“T-thank you,” Roan said, his voice sounding like sandpaper.
Alaria nodded, folded her thin hands and moved serenely out of the roomy thatched hut. Outside, thunder caromed in the distance, and he saw an arc of lightning brighten the turbulent blue-and-black sky. It was going to rain shortly. The beam of sunlight that had blinded him earlier was gone, snuffed out by the approaching cumulus clouds, which were dark and pregnant with water.
Turning his attention to Inca, Roan moved his trembling fingers along her right arm. She wasn’t dead. She was alive. Her flesh was warm, not cool and deathlike as before. Dizziness assailed him once more, and he shut his eyes tightly and clung to her hand. He still felt fragmented. He felt as if pieces of him were still spinning wildly here and there in space. It was an uncomfortable sensation, one he’d never experienced before.
Opening his eyes, Roan studied Inca’s soft, peaceful features. Her lips, once chapped, were now softly parted and had regained their natural pomegranate color. Her hair was combed and free flowing, an ebony halo about her head and shoulders. And his medicine piece now lay around her neck, resting on her fine, thin collarbones. The last thing he remembered was placing the amulet between their hands—a last gift, a prayer for her, for her life. Someone must have put the necklace back in place around Inca’s neck, but he didn’t know who had done it. Roan gently touched the opalescent blue stone which felt warm and looked as if it was glowing.
So much had happened. Roan couldn’t explain any of it. One moment he was in the hospital room in Manaus, following Maya’s orders to save Inca’s life. And the next, it felt as if fifty thousand volts of lightning had struck him squarely. Roan remembered spinning down into a dark abyss, but that was all. And then he’d groggily regained consciousness here, in this hut.
Frowning, he felt a wave of emotion. Inca was here with him. He loved her. His heart swelled fiercely with such feeling that tears automatically wet his lashes. Not caring if anyone saw him cry, Roan didn’t try to stop the tears that were now moving down his unshaved face.
“Come back, sweetheart. They said you would live….” he rasped thickly, as he moved his fingers up her arm in a comforting motion. She should have had needle imprints and a little bruising around where the IVs had been placed in her arms, but there was no sign of them on her beautiful, soft flesh. And when he examined the back of her head, the wound was gone. Gone! Her skull bone no longer protruded. There was no tissue swelling. It was as if the injury had never occurred.
How could this be? Roan couldn’t stop touching Inca. His heart was wide-open and pounding with anguish one second, giddy with joy the next. Her skin was warm and firm. Her thick, black lashes rested across her golden, high cheekbones. Moving his fingers through her lush, silky hair, he marveled at her wild, untamed beauty.
The rain began, pelting softly at first on the thatched roof. Lightning shattered across the area and illuminated the rain forest at the edge of the village, its power shaking the hut. Thunder caromed like a hundred kettledrums being struck simultaneously. Cringing slightly, Roan waited tensely.
Inca stirred.
His hand tightened around hers. He held his breath. Did he dare hope? Was she coming out of the coma? Would she be whole or brain damaged? Would she have amnesia and not recognize him? Roan leaned down, his eyes narrowing, his heart pounding wildly.
“Inca? Sweetheart? It’s me, Roan. You’re not dying. You’re alive. Open your eyes. You’re here with me. You’re safe. Do you hear me?” His fingers tightened again about hers. Once more her lashes fluttered. And then her parted lips compressed. One corner of her mouth pulled inward, as if she were in pain. Was she? Anxiety tunneled through him. Roan wished mightily for Alaria to be here right now. He had no idea what to expect, what to do in case Inca was in pain. It was his nature, as a paramedic, to relieve suffering, and right now he felt damned useless.
“Inca?”
Roan felt her fingers twitch, then curve around his. He smiled a little. “That’s it, come on out of it. You’re coming back from a long journey, my woman. You’re my heart, Inca. I don’t know if you can hear me or understand me, but I love you….” He choked on a sob. Roan watched in amazement as color began to flood back into her face. He felt a powerful shift of energy around her and himself. Her cheeks took on a rosy hue. Life was flowing back into her.
