Susan Johnson Read online

  They walked in silence down several empty avenues, only an occasional dog lazily noting their progress. Spirit Eagle turned to smile at her frequently, and Blaze smiled back in a friendly exchange without words. She was relishing the opportunity to pay Hazard back with a flirtation of her own, and this splendid young man was pleasant, friendly, and very accommodating.

  It wasn’t until they’d walked some distance that Blaze noticed they seemed to be moving away from the luminous radiance of the bonfires in the night sky. She stopped abruptly and Spirit Eagle’s grasp tightened on hers. “The dance is back there,” she said, turning a half-step and gesturing with her free hand.

  He didn’t seem to understand. “Hú kawe, bia,” he quietly replied and began walking again, tugging Blaze along.

  Her stomach pitched nervously, for she’d recognized the entirety of that short phrase—“Come, sweetheart.” Why was he calling her sweetheart? Was it an innocuous form of address or something more personal? Suddenly she felt very much alone in the deserted camp. And unsure. Maybe this friendly walk and polite smiles were less innocent than they appeared.

  Damnation, she thought pettishly, I’m not going to docilely allow myself to be led away in the wrong direction. “Stop!” she unceremoniously demanded and suited her actions to her words. She might as well have tried to stop a force of nature. Spirit Eagle didn’t even break stride; his grip only hardened and he pulled her along effortlessly.

  “Just a damn minute!” she shouted and struck at him with a clenched fist. It was like hitting a solid wall.

  He paused then for a moment and looking down at her said, “De-yea-x-wah-saw-weeh-ma [I won’t hurt you]. Be-le-she-chila-lema [You’ll like me].” He was so sure of himself, and any number of women he’d pleasured would uphold his assertion. Reaching out, he trailed his fingertips down the slender grace of her throat. When she sharply thrust his hand away, he laughed and murmured something so low the words were only a husky murmur, but the message in his eyes was unmistakable. “Come,” he repeated, and resumed walking.

  No longer cooperative, Blaze dug in her heels, but it hardly slowed him, save for the tiny furrows left by her moccasin heels in the grass. They traversed another fifty yards in this fashion, with Blaze verbally threatening and denouncing and Spirit Eagle appearing not to notice. He stopped at last in front of a lodge and leaned forward slightly to lift the entrance flap aside.

  Taking the small opportunity of his distraction, Blaze twisted sharply, slid her fingers free, and with adrenaline-induced speed, ran. Although fleet, she soon heard him behind her; first his footfalls and, as he gained on her, his unhurried breathing. Her own respiration was forced after two hundred yards of all-out flight, and as she drew in a labored breath, she found herself swung off her feet from behind and lifted into strong arms.

  She began struggling, pushing at his solid chest, pounding on his shoulders, kicking the air with her feet, but he only chuckled, tightening his grip, and whispered some of the words she’d heard Hazard whisper to her when they were making love. He murmured them softly, soothingly, as one might to a recalcitrant child, and at the last, the words held a question.

  He was bending his head to kiss her. Had he asked her to kiss him? Held high in his arms, her eyes large with shock and fear, she could see his mouth only inches away.

  Suddenly into her field of vision Blaze sighted Hazard turning a corner of the avenue in a flat-out run. Automatically fear vanished, but jealousy reminded her that Hazard deserved some payment for that long, long kiss with the girl in the dance. Spirit Eagle’s back was to Hazard and he was still unaware of his approach when Blaze glimpsed Rising Wolf clear the same corner in a sprint. She was smiling faintly when she lifted her lips to accept Spirit Eagle’s kiss.

  Sweet revenge, now that rescue was near.

  Hazard hadn’t seen Blaze’s resistance.

  He hadn’t heard any of the verbal defiance.

  He hadn’t seen her run away or kick and struggle.

  He only saw her held in Spirit Eagle’s embrace, only saw her kissing him. And jealous rage exploded in his mind.

  “Enjoying yourself?” he drawled in English, walking the last few yards, controlling his urge to strike out.

  Spirit Eagle spun around.

  “Let her go,” Hazard coldly ordered, the Absarokee unnaturally harsh.

