The Legend of the Bloodstone (32 page)

Broken between the layers

Maggie could not control the shaking that wracked her body, and if it stemmed from the cold or the knowledge that Winn lived, she did not know. The long muslin dress was soaked through, the fabric wrapped around her legs and the weight of the layers still pulling her down. She knew she had to get warm.  Standing above the tiny fire, she began to unfasten the front of her shift, but her fingers were numb and slipped off the tiny buttons. Her teeth chattered and snapped together as the shaking overcame her again, and this time it brought her to her knees.

Winn entered the cave entrance as she
gave up on her bindings and pulled a fur up around her shoulders. His blue eyes locked with hers as he slowly approached, his gaze never wavering even as the fur slid from her shoulders in a heap around her hips. The traveling sack fell out of his hand and he dropped to his knees beside her.

“You’re here. You’re really here,” she whispered.

It was all a lie. Winn was warm and breathing
in front of her. She needed to tell him everything, tell him about the child, and tell him how much she loved him. She needed to touch him, to feel his skin, to know he was there. It was the only way she could be certain he was not one of her dreams.

“You’re freezing,” he said softly.

Her eyes glazed over and Winn was a blur as bent to help her. He knelt beside her, and she felt the fabric of her shift give way. He tore it top to bottom, and continued to rip sopping wet fabric from her body until she collapsed in his arms, completely bared before him. She felt him gather her against his warm skin, sharing his heat. He wrapped a dry fur around them both and lay down next to the fire, rubbing her arms to return blood to her frigid limbs.

Maggie reached for him, but his hand circled her wrist and stopped her attempt. He brought her palm upward and gently pressed it to his lips, closing his eyes.

“Oh, Winn,” she whispered. He grasped her face in both hands, his eyes searing through to her soul, no questions between them to shatter their stolen moment. When she thought she might beg him, he finally bent his head to hers, his warm mouth covering her own shaking lips. He tasted and savored, a gentle exploration that left her breathless with desire. She moved closer in his arms, and a strangled groan escaped him when she laid a hand over the ragged healing scar on his bare chest. He abruptly pulled back, holding her at the length of his arms as if she burned. Confused by his actions, and trembling at the loss of his warmth, she bit back her rising fear. Surely, he would not refuse her now?

“
Maggie. I have a gift for you,” he said, his voice low and strained. He pulled the fallen fur up over her shoulders, his motions mechanical. A measure of fear replaced her confusion, washing through her blood and leaving a sickly bile sensation in her belly, and when he held the gift out she stifled her cry.

He held the
Bloodstone out to her. When she did not move to take it, he placed it in her hands and stood up, his face a vacant mask that betrayed no hint of the man she loved.

“
You will use the Bloodstone to return…to return to your time,” he said. “We will leave when night falls. I will see you safely home.”

“No, Winn, I won’t go.”

“You will. There is nothing for you here.”

She blinked back tears. Anger began
to replace her despair, rising rapidly to snatch what control she had left. She could not believe he was casting her away, as if he felt nothing for her. Her pride refused to accept his answer, and with shaking fists clenched to her sides she glared back at his impassioned face. She grasped the fur to her shoulders and stood to follow him.

“
There is nothing here for me, Winn? Then why did you save me from the English?”

“I would not see them hang you. And it pleased me to take you from your white husband.”
His dismissal stung, but still inflamed her.

“
So you do care,” she accused. He grabbed her by both shoulders, the fur sinking to the ground in a heap. His eyes bored through her and his fingers dug painfully into her skin.

“Do I care you chose
the English man? I did one time, but no more. You went to his bed. I would not lie between your thighs now where he left his seed.”

She slapped him. He turned his cheek but remained
otherwise still, although his grip on her arm tightened. Stunned at his lack of emotion, she moved to strike him again, but this time he grabbed her wrist and twisted it, then dropped it as if it burned him.

He turned and left her alone, staring at the stone.

Stunned, she could find no words. She stared at the Bloodstone. It was her Bloodstone, the one she arrived with, the one he hid from her all along. She turned it over in her hand, felt the warmth that spread up her arm. Yes, Winn had kept the stone from her. But would a man who worked so hard to keep her trapped in his time suddenly have a change of heart? For weeks now she had thought him dead. Had he stopped loving her in that time as well? How could he abandon her when she needed him the most? He owed her an explanation.

Maggie clutched the fur around her shoulders and followed him.  The bottoms of her feet felt numb as she stumbled down the rocky incline path to the waterfall. By the time she found him, he
was immersed in the cold shallow spring beneath the falls, the sound of the rushing water disguising her arrival. The water tinted pink around him from his war paint and it dissipated into the depths as he moved. He stood waist deep with his back to her, his shoulders flaring as he shook water from his raven hair.

She swallowed hard as she spied on him.
The horses stood nibbling grass beside the overhang of the waterfall, eyeing her as she approached but doing nothing to betray her intrusion. Maggie let the fur drop as he left the water, his back still to her as he reached for his breechclout. 

His mouth gaped in surprise when
he finally spotted her. She stood before him, trembling with her resolve to tame him, yet hungry to be back in his arms. He started to speak, but she placed her fingers against his lips, shaking her head.

“You are a stubborn fool,
Winkeohkwet. When did you turn into such a-such a
half
man?” she taunted him. “I thought you were brave-you said you would always protect me! Was that a lie, Winn? A lie from a sorry excuse for a man?”

