Savage Dawn (18 page)

It felt so good to Nicole to be back in the warmth of the tepee after having been out in the cold.

Now that she knew Sam Partain was dead, she felt as though she had been set free from the nightmare that he’d created when he killed her parents so coldheartedly, as well as everyone else who lived in Tyler City.

Now Nicole was all calm and peace inside her heart. She could think of nothing except making love with her husband.

She remembered what Dancing Snow Feather had told her…that if Nicole could find a way to totally relax and think of nothing but how much she loved Eagle Wolf, she would more than likely get pregnant with that child she and her husband wanted so badly.

With a mischievous glint in her eyes, Nicole stood before the fire and began removing her dress as Eagle Wolf watched, his eyes filled with wonder.

“It is only midafternoon, my wife, and you want to make love?” he asked, enjoying this new
side of her as she tossed her dress aside on the floor mats.

“
Ho
, my husband, I want to make love,” Nicole murmured, leaning over to remove one moccasin and then the other.

When she was totally nude, she stepped closer to Eagle Wolf and slid her hands up inside his fringed buckskin shirt. She ran her fingers slowly over his sleek, muscled chest. She knew that he was enjoying it when she felt the tingling of his skin everywhere she touched.

Eagle Wolf reached for her hand and slid it out from beneath his shirt. Then he led her down on the thick pallet of furs and blankets beside the lodge fire, where they had made love earlier this morning.

But now there seemed more intensity, more eagerness, on Nicole’s part. He saw a new look in her eyes. She smiled confidently at him as he ran his eager hands over her body, stopping to lift one of her breasts closer to his lips so he could flick his tongue around the nipple.

“Husband, please, please undress yourself,” Nicole said, her heart hammering. “Or do you want me to do it for you?”

Smiling down at her, Eagle Wolf hurriedly removed his clothes. Without hesitation, he stretched his body over hers and slid his throbbing manhood into her sheath. She was wet and ready for him.

“Love me,” Nicole whispered sweetly as she
twined her arms around his neck, bringing his lips down to hers.

She flicked her tongue across his lips, then joined their mouths. His arms swept around her and held her close as they savored the feel and taste of each other’s tongues and lips.

“You are so eager,” Eagle Wolf whispered against her lips without missing one stroke inside her. He felt the warmth spread almost to a feverish heat throughout his body.

She arched her back so that he could delve more deeply inside her, to touch that part of her that always made her go almost mindless.

“Today I know that we are making a child,” Nicole said, leaning away enough so their eyes could meet and hold. “That is what is fueling my eagerness. Eagle Wolf, I can almost feel the child inside me now. I know that what we are doing will bring our longed-for child into the world.”

“I will not ask why you believe this,” Eagle Wolf said, driven by the heat of passion. “It is just good that you believe it is so.”

“I know it is,” Nicole murmured, a tremor quaking through her when he brought his lips to hers again and gave her an all-consuming kiss.

As he continued thrusting inside her, she sucked in breaths of rapture, her eyes closed now. She was filled with sensations she had never felt before; she felt as though she herself had just been reborn.

She had never felt so alive, so filled with absolute
joy, and it was because she was letting herself go as she had never done before.

She clung to him.

She rocked with him.

She returned his kisses as his arms enfolded her and carried her with him into this new world of complete oneness.

“I love you so,” Eagle Wolf whispered against her lips. The press of his mouth was so warm, so deliciously inviting.

“I shall love you forever and ever,” Nicole whispered back, then moaned when she felt herself reaching a level of passion that she had never felt before.

She clung even more fiercely to him when he moved his lips down to one of her breasts, his mouth closing over it. Then he swirled his tongue around the nipple, his teeth nipping.

Eagle Wolf felt the fire spreading within him, as never before. It was so intense a feeling, it dazzled his senses.

He slid his lips up to the curve of her neck and pressed them there, panting as the heat of his manhood continued to thrust within her. She rode with him, her legs wrapped around his waist, molding her closer to the contours of his muscled, copper body.

