longed to see their color reflected in his eyes, tried not to ask herself if she would ever look at him in the daylight again.

  "You didn't sound surprised to see me tonight."

  "No," she admitted, then told him about the feather Eagle had left behind as proof that he'd survived the attack. "What about Meacham?" she asked. "Ha-kar-Jim said he maybe was still alive."

  "He's going to recover, no thanks to—it's the end for the Modocs, Luash. Can't you see that?"

  She stepped toward him, wondering if she really could feel his warmth or just imagined it, and held out her hands. "Maybe you will capture one tonight. Take me back to the others so you can boast of your courage."

  "Damnation."

  "What?"

  "I didn't come out here to fight with you."

  She wanted to shake her head but it seemed like too much effort. Fighting tears she didn't understand, she measured the distance that still separated them. Tonight the wind tasted and smelled of spring, felt like freedom. Only she didn't want to spread her arms and wait for the wind to lift her into the sky.

  What she wanted was looking back at her.

  Chapter 15

  He wasn't a handsome man. There was too much age and reality in his eyes. His flesh had been hardened by a lifetime of wind and cold and heat and work. The muscles that made it possible for him to survive in an unforgiving land sometimes frightened her, always fascinated her.

  Tonight she felt herself being drawn to those muscles like a thirsty deer in search of what she needed to maintain life. Arms hanging limp by her side, a single, short dress the only thing covering her body, she stepped closer to this man she should have hated and feared. This man who'd called to her and somehow brought her to his side.

  "Am I safe?" he asked.

  "Yes," she told him over the sound of distant fire that echoed like faint sounds from another world. "No one will think that an army man would come out here."

  "Except you. I started walking; I had no idea where I was going, just that I had to get away."

  "I know." Now she was close enough that there was no way she couldn't feel the contrast between his body's heat and the cool brought to her by the night breeze. She wanted to point out the stars and moon to him, ask if he'd seen them reflected in the lake. But if she did, she might also tell him that his soldiers were keeping her people from what had always sustained them and this pocket of quiet they'd found would shatter.

  "You're sure no one followed you?"

  "I am sure. You can trust me in this."

  When he grunted, she didn't know whether he was agreeing with her or warning her that he would question everything she said. She couldn't change his mind and heart any more than she could change her own; surely he knew that. "I can see the streak in your hair," he said after a long, long silence. "Just make it out."

  When she lifted her hand to run it over her temple, he took her wrist and drew her to him. She thought he was smiling, but it might have only been because she needed to see that gesture.

  "You're an incredible woman, Luash. Unlike any I've ever known."

  "Incredible?"

  "Brave and intelligent."

  "You did not expect an Indian woman to have courage or know more than how to keep food in her belly?"

  When he stiffened, she knew she'd spoken the truth. She wanted to tell him she didn't hate him for his beliefs, that she was glad she'd been the one to show him what it meant to be Indian, but words were for another time. They had only tonight and his body calling to hers in a way she'd never experienced or imagined before and yet understood as well as she understood the need to breathe. He was standing on higher land, which forced her to arch her body back slightly in order to look into the eyes that had been part of her since the first time she'd seen them.

  "We are strangers," she whispered, "and yet not strangers. I wish it could be like this for the others."

  "That isn't going to happen."

  She knew that. Still, for a moment she wanted to throw his words back at him. Then, because he was now touching the back of his hand to her cheek, she no longer cared about anything except him.

  Tonight.

  The woman energy inside her that had brought her here.

  "I want to run," she admitted. "I want to stay. When I look at you, even when I simply think of you, I no longer know myself."

  "You know who you are; that'll never change."

  But she was changing. She had never truly been alone because her family and people had always been around her, all dependent on each other, and yet there'd always been a small part of her that ached for something—that needed something.

  Now she was beginning to understand what that was.

  "Are you afraid of me?" he asked.

  "Afraid?"

  "Not because I'm a soldier, but because I'm a man."

  What she felt had nothing and yet everything to do with fear. Whe-cha and the other married women sometimes spoke of what took place when they w
ere with their husbands at night. She'd listened, half sick because of what had happened to her mother, half fascinated by the glitter in the women's eyes and note of excitement in their voices. When there was love, something took place between a man and a woman. Something she didn't understand—and yet did.