  “Maybe she wants to stay.” Spirit Eagle’s challenge was flagrant.

  “Do you want to stay?” Hazard coolly asked, reverting to English, and even in her own anger Blaze didn’t dare respond in the affirmative to that tone. Hazard’s eyes were too remote.

  She shook her head.

  “There,” Hazard said, impassively. “Now let her go.”

  Spirit Eagle loosened his grasp and Blaze slid to the ground.

  “Take her back to the lodge,” Hazard instructed Rising Wolf, who’d arrived directly behind Hazard.

  “Just a minute,” Blaze objected. “I won’t be sent off like—like—”

  Hazard looked at her disdainfully. “Like some misbehaving trollop?” he finished, his smile unpleasant.

  “Don’t talk to me about misbehaving,” Blaze hotly retorted, taking a threatening step toward him. “Did you tire of the games of the dance?”

  Hazard grimaced. “We can talk about that later,” he said, not inclined to conduct any grand-scale verbal battle in front of Rising Wolf and Spirit Eagle.

  “Oh … later. I see, Your Highness, I’m to be dismissed then?”

  “That’s the general idea,” Hazard softly replied.

  “And what if I don’t care to be dismissed by every woman’s dream lover,” she archly retorted, her tone acidly sweet. “That young girl down at the dance’s lover, Little Moon’s lover, Lucy Attenborough’s lover,” her voice was rising as the list grew. “Elizabeth Motley’s lover, Fanny—”

  “Shut her up and take her away,” Hazard snapped.

  And in the next instant, midway through the next woman’s name in the lengthy list, Blaze was swept off the ground. “Sorry,” Rising Wolf apologized, placing his hand over her mouth, leaving her speechless for most of the distance back to Hazard’s lodge.

  SPIRIT Eagle was smirking. “Maybe you’d like me to take her off your hands.”

  “Maybe I wouldn’t.”

  “Does the great chief Dit-chilajash allow himself to be ruled by a yellow eyes woman?” His tone was insulting.

  Hazard ignored the insult. “I’m warning you off, Spirit Eagle. Don’t touch her again. Don’t talk to her. Don’t go near her.”

  “We could fight for the yellow eyes,” Spirit Eagle challenged, anxious for an opportunity to publicly triumph over Hazard.

  “You know better than that. I don’t fight over women.” Hazard’s tone was final in its clarity. Was it necessary to explain age-old tradition?

  “Coward?”

  It was startlingly rude, but Hazard remembered the impertinence of youth and only served verbal warning. “You’d die finding out.”

  “Pussy-whipped, then!”

  Hazard shrugged to indicate the unimportance of Spirit Eagle’s remark. “Just stay away from my woman. This is a one-time warning. You won’t get a second chance.”

  “It discredits a man to show such favor for a woman. You’re becoming like a yellow eyes. You shame yourself with such weakness. To crave a woman is to fall short as a warrior.”

  The young pup was frank enough, Hazard thought ruefully, but he was past the age himself when youthful dogmatism narrowed his understanding of men. He carefully explained, “I understand your challenge, Spirit Eagle. All those in the past and now this one. It’s the path of a warrior to seek glory and leadership. I understand all that impels you.” Hazard’s voice was patient. “I even understand,” he went on thoughtfully, “you wanting her. And I was raised in the same ways you were,” he said as a father would to a rebellious son, “so you needn’t talk to me of shame and dishonor. You needn’t remind me of the different motives that rule men’s and wom
en’s lives. But this is different, and that’s why I’m warning you. I’ll do as I please about her.” Hazard’s tone was sharp now and cutting in its plainness. “Don’t cross me on this or I’ll—” He closed his eyes briefly, unsure himself how far he’d go in his need for her. When he reopened them, they were bleak and cold. “Just don’t,” he finished.

  “I could abduct her. You couldn’t do anything then.”

  “It’s not the season.”16

  “It will be again.”

  Hazard smiled faintly. “Not for me.”17

  “So it’s true, then. I hear you carry water for her and cook for her like a woman.” Spirit Eagle’s young face held disdain.