They moved together rhymically now, both breathing hard, and then the peak of their passion was reached. Their bodies experienced delicious shivers of desire, leaving them clinging and
breathless, even shaking, it was so intense an experience. Never before had they known such ful-filment.

“I believe you,” Eagle Wolf said huskily as he rolled away from Nicole. He rested on his back, gazing through the smoke hole over head, where the sky was blue and peering back at him, a witness, it seemed, to these lovers who had found the ultimate of ecstasy together.

“What do you mean…you believe me?” Nicole asked, turning on her side to face him. She slid a hand onto his flat belly and ran her fingers across his wondrous copper skin, causing his flesh to shiver from a pleasure that would not leave him today.

“I believe you now about making a child today,” Eagle Wolf said, reaching for and taking her hand. He slid it down to where he still ached for her touch.

When she knew what he wanted, she circled her fingers around his heat and enjoyed the way his manhood grew even larger within her hand when she caressed him like this.

“So, you, too, feel it,” Nicole murmured. “How our lovemaking was freer this time than other times, how I seemed not to have a worry in the world? How I adored every moment we made love? My darling Eagle Wolf, it was different this time because I no longer have the worries that have stood in the way of my becoming with child. Now that the evil man who murdered my parents
is gone, I no longer have to think of him and where he might be. I was always so afraid that he might still be after me.”

“You were right. I am amazed that he found his way onto our mountain despite all of my trained sentries,” Eagle Wolf said, reaching down and moving her hand gently aside. It was not needed any longer. He was ready to go to paradise with his wife again, and if a child was not made that first time, it would be the second.

“I believe the wolf that you saved that day is responsible for the death of Sam Partain,” Nicole said, groaning with a building pleasure when Eagle Wolf slid over her and quickly thrust his heat inside her again. “I believe it was Sam Partain who inflicted those injuries on that wolf. I believe that all along the wolf was searching for Sam Partain.”

“Shhh,” Eagle Wolf said as he softly slid a hand over her mouth. “There is no need to think of that man again, or why or how he died. It is enough that he is dead.”

“
Ho
, it is enough,” Nicole said, her heart thumping inside her chest as the rapture rose inside her with each of Eagle Wolf’s thrusts.

She knew that this time paradise would be reached much more quickly than moments ago, for her body was still throbbing from its intense pleasure.

She twined her arms around his neck and felt a tremor deep within herself as Eagle Wolf’s lips
came to hers, his lips hot and hungry as he kissed her.

Yet her mind would not focus only on lovemaking this time as it had the first time they had reached paradise together this afternoon.

Suddenly she was filled with curiosity about the wolf.

“I wonder where she is,” she suddenly said, causing Eagle Wolf’s eyes to widen and his body to grow still for the moment.

“Where who is?” he asked incredulously.

“The wolf,” Nicole said, searching his eyes.

“You are not supposed to be thinking about wolves, or anything else, right now,” Eagle Wolf said.

“When we are through, can we go out and search for her?” Nicole asked, her eyes wide as he gazed into them. “I do care.”

“As do I,” Eagle Wolf said thickly. “
Ho
, my wife, mother of the children we are certain to have, we shall go and search.”

He reached for her hair and ran his fingers slowly through the radiant red softness of it. “Will that make you happy?” he asked.

“
Ho
, that will make me happy,” Nicole said, smiling almost timidly at his patience even when she interrupted their moments of passion with worries about an animal.

But strangely enough, her worry, about not being with child was no longer there. Like magic, the concern had disappeared. She had no doubt
that in nine months, a child would be born of their love.

She hoped that in nine more months, another child would be born. She did not want an only child as she had been. It just was not fair to raise a child without a brother or sister.

If her first child were a girl, she would want a brother for her. She had heard that brothers were such a blessing to a sister, protecting her until she found a man to marry. Even then, the bond between brother and sister was never broken.

Not until death. And even then the bond continued in spirit as Eagle Wolf had explained about his sister.

Again they rocked together, clinging, kissing, and reeling with the building pleasure. Nicole was keenly aware when that familiar delicious languor began to swim through her. Soon she would feel the completeness of passion once again with her husband.