A second bolt of lightning slammed into the earth, far too close to the hut. Roan cringed as the power and tumult of the flash shook the ground. Rain was now slashing down, the wind howling unabated. The wide, sloping roof kept the pummeling rain from coming into the open windows. Instead, cooling and soothing breezes drifted throughout the clean, airy hut.
Inca’s brows moved downward. Roan’s breath caught in this throat as her lashes swept upward and he saw her drowsy looking, willow-green eyes. Anxiously, he searched them. Her pupils were huge and black as she gazed up at him. Was she seeing him? Or was she still caught in the coma? Roan knew that it took days and sometimes weeks or even months for a person who was in a coma to come out of it and be coherent. She stared up at him. Her pupils constricted and became more focused. His heart pounded with anxiety.
“Inca? It’s Roan. I’m here.” He lifted her hand and pressed it against his heart. Leaning down, he caressed her cheek. “I love you. Do you hear me? I’m never going to leave you. You’re coming out of a coma. Everything’s all right. You’re safe…and you’re here with me….” He managed a wobbling smile of hope for both of them.
A third bolt of lightning struck, even closer to the hut than the last one, it seemed. This strike made the hut shudder like a wounded beast. Automatically, Roan leaned forward, his body providing protection for Inca. As the thunder rolled mightily around them, Roan eased back. It was then that he recalled that Inca had been born in an eclipse of the moon and during a raging thunderstorm. Sitting up, he watched her eyes become less sleepy looking and more alive, as if her spirit were moving back inside her physical form and flooding her with life once again. The symbolism of the storm was not lost on him. Mike Houston had told him she’d been born in a storm it would make sense that her rebirth would take place during another storm.
He smiled a little, heartened by that knowledge. Indians saw the world as a latticework of symbols and cosmology that were all intertwined. As he gently pressed her hand against his heart, he saw her lashes lift even more. Inca’s eyes were now clearer and far more focused. Her gaze clung to his. Roan felt her returning; with each heartbeat, he felt Inca coming home, to him, to what he prayed would be a lifetime with her if the Great Spirit so ordained it.
“Where…?” Inca croaked, her voice rough from disuse.
“You’re here at the Village of the Clouds, sweetheart. With me. Alaria said we were teleported by her from the hospital in Manaus.” Roan didn’t care if his voice wobbled with tears. With joy. Inca was here. And she was alive! He reached down and tenderly caressed her cheek. Her pupils changed in diameter, so he knew she was seeing him and that her brain was not damaged as he feared.
“Welcome back,” he rasped. “You’re home, with me…where you belong….”
The words fell like a soft, warm blanket around Inca. The sensation of vertigo was slowly leaving her. She felt her spirit sliding fully and locking powerfully into her physical body. Roan’s large, scarred hand held hers. She closed her eyes, took in a deep, shaky breath and whispered, “I can feel your heartbeat in my hand….” And she could. Inca opened her eyes and drowned in his dark, smoky-blue gaze. There was no question that she loved him. None. Just that little-boy smile lurking hesitantly at the corner of his mouth, and the hope and love burning in his eyes, made a powerful river of joy flow through her opening heart.
“Are you thirsty? Alaria said you should drink this herbal tea. It will help you.”
As Inca became more aware of her surroundings, she frowned. Alaria? Yes, Roan had mentioned Grandmother Alaria. Inca’s heart bounded with hope. She had been here with her? Could it be they were really at th
e Village of the Clouds? Her head spun. She had been banned from her real home. So why was she here now? Nothing made sense to Inca. Her hope soared. “Y-yes…”
Roan reached for a pitcher and poured some of the contents into a mug carved out of a coconut shell. “Hold on,” he murmured, “and I’ll help you sit up enough to drink this.”
Inca heard the wind howling around them. It was a powerful storm. She felt it in her bones, felt it stirring her spirit back to life within her body. As a metaphysician, she had experienced many strange sensations, but this one was new to her. She’d teleported once or twice before and was familiar with the process. But this was different. When Roan leaned over and slid his thick arm behind her neck and shoulders and gently lifted her into his arms, Inca became alarmed at how weak she was.
“Don’t fight,” he soothed as he angled her carefully, cradling her against his body. He watched as Inca tried to lift her hand. It fell limply back to her side. Seeing the surprise in her eyes, he raised the mug to her lips.