  “I do what I please,” Hazard replied quietly, fathomless reserves of self-confidence lending assurance to every syllable. “You’re young and have much ahead of you. I suggest you find another woman. But if some misplaced sense of honor or pride presses you, I just want you to know,” he continued, cool-eyed and exact, “if you try to come for her, you’ll have to get by me first.”

  “She’s going to make you weak.”

  “You’re welcome to try and find out. Anytime,” he offered, waited calmly, then receiving no answer walked away.

  RISING Wolf, standing guard outside Hazard’s lodge, felt a hand on his shoulder as Hazard’s voice, low, level, and friendly, said, “Thank you. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

  Rising Wolf looked at his friend and knew what he was feeling. “It’s not all her fault,” he softly pointed out.

  Hazard sighed. “I know.”

  “Don’t be too hard on her. Our ways are new. She didn’t understand.”

  Hazard deferentially listened to his best friend’s advice and smiled a little. “I’ve never struck a woman in my life,” he quietly answered. “Take that worried look off your face.”

  “In that case,” Rising Wolf said, smiling that light-hearted smile that reminded Hazard of a thousand boyhood memories, “pleasant dreams.” But Rising Wolf had never seen Hazard run for any woman. Never. And he doubted whether Hazard’s woman would go unscathed after the smoldering kiss he’d seen her give Spirit Eagle.

  Upright and hostile, she was standing waiting for him when he walked in.

  Regardless of what Hazard had said to Rising Wolf he was, by then, extremely short-tempered, for the image of Blaze kissing Spirit Eagle fed a fierce jealousy that burnt away his habitual self-control. He felt like shaking her until she promised never to kiss any man again. Ever. Territorial rights were crowding his rationality and pressing his sense of possession past the point of moderation.

  “Did you think of Raven Wing when you kissed her little sister?” Blaze vindictively asked, ever on the offensive.

  The words detonated on impact, explosive as the enraged woman, poised like a lethal weapon in the center of the lodge. Hazard stopped as if someone had slapped him, the name—rarely spoken since her death—charged with a life of its own. Hazard looked at Blaze, his back stiff with displeasure, he opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again in a grim line. He walked past her to the far side of the lodge and pulled his fringed shirt over his head, his muscles flexing across his back.

  “What do you want, damn you?” she cried, outraged at his behavior. And his present silence. “I’d like to know! Why me, Hazard? When any woman out there would gladly change places. I understand you need a hostage, but why all the rest? Why bother with the endearments and the love words? They don’t mean anything to you, that’s obvious. That young girl out there tonight. She could take my place in a minute. If it’s a servant you want, to cook and clean, you know I can’t do that. And if it’s an unpaid courtesan you want, surely the line must be long for that position!”

  He turned and stared at her in disbelief. Only two days ago, he’d told her that in his eyes and that of his clan, she was his wife. Although unplanned, it wasn’t a casual decision, lightly made. And now he’d found her in another man’s arms. “Courtesans at least know—” he testily began, but Blaze wasn’t listening, only pouring out her fury, only intent on exorcising the frustration of the past hour, a frustration based on unparalleled forfeiture of her independence, going back to Hazard’s first kiss weeks ago. Tonight was only the ultimate effecting balance that toppled, not the underlying cause.

  “Or maybe …” she sarcastically went on, disregarding his utterance. She was pacing wildly in the small space between the doorway and the fire, her eyes flashing like storm signals. “… Maybe I should be paying you. After all, you’re the one with the notorious reputation and expertise. She stopped in midturn, spun around, and archly declared, “How much do I owe you by now? Do you charge by the hour or by the week?”

  He walked away rather than hit her and dropped down on the fur robes piled into a bed. Her angry words continued rolling over him in an undisguised litany of rage while he shakily counted to fifty—ten wasn’t enough. He would have been on his feet after ten, letting her feel the extent of his reaction to her bitter sarcasm.

  The episode with Spirit Eagle was still in the forefront of his mind: Blaze in his arms; the ungovernable urge to kill overwhelming him; the necessity to curb the impulse. But the situation was only defused, not resolved; still infinitely complex, aggravated by Blaze’s continuing presence, potentially dangerous, and at base—he grimly thought—unsolvable. Damn the noise levels. Why did the yellow eyes always feel they had to shout to be heard? Would she ever stop? He reached down to untie his moccasins, slipped them off, and lay back on the bed.