And when it did come, his eyes went dark with emotion as he gazed into hers while thrusting over and over again inside her. The silent explosion of their passion made them cling until their bodies grew still once again against each other.

“My hero,” Nicole said as he rolled away from her, remaining on his side so that he could gaze at her.

“Your hero?” Eagle Wolf asked, arching an eyebrow.

“
Ho
, my hero,” Nicole said, smiling sweetly at
him. “You are my knight in shining armor who came and rescued me when I needed rescuing the most.”

When she saw that he did not understand the word “knight,” she smiled into his eyes and explained the meaning to him.

And then he said something that surprised her.

“Have you never thought about how strange it is that you were given a name by your parents that had no true meaning?” he asked, placing a gentle hand on her cheek.

“No, I never thought about that,” Nicole replied. “My parents named me after a distant aunt.” She laughed softly. “And, no, there is no particular meaning behind that name. Why do you ask?”

“Because, my woman, my wife, my people never give names without meanings behind them,” he said softly. “Eagle? Wolf? On the day of my birth, as I was told, my mother saw an eagle soaring overhead outside the tepee, and my father heard the baying of a wolf. Those two creatures were honored when they named me.”

“I don’t know anything about what happened on the day of my birth, so there could be no true meaning behind my name,” Nicole said, sighing.

“I will give you a name,” Eagle Wolf said, sitting up. He took her hands and urged her to sit before him, their eyes locked.

“But how will you know what to name me?” Nicole asked, searching his eyes.

“I will give you a name that I believe defines
you,” Eagle Wolf said. “Whispering Doe. You are as gentle and beautiful as a doe, and from our first meeting your heart has whispered to mine. I would like to call you Whispering Doe.”

“Why, that is so beautiful,” Nicole murmured. “I love it.”

“Then from now on you will be called Whispering Doe,” he said. Then his eyes shifted quickly to the closed entrance flap. “Did you hear that?”

Nicole had heard a soft yip-yipping outside their tepee.

“Could it be…?” she asked, hurrying into her dress and moccasins as Eagle Wolf pulled on his fringed breeches and moccasins.

They went outside together, both gasping when they found the female wolf lying on her side behind their tepee. A tiny, lone offspring was suckling on her teat.

It was an incredible sight. They were amazed that the wolf had brought its one baby so close to humans, but soon they saw why. The long wound on the mother’s side had somehow become opened and was oozing blood.

“She brought her baby to us because she thought she might not live long enough to keep it alive herself,” Nicole said, a sob catching in her throat. She looked quickly over at Eagle Wolf. “I wonder if she got wounded again by Sam Partain.”

“I would imagine so,” Eagle Wolf said.

“We must do something, but what?” Nicole
asked. “I doubt she will allow us to take her and her baby into the tepee. She only knows the life of the wild.”

“She sees us as friends, or she would have not came to us for help. I believe she will welcome the warmth of our lodge, and food,” Eagle Wolf said, stepping closer to the wolf, to test her reaction.

When the wolf did not shy away from him, or take her baby in her mouth to carry it away, Eagle Wolf sensed that she was giving permission for him to do as he saw fit.

“Whispering Doe, you carry the pup and I will carry the mother,” Eagle Wolf said thickly.

Nicole did not hesitate to reach for the tiny, sweet thing. Meanwhile, Eagle Wolf lifted the mother wolf into his arms and hurriedly took her to the warmth of the lodge.

“I healed her wound before. I shall do it again,” Eagle Wolf said, as he laid the wolf on a blanket beside the fire. “Hold the tiny thing while I administer to the mother’s wound. Then we can put them together again, but this time they will be where it is warm, and where they both will be cared for.”

Nicole gazed with intense love at Eagle Wolf. She had never known anyone as kind and compassionate as her husband.

She sat down with the tiny animal in her arms and watched Eagle Wolf with the mother wolf, amazed at how the animal put such trust and
faith in Eagle Wolf. Creatures of the wild were not prone to trust human beings.