Primitive Nights

Dedication

I was told writing the dedication page would be harder than writing the book. I should have listened…

First, to my Treehouse cohorts, Marie-Claude Bourque, Jennifer Bray Weber and John “Graceson” Roundtree. What can I say? You inspired, pushed, laughed and cried with me from the very beginning. Ugh, the exclamation points I abused… Thank you for taking me in and giving me a place to belong. Without all of you, I wouldn’t be here. My eternal gratitude and thanks to all of you and your amazing talents. I love you all—Caj.

Divas! The lovely ladies fate deemed me worthy to meet in the brutal contest world. I’m forever grateful for entering that contest and finding you all. Saranna DeWylde, Jennifer L. Hart, Liane Gentry Skye, Courtney Sheets, Gail Reinhart and Valorie Dorr. Brilliance is a woman who knows how to balance all things and still accomplish her dreams. You all are my heroines!

Jess, Tracie, Alissa, Liz, Karen and Teresa. Time passes. And I know you’re all there for me. Thanks for always being the ones to hold me up.

To Lisa Lowe, Jen Eckel and Kristina Gilley for reading my first drafts and telling me this novel was worth something.

To Jennifer Miller at Samhain Publishing for falling in love with my characters and giving me the chance to shine. Any writer would be lucky to have you on their side. To the art department at Samhain—thank you. The cover is a dream!

To my kids, who have had to share me with all these characters and who learned quickly that when mom was in writing mode—she answered most questions with a distracted yes—and didn’t take TOO much advantage of it. I’ve always told you anything was possible. See? It is. Go get those dreams!

To my husband Daniel for always telling me, “It’ll happen, babe.” After fifteen years, good and hard times included, I couldn’t have imagined a moment of this wild ride without you. All my love.

To my parents and my big brother… You’ve never stopped believing in me or my dreams, no matter how crazy they may have seemed. It was always us against the world. No matter where we were, or what was happening, I knew I could count on you all. Thank you.

Chapter One

Peruvian Rainforest, South America

She was going to die.

Another explosion threw flames over the fractured glass as the helicopter pitched in a violent dive. Branches and leaves whipped at her arms and face, the world tilting at odd, fast-moving angles.

“Hang on, Miss Jordan,” the pilot yelled. “We’re going to hit!”

She braced herself.

The violent impact threw her forward with enough force to knock the wind from her lungs. Everything skewed, until the treetops hovered above instead of below. The straps of the harness cut into her chest with each jolt of the helicopter’s progress through the trees.

Wind rushed past, bringing a blinding curtain of smoke. She coughed, gagged, struggling to fill her lungs with clean air. Blood pulsed in her ears.

Something hot struck the side of her head, pitching the world in a kaleidoscope of starbursts and black. The helicopter hit again, jarring them to a brutal stop. Pain streaked through her hip and side.

She blinked.

Stunned.

Her fingers trembled as she reached for the buckle to release the harness. Too late, her sense of space returned, and she dropped from the seat to land on the interior roof. Fluid leaked into her eyes, and she jerked to the side, struggling blindly for a way out.

To safety. Just a little farther. Then she’d stop. Just a little farther… The explosion punched at her back, throwing her forward. Her ears popped. Tiny shards of debris pelted her skin. She rolled over, gasping, her vision swimming as a huge ball of fire illuminated the sky.
 

She couldn’t determine how long she’d been lying there. The cool ground felt good against her cheek, and she blinked slowly, hoping to ease the nausea gripping her stomach. Dizziness assaulted her the moment she moved, but she struggled to her knees, gasping when the skeleton of the helicopter came into focus. The charred remains of the pilot dangled from the mangled metal.

Panic sliced through the fog.

She was alone.

Eerie silence closed in from all directions, broken only by the occasional pops and hisses from the fire lingering at the crash. No radio. And her cellphone had been in her bag—inside the helicopter. Shit. No phone. No way to contact help.

Tapping her watch, she angled it toward the meager light from the flames. 2:24 a.m. Maybe. The hands weren’t moving any longer but at least she had a general idea. The sun had to rise eventually. Then she’d plan. Knowing east from west would give her a clue of where she might be.

They’d landed near the tribal land, closer than she’d ever been. If she’d been out on a research expedition, the helicopter would have afforded an amazing view of the tribe’s people. She’d almost asked the pilot to take her closer so she could snap a few pictures, but she hadn’t dared. Her cover had been precarious at best.

She glared at the wreckage again and settled back against the trunk of the closest tree, wrapping her arms around her knees.
Shit
. Her journal and camera were in the helicopter. All the proof she’d worked to uncover. Gone.

No one would know what she’d tried to do.

Unless she made it out of the jungle alive.

Damn it all. She needed daylight.

She could see it now. Her obituary would read:
Myla Jordan, twenty-six-year-old InterCorp Oil engineer, killed in a helicopter crash…

Rough hands ripped her from sleep, dragging her over the ground by her wrists. It took a moment to focus on the men, their dark faces blending with the night, but as her mind cleared, instinct took over. She kicked and thrashed, throwing one of the men off balance. Scrambling against his lax hold, she yanked hard and drove her fist into the other man’s side. Rewarded with a deep groan, she focused on the self-defense training she’d taken in college and sent her elbow into his groin.

Frantic, she half crawled, half jumped away from the men. But there were more, everywhere. Hands dug at her skin, pinching into her sore muscles. Desperation fueled her actions and she fought, kicking, punching, biting until she tasted blood.