  From the first moment she'd seen Jed, her body had whispered of need and hunger.

  "I think of you and I want what I have no words for," she admitted. "I should understand this thing; it is spoken of honestly among my people. But when I see an army man take a Modoc or Klamath woman without tenderness or love..."

  He ran his hands up her arms, igniting a flame wherever he touched. "I can't promise you love, Luash. But tenderness—"

  "No. Not love," she said too quickly. "We are too different, our worlds not the same."

  "No. Not the same at all." He spoke just as rapidly. "I want you Luash, the way a man wants a woman. I need you to understand that because if you don't feel the same, I'm going to have to walk away right now."

  A cannon boomed, the sound echoing endlessly—part of the night. "Don't leave. Please."

  "You're sure?" he whispered, the gentle question first swirling around her and then seeping in through her skin to touch her heart.

  She couldn't speak, didn't know if she had any thoughts beyond his presence. With his hands settled heavy and strong on her shoulder, she again looked up. In the distance another mortar shot sounded. When that faded away, she caught the wind's faint song and then the whisper of ducks calling to each other on the lake her people could no longer reach. She licked her lips, aware not of how little she'd had to drink today because the children needed the precious remaining drops more than she did, but of how incredibly powerful another need could be.

  He must know what she was feeling. Otherwise, why would he cup her chin to hold it steady and then cover her lips with his own? She wanted to ask him how many times he'd done this with other women, who they were, whether he ever thought of them. Then his warmth, his life and energy began a journey through her body, and she knew nothing beyond this moment. Cared about nothing except him.

  Shaking a little, she wrapped her arms around his neck and rose onto her toes so the embrace couldn't be broken. She felt her hips pressing, pressing against him, her breasts tingling and growing heavy. Sheltered by the night, she lost herself in both it and him. Later she would face what was happening. Now—now it was time....

  His breathing quickened. She tried to concentrate on that, but her own was doing the same thing, and it was all she could do not to cry out. He held her tightly, firmly, as if he would never let her go, yet she felt no fear. Instead, a song began in her, drumbeats of emotion and desire, heat deep inside her belly growing and building until she felt all but consumed by it. She breathed through flared nostrils as his own hot, quick breath heated her flesh.

  Their kiss hadn't slackened, had grown even more urgent. His hands roamed her body, becoming more and more intimate. When she felt them on her hips, she stiffened, then surrendered to a storm-wave of sensation that left her gasping. The heat that had invaded her belly and even deeper, where her womanness was centered, felt like a raging forest fire now, out of control, fascinating in its power.

  Barely aware of what she was doing, she tore at the cloth around his throat. It resisted, then gave way with a ripping sound that both excited and embarrassed her. She needed his wisdom in this, needed him to tell her what was happening to her, but before she could think how to ask her question, he pulled her dress up over her thighs and flattened his palms against her naked flesh.

  She gasped, half sobbed, tore her mouth free only to fasten it over the side of his neck where a vein pulsed. His fingers were both gentle and rough, exploring and commanding, hot—so incredibly hot. A whimper came from her throat and she thought, briefly, of a frightened child seeking reassurance.

  She had no control over what was happening to her and didn't care.

  With her tongue, she explored that vein in Jed's neck, taking strength from his strength. When he clamped his fingers tight over her hips, searing her wherever he touched, she knew he felt as gloriously trapped by emotion as she did.

  "I think of you," she whimpered as his fingertips began an exploration of her belly that reminded her of the energy she felt when lightning from winter storms shattered the sky. "No matter what I am doing, you are there, half hidden, making it impossible for me to concentrate on anything else."

  He clamped his hands around her bare waist and pulled her against him again. She felt his powerful maleness. "Tell me about your thoughts," he said. "Please."

  "I do not understand them."

  "Don't you?" The question was a challenge. He pushed her away from him and yanked the shirt over her head at the same time. The cool breeze lapped at her exposed flesh, but although the moon revealed a great deal, she wasn't embarrassed. Jed, a man who'd twice nearly lost his life to Indians, had come to her and she wanted him. Needed him.

  "There are no words for what I feel, Jed. Only—only wanting."

  "You're sure?"

  "Sure?"

  "That you're ready for this. Because I'm damn near the point of not being able to stop."