“Drink all you want,” he urged. “Alaria said you would be weak coming out of the teleportation journey.”
He held her like he might hold a newborn infant. The sense of protection, of love, overwhelmed Inca, and she drank thirstily. The warm herbal tea tasted sweet and energizing to her. She was a lot thirstier than she’d first realized. She drank from the mug four times more before her thirst was sated.
The medicinal tea brought renewed strength to her. This time when she forced her arm to move it moved. As Roan placed the mug on the mat beside him, Inca looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Just hold me? I need you….” And she weakly placed her hand against his thick biceps. Roan was dressed in his fatigues, spattered with dried mud, with blackish-red blood stains on his left shoulder. She realized it was her blood. From her wound. And yet she felt whole, not wounded. So much had happened. Inca was unable to sort it out. Later, she knew, the memories would trickle back to her.
Roan smiled down at her. “Anytime you want, sweetheart, I’ll hold you.” And he slid his other arm around her and brought her close to him. A ragged sigh issued from her lips as she rested her head against his shoulder, her brow against his hard, sandpapery jaw.
Closing her eyes, Inca whispered, “I almost died, didn’t I? I feel as if I’ve just returned from the Threshold. You saved me, Roan. You gave your life willingly for me—I remember that. But that’s all. I recall nothing more….”
Rocking her gently in his arms, he took one of the blankets from the pallet and eased it around Inca’s shoulders and back to ensure her continued warmth. The fierce thunderstorm was dropping the temperature and there was a slight chill in the hut now. He smiled, closed his eyes and gave her a very gentle squeeze.
“Between the two of us, Inca, you’re the one that should’ve had the chance to live, not me.” She felt so good in his arms—weak and in need of his protection. That was something he could give her right now, and it made him feel good and strong. Gone was the fierce woman warrior. Right now, Inca was completely vulnerable, open and accessible to him, and it was such a gift. Roan knew that when a person had a near death experience, he or she came back changed—forever. Sliding his arm across her blanketed back, he caressed her.
“I love you. I never told you that before you were shot and went into a coma.”
Inca lifted her head and met his stormy blue gaze. She saw the anguish in his eyes and felt it radiating out from him. Roan’s love for her was so strong and pure that it rocked her returning senses. “I did not think anyone would find me worth loving,” she whispered brokenly. Lifting her hand, Inca added hoarsely, “I am not a good person. I have a dark heart. That is why I was told to leave the village and never return.”
“Well,” Roan said in a fierce whisper, “I think all that’s changed, sweetheart.” He caressed her loose, flowing hair. “And your heart is one of the purest and finest I’ve ever seen. So stop believing that about yourself.”
A sad smile pulled at her mouth. “I am so tired, Roan. I want to sleep….”
Roan eased Inca to the pallet. “Go ahead. Sleep will be healing for you. I’m going to close the windows. There’s too much breeze coming in on you.” He got to his feet, groping for the wall of the hut to support himself. The dizziness was gone and his legs felt pretty solid beneath him. He shut the windows to stop the wind from filtering into the hut. Turning, he saw Inca watching him from half-closed eyes. She opened her hand.
“Will you sleep with me? I need you near….”
Touched, Roan nodded. “There’s nothing I’d like better.” He expected nothing from Inca. He had shared his love with her. Even if she never loved him, she would know the truth of what lay in his heart. As he knelt down upon his pallet, which was next to hers, he heard the storm receding. The pounding rain was lessening now. Father Sky had loved Mother Earth. That was how Indians saw the dance of the storms that moved across the heavens—as a way of the sky people and spirits caressing and loving their mother, the earth.
Inca sighed, her lashes feeling like weights. Her heart was throbbing with so much emotion, feelings she’d never experienced before. Just the way Roan cared for her told her of his love for her, and quenched and soothed her thirsty heart. She could no longer say she did not know what love was for she had experienced it with him—on the highest and most refined level. He had given his life so that she could return and continue her work in Amazonia. And through whatever mechanism and for whatever reasons, Roan’s life had been spared. Joy filtered through her sleepy state. Inca knew she was still weak from having nearly died. It would take days for her to recover fully. The fact they were here in the Village of the Clouds surprised her, but she was too exhausted, and too in need of Roan’s steady and loving presence to find out why.