Then something struck her. Pain exploded across her cheek. More hands grappled with her limbs, her struggles weakening until she didn’t have the strength to lift her head. Both hands and legs were captured this time, and she hung belly down as they carried her through the jungle.

It could have been hours. She had no idea. Her arms were numb by the time the men tossed her onto the hard ground inside a crude fencelike structure. Every joint ached and the pain in her head had increased to blinding. Water sloshed across her face and she sputtered, rolling to her side in a fetal position, the scent of animal excrement clogging her throat. Remaining still was all she could do, her only defense. But they left her alone.

She stared at her surroundings, not daring to move. Garbled, foreign voices drifted around her. Dark, bare legs passed by the breaks in the enclosure. Keeping her head low, she shifted to look in another direction. Numerous tribespeople congregated near a huge fire, and she finally recognized the markings painted on their skin. This was her tribe.

It was almost laughable.

What cruel twist of irony would take her life at the hands of the very people she was trying to save? The urge to laugh took root in her mind. Maybe the crash had rattled her brain more than she’d thought. Actually, thinking about it, the situation seemed somewhat poetic.

She’d die here, after surviving the crash, and no one would ever know that she’d tried to help. Instead, she’d be known as nothing more than another of the oil company’s morally deficient employees. Her cover. Her life for the past six months.

To be remembered that way rankled.

Her journal had perished with the mangled helicopter. If only she’d managed to reveal her findings. The proof she’d gathered would have been detrimental to InterCorp Oil—the tribe’s biggest threat. God, the huge oil company would be happy to let her rot in the jungle.

She’d come to help. Death certainly hadn’t been part of the plan.

In the limited light, smoke from the crash in the distance spiraled toward the sky. Was this how John had met his end? Disappearing into the rainforest without a trace, to perish at the hands of the men and women he’d so passionately tried to protect?

John. She’d come to Peru to be with him. Stayed to find him when he’d disappeared and then mourned his assumed death. The sting of long-dried tears burned her eyes. Now it seemed she would meet the same end. Another bizarre twist of fate.

Heat from the fire, coupled with the oppressive humidity of the Peruvian jungle, threatened to make her pass out. She shifted slowly to her knees as the soft thrum of a single drum drew her attention. As one, the women and female children shuffled back to the outer rim of the clearing, their bodies covered only by thin clothes wrapped around their hips. In seemingly choreographed response, the younger men and boys moved toward the fire. Thumping the ends of their spears against the hard jungle floor, they chanted in rhythm with the drum.

Each set of obsidian eyes focused into the dark jungle near the head of the clearing as the drummer beat wildly into a frantic finale. With the silence, the tribe members dropped to their knees.

A rough prod to her side had Myla on her feet. She whipped around to stare at her captor. He stood a few inches shorter than her, his black eyes pinched and angry. He made a motion for her to move, and after considering her options, she did as he indicated.

“Maglayo.” His voice was coarse, raspy. He motioned her to a spot near the fire and pointed toward the jungle. Thick, black hair trailed down his back in long strands. Dark skin stretched over lean muscle and calluses covered the outer edges of his feet.

He’d outrun her in seconds. Her only chance was the small knife in her pocket. She rubbed her hand over the bulge it made against her thigh. Could she kill a man? She’d led a peaceful life since her father had passed away, and even though violence wasn’t a new experience, it had never been at her own hand.

Now she might be forced to protect herself. All those years and she’d never stood up to her father. She tightened her hand into a fist. These men were different. They would kill her, and she had no intention of becoming a martyr.

These people considered her a threat, an interloper who could bring harm to the tribe. She didn’t doubt for a moment that they would protect themselves from what they perceived as danger. If there were any chance for escape, it would have to be of her own making.

The drum started again, bringing the men to their feet in a trancelike dance.

Intent on the tribe’s movements, she gasped when a hand twisted into her hair cruelly. The man next to her dragged her toward the fire. Panic filled her with suffocating pressure. She wanted to scream, fight or close her eyes to whatever horrible end waited. Instead, she stood rooted to the spot, macabre curiosity refusing to let her look away. Then a slight shift caught her attention, barely discernible through the blinding firelight that flickered off the trees. She squinted and caught the faint outline of a dark shadow moving through the jungle.

Goose bumps crawled up her arms. She followed the tribe members’ stares, squinting against the firelight. She couldn’t see anything. Would an animal come out to devour her? Maybe a jaguar, trained over years to maul the sacrifices set out for it by the tribe.

Like an apparition, a shadowy figure materialized from the trees in the form of a man.

Chapter Two

Light from the fire grazed his sleek, muscular form, and his hooded gaze passed over the tribe in slow perusal.

Powerful legs bulged with each confident step he took, his presence filling the space. A leather cloth, tied at his trim waist, brushed his muscular thighs. Numerous strings of beads and feathers were slung across his torso in a thick, colorful band. Coils of something resembling pale fur laced the long length of his dark hair. His singular essence demanded respect, exuded leadership.

Powerful. Riveting.

She sensed intelligence in his keen gaze. But something in the way he stared, the way his presence drew her to him, the sensual way he moved, scared her. None of the pictures she’d seen or taken of these people had ever made her feel anything more than concern for their safety. She hadn’t expected such an enigmatic persona, such a sexually provocative male. He had to be the leader.