His hands bunched into fists and he stepped back from her, his eyes flashing black jade. She could see every muscle of his bronzed chest tense, the sinews in his thick arms straining as he listened to her taunts. She refused to let him leave,
backing him further beneath the waterfall into the darkness until his legs hit a flat stone shelf.

“You listen to me, Winn. I
would not
let
you take me. You are not man enough for me,” she baited him. Her voice cracked with the last, and she was not sure if he would even respond by the way he looked at her. Was that passion in his black eyes, or hate?

She tried to stem her shaking as she glared at him, her breath coming in short gasps. His lips curled back, his eyes narrowed, and his jaw tightened, and in the next
moment he had her pinned against the slate shelf, his body trembling against her own.

“What game is this, woman?” he demanded.

“No game. Take your hands off me, half man!” she shot back, and knew she had gone too far.  He jerked her roughly around, clenching his hands against her breasts and slamming his weight into her back as he pushed her against the rocks. She could feel his breath, hot and moist against her ear, his arousal hard against her thigh as she tried to block out the urge to melt into him. She was not finished with him yet. She would make him relent, or else all they had suffered, all they had done, all of it would have been for nothing.

Squirming in his arms, she bucked against him, causing him to grasp her face with one hand and her hip with the other. His lips traced a path down
the back of her neck, sending rivulets of electricity down her spine.

“Why do you taunt me, Maggi
e? Would you have me ravish your body? Is that what you play at?” He twisted her head to the side and his mouth closed over hers, no restraint, crushing her lips until she tasted blood between them. His fingers caressed her, sliding against her as she bucked back against him and battled his embrace. As much as she fought him, she wanted every ounce of his anger, each breath of his desire, all that he had to give her she would gladly consume.

“Then release me, if you hate me so much!” she cried.

His eyes were glazed over as if he could see through her, and she could feel the torture of longing running through her starving blood as it screamed to join his. She did not recognize the man behind the embers of his eyes, his soul consumed by the raging fire, his fingers searing into her skin now like burning coals.

“No,” he groaned. “No!”

His breathing came coarse but rapid, his pulse pounding against her hand when she tried to touch his neck, but he jerked away from her touch and covered her mouth with his own. The taste of salt and blood surged between her lips, and she could feel his sweat lap at her skin as he raised her hips against the sloped shelf. She cried out when he caught her wrists in one hand and thrust them above her head. His eyes seared through her, and she knew there was no way back.

“Did your husband touch you like this?
Do you forget him when I touch you?” he growled, squeezing her wrists. Her hips bucked yet he held her tight. “Would you have me take you now, woman?”

“Yes,” she moaned. His t
ongue silenced her cries, her resistance drifting downward, swirling in an endless rhythm.

“Open your eyes and see me, woman. You will see my face, not his.  I would
have you remember me,
ntehem
.”

Maggie responded to his command, but her eyes widened when she realized what he was saying. Winn thought she wanted Ben.  He believed she
loved Ben. She had to tell him the truth, she could not let him believe such a lie.

“
Halloo! Ooot, oooot!”

The familiar call of his brother echoed through the cavern.
Time screeched to a stop. He held her tightly and rested his cheek against her heaving belly as he struggled to control his own ragged breaths. The rush of water from the falls sounded so loud, nearly as loud as Winn’s stilted breathing, filling the air between them. He let her arms loose and she slowly lowered them around his neck.  His eyes, once crazed with anger and lust, now echoed with regret. 

She sat up as
he moved away, struggling to control her trembling.  She watched him walk, naked and aroused, to the mouth of the crevice and shout a greeting in reply. He stood for a moment with his back to her, his shoulders betraying emotion left unspoken as they heaved and trembled. He finally turned back to her, his fists clenched at his sides.

“Go back to the cave. Wait there until I return.”

She had no choice but to obey. It was far from her nature to give in when he gave such commands, but she knew she had no option.  He did not look at her as she rose and walked to where the fur lay discarded, but she saw the way the eyes of his brothers followed her and she took full advantage of it.

Winn could pretend she was nothing to him
and claim he no longer loved her, but she doubted he meant for her body to be displayed to others. She doused her trembling with the surge of anger rising in her blood, and lifted her chin as she straightened her naked body to full height.  Chetan’s eyes bulged when she walked past the fir without picking it up, and she knew it was the first time she ever saw Makedewa grin in her presence.  She stalked past it and continued on to the cave, her hips swinging and her auburn hair whipping in her wake. 

She watched silently from the cave as they prepared to leave.

***

Winn sat ready on his horse.  He
was prepared, dressed in his war feathers and streaked with dark greasy paint.  His mount stomped impatiently beneath his, as if sensing what his master would do. One of the other men gave word to depart, but Winn knew he could not yet go.  Chetan gave him a hard look, shaking his head with a sign when Winn raised his hand to stop them. His glare was full of knowing, as if his brother could read the thoughts that haunted him. The other men did not appear surprised to see Winn dismount and stalk back toward the cave. Someone chuckled, obviously amused at the warrior. Their grumbles meant nothing to him, as they were nothing to him.

He had no plan and knew nothing of what he would do when he saw her.  He trembled with rage at her, the anger h
e carried in check for himself.

Ntehem
, his heart, his love.

To have her back in his arms after all this time, to
touch her soft creamy skin, was torture. He was a liar, and a bad one at that, for he was certain she could see straight through to his soul. It wounded him to know she let the English man take her body and plant his seed, but he was a liar when he said he would not do the same. If she could truly be his, he would take her again and again, every day until they died.