Inca nuzzled Roan unconsciously as she awoke from the wings of sleep. She felt his large, strong body next to hers. She had one leg woven between his, and his arms were around her, holding her close to him. The masculine odor of him drifted into her flaring nostrils. The scent was heady, like an aphrodisiac to her awakening senses as a woman. Automatically, she began to feel heat purl languidly between her legs. Her belly felt warm and soft and hungry—for him. All these sensations were new to her and she reveled in them. Around her, she heard the screech of monkeys, the sharp calls of parrots in nearby trees, and the pleasant, gurgling sound of a nearby creek behind the hut.
She was alive…and Roan loved her. Stretching like a cat, Inca gloried in the movement of her strong, firm body against his. One of her arms was trapped between them, the other wrapped behind his thick neck. Savoring their closeness, Inca sighed, leaned forward and pressed a small kiss on his roughened jaw. How good it felt to be alive! And how dizzying and glorious to know that someone loved her—despite her darkness. Roan loved her as a woman—not as a goddess to be worshipped, as her Indian friends did, but as an ordinary human being. Opening her eyes, Inca absorbed the sight of Roan’s sleeping features. His breath was like a warm caress against her cheek and neck. Wondering at all the small, beautiful things that a man and woman could share, Inca welcomed this new world of love he’d opened to her. No wonder being in love was written about so much throughout literature. Now she knew why.
Roan stirred. He felt Inca move. Automatically, his arm tightened and his eyes groggily opened. He felt her pull away, to sit up. Drowsily, he watched as her dark, shining hair cascaded about her shoulders. She wore a soft cotton shift of the palest pink color. As she eased her fingers through her hair, he watched in sheer enjoyment of her femininity. Her profile, that proud nose and chin, and her soft lips, grazed his pounding heart. Today was a new day. A better day, he realized.
Rousing himself, he eased into a sitting position beside Inca. The covers fell away. Through the open doorway, Roan saw a bright patch of sunlight slanting into their hut. Moving his gaze back to Inca, he smiled tenderly at her.
“You look more like your old self. How are you feeling?”
She brushed her
hair back and drowned in his sleepy blue gaze. “I feel human again.” She leaned forward and placed her hand on his shoulder. He had taken off the soiled shirt and was bare chested. Moving her fingers through the dark hair there, Inca murmured, “I feel alive, Roan, and I know it is because of you…because of your heart and mine being one….” And she pressed herself against him and placed her lips against his mouth.
Pleasantly shocked by her boldness and honesty, he felt her small, ripe breasts grazing his chest, the surgery gown a thin barrier between them. Roan knew Inca’s innocence of the world of love and respected it. She was reaching out to him as never before, and he gratefully accepted her bold approach as normal and primal. Sliding his hands upward, he framed her face and looked deeply into her shining willow-green eyes, which seem to absorb him to his very soul. Her pupils were huge and dark, filled with sparkling life once more. And with returning love for him. Oh, she’d never said the words, but that didn’t matter to Roan as he smiled deeply into her eyes. The fierce, proud warrior woman had now shifted to her soft and vulnerable side with him. It was an unparalleled gift for Roan. He thanked the Great Spirit for her love, for her courage in reaching out boldly to him despite her own abandonment.
He wasn’t about to destroy the new, tenuous love strung delicately between them. Inca needed to explore him at her own pace. As her lips grazed his curiously, he kissed her gently and warmly. She growled pleasantly over his actions, her arms moving sinuously up across his and folding behind his neck as she pressed herself more insistently against his upper body. Roan smiled to himself. He loved her boldness. She tasted sweet and innocent to him as her lips glided tentatively against his. Rocking her lips open, he took her more deeply, his hands firm against her face. He felt her purr, the sound trembling throughout her. Her fingers slid provocatively along his neck and tunneled sinuously into his hair and across his skull. Fire exploded deep within Roan. She was sharing herself with wild abandon, not realizing how powerfully her presence, her innocence, was affecting him. It didn’t matter, he told himself savagely. Inca needed the room to explore him and what they had in her own timing. Roan wanted to ignite the deep fires of her as a woman, passions she was just being introduced to through his love for her.
Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart Of The Warrior Page 21