  Blaze was standing over him in two short seconds. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she tersely demanded.

  “Going,” said Hazard with simple truth, “to sleep.” He didn’t trust himself at the moment to do anything else.

  “Aren’t you going to answer my question?” she furiously asked.

  There was a moment’s complete silence. “No,” said Hazard, repressing his own fury with visible effort.

  But Blaze wasn’t, currently, sensitive to delicate nuance. “I want an answer!” she screamed, standing above him stridently, unfamiliar with not having her way, unfamiliar with not carving her own path through the universe—magnificent, flushed, intensely proud. But not as dangerous as Hazard.

  He saw it coming—the stiff-armed lashing palm reaching down to feed the fury, and he caught her slender wrist a foot from his face. With a wrenching twist, he tumbled her to the bed and in primitive lust fueled by rage, jealously, and primordial need for possession, and in one smooth movement, flung his body over hers. His hands on her shoulders were cruelly rough, his temper unconcealed now in his narrowed eyes, his voice too soft. He said, “You want an answer? I’ll give you an answer.” Brutally he bore down, grinding his lean hips into hers. “No,” he whispered, his face grim, answering her question at last. “I’m not looking for a servant. Or a courtesan. Although Spirit Eagle seemed interested. And no, I don’t want you to pay me, sweet bitch,” he smiled then, an unpleasant leer. “You don’t have enough money.” Forcing his knees between her thighs, he settled his body familiarly between her legs. “All you understand, spoiled child, is I want.” And with smiling violence, he snapped the shell belt clasp at her waist. “All you’ve ever understood is I want.” He tossed aside the shattered shells. “It’s time, sweet puss,” he quietly went on, roughly pushing her dress up past her waist, “to learn the world doesn’t revolve around your wishes. It revolves around mine, and I don’t choose to share you with any man who catches your eye.”

  Blaze pushed against his weight, against the hands forcing her body to accommodate his. “Don’t touch me, you damned hypocrite,” she stormed, gasping for breath with his dead weight on her. “And don’t lecture me on … fidelity!”

  “It’s not a lecture. It’s an order.” His voice was awesome in its moderation. “I’m sorry, but in future you’ll have to forgo extracurricular lovers. My contract doesn’t allow it.”

  “I see. Hazard’s Law!” she hissed. “Only playmates for you!”


  “I didn’t kiss that woman,” his soft voice continued, but his brows met in a black scowl, belying the subdued tone, “because I wanted to. I kissed her because it was expected of me. Just like now, bia,” he growled, his hand tracing an ungentle pattern up her inner thigh, “I expect you to play the dutiful wife.”

  “Damn you, I won’t! Not after—all those people watching you—I won’t!” She struggled against the prowling hands and failed to stop their progress. She tried to arch away from contact with them but he lay atop her like a vise.

  His fingers circled her wrist in a bone-threatening grip. “You will.” His voice was like ice. “I’m sure of it. Look at me.”

  She turned away, deliberately, hot anger boiling inside her.

  His hand forced her head back. “You shouldn’t have gone off with Spirit Eagle.” His eyes were pitiless.

  “Were the little sister’s lips to your taste?” she spat, her own eyes like hurricane seas.

  “You’re a long way from home, Boston, and what you don’t know about our culture would fill a thousand volumes. Perhaps,” he murmured, tight-lipped, “I’ve been derelict. Lesson one: I won’t have you going off with other men.”

  “He forced me,” she panted, the blood pulsing in her white throat, all her struggling useless against his strength.

  “Like hell he did,” Hazard snapped, his fingers biting into her wrist. “Not from where I was standing.”

  “I thought we were going to dance,” she breathlessly insisted.

  His teeth showed for a moment, white against his grim mouth. “Oh, you would have danced all right,” he snarled. “The oldest dance in the world.”

  “That’s not fair.” She pushed against the relentless weight of him. “I had no intention—”

  “Remember, Boston, I know how hot your sweet body can be. Don’t tell me you had no intention. Not after the kind of kiss I saw.”