  For a heartbeat, raw terror coursed through her. Then it became something else that demanded she press her naked breasts against him and grip him with all the strength in her. He answered in his own wordless way by flattening his hands against the small of her back. She felt sealed to him. His hands were everywhere, touching hips and thighs, back and shoulder, always keeping her against him. Her body had begun a restless dance she couldn't think how to control or contain. Crushed against him, she realized how completely their bodies spoke to each other. He was energy, hot and urgent; she felt the same. The hunger inside her was incredible.

  It took little effort to pull his shirt off him, but when her fingers fumbled with his belt, he finished what she'd begun. She waited with no more patience than a starving animal, fed herself on the sight of his naked flesh.

  He helped by taking her hand and placing it around him. He gasped and shuddered when she closed her fingers over him; she did the same when he cupped his hands over her too hot, too heavy breasts. When he leaned forward, at first she didn't understand what he was going to do, but then he took a breast deep into his mouth and it felt right.

  Another distant shot echoed through her. She fought off the message that came with it, felt him embrace her as gently as if she was a small child and knew he understood. "We can't stop what's happening," he whispered.

  "What are we, Jed?" There was desperation in her voice. "Tell me. What are we to each other?"

  "I don't know." The words sounded as if they'd been ripped from him. He shuddered, or maybe the movement came from her. "That's the hell of it, Luash. I don't know what we're doing here tonight."

  She didn't either, but couldn't tell him that because the ability to speak, which had been slipping away from her, disappeared completely now. Once again he took claim of a breast, pushing up from the underside until it jutted toward him. He held her in place while he lapped his tongue over a hard nub. Half sobbing, she threw her head back and tried to breathe. Her hands were on his chest now, absorbing his hard muscles and the whisper-warm flesh she'd never seen before. Feeling somehow responsible for the half-healed wound on his side, she tried to cup her palm around the angry intrusion.

  "Don't," he ordered. "We can't hide what happened; neither of us can."

  She suddenly, angrily wanted to tell him that what his people had done to hers was far worse than this bullet-made slash. But if she said a word, tonight would be ruined.

  And she didn't want that, couldn't stand the thought of spending the rest of her life without knowing his body.

  She should, she tried to tell herself, ask him what emotions had raged through him as he lay on the ground wondering when a Modoc warrior would finish the job he'd begun. But she needed him to think of her tonight, only her.

  She wanted neither of them to have a
past or to think about the future.

  "It's been a long time for me, Luash. I don't know if you understand what that means but—"

  "I am not a child, Jed," she told him with her hands still against his chest and his hands resting on her hips. "Where I live there is little privacy. And my mother—my mother kept few secrets from me."

  He muttered something she didn't understand, would have had to ask him to explain if she hadn't found the truth in his suddenly rigid body. "Did you want me to remain a child, Jed? I know what my mother was forced to do; that is why I had to leave my father."

  "It's not going to be like that for us. If you don't believe—"

  "I do," she reassured him even though her body now trembled in anticipation and fear. "I want... you."

  "It's insane. This is insane." His whisper had taken on a harsh quality as if he hated himself, maybe hated her as well. "We shouldn't be together."

  "Do you want me to leave?"

  "Damnit, you know the answer to that."

  When she said nothing, he pulled her even tighter against him. What made him male pressed against her, challenging her. She should be with her people, listening as her uncle and Cho-Cho talked about whether Cho-ocks's medicine would truly keep them safe, whether the red rope that surrounded their home would repel the enemy.

  But if safety mattered to her, she wouldn't be here.

  Maybe she was like the birds that got drunk on manzanita berries. Only no sickly sweet berries were responsible for the way she felt. Jed was.

  Unaware of anything except him, she tried to force herself to concentrate on a gentle exploration of his chin, chest, arms, and legs. But just touching the powerful muscles of his upper arms made her feel as if she'd placed her hand on a rushing river. The current pulled her along, tossed its energy around her, entreated her to explore its strength.

  Surrendering, she could do little more than try to breathe while her body burned as hot as a newly lit fire. Each breath seared her lungs and sent need racing through her veins. When Jed spread his fingers over her belly, she sucked in cold air and waited, trembling like a doe caught in a cougar's gaze.