The Legend of the Bloodstone (35 page)

Maggie noticed the look between the men. Winn arched one brow, and Makedewa nodded back so slightly she would have missed it had she not been looking.

She turned back toward the town as the men decided what to do with the girl.

Near the palisade gates, a young man
laid, his neck in an unnatural angle. An ear of corn was shoved down his throat, the yellow silken end waving in the breeze, but his cause of death was more likely the garden hoe impaled in his chest.  A boy lay beside him, a child of no more than five, his head nearly severed from his neck, hanging limply from its starched white collar.

A woman ran screaming down the middle of the street, quickly fallen by the blow of a well-aimed sickle.  A warrior walked up behind her, snatched the sickle from the woman’s fallen body, and took a path into the next house.

“Come, we must go!” Winn said. Chetan gave a shrilled whistle, and their ponies came forth from the wood line. Chetan mounted up with Finola, who looked to be waking up, and Makedewa tried to get the girl to her feet.

This time she bit him when he reached for her, and Maggie held her breath. Makedewa was no
softhearted brave, and although she had never seen the younger brother with a woman, she suspected he would not handle her assault well. 

“Let me,” Maggie said, leaving Winn’s side. She kneeled down beside the girl.  Although the blond-haired hellion did not fight her, she looked like a fuse about to
ignite, sitting there shaking with her curls sticking out around her face, sprawled on the ground with her apron around her knees.

“
I’m Maggie, what’s your name?” she said softly. The girl stared back at Maggie, then looked at Makedewa and Winn, then returned to Maggie.

“Rebecca,” the girl said very softly, so much so that Maggie knew the others had not heard it. Maggie reached slowly and took her shaking hand. Filthy with blood and dirt, Maggie patted it, hoping to gain her trust so they could all live to see another day.

Fires roared behind them, the flames jumping from house to rooftop, swallowing anything in its path.  The Blacksmith shop ignited with a bang, the explosion sending them all to their knees with hands over their heads.

“Rebecca,” Maggie said, pulling the girl to her feet. “Ride with us if you want to live. No one will hurt you.”

“They killed my parents, and my baby brother,” she whispered.

“It was not these men. Trust me. They mean you no harm. You’ll ride with
Makedewa, I promise we’ll be safe.”

She tilted her head to Makedewa, who stood watching the exchan
ge with Winn a few paces away. Winn swung up on his pony and held out a hand for her, and she used his foot as an anchor to swing up behind her husband.

Makedewa held out his hand to Rebecca, and this time
, after one quick look back at the burning town, she took it without biting or slapping him.  The girl settled behind the warrior, and they prodded their horses into a gallop.

The stank odor of burning flesh clung to them as they raced away from the scene, the cries of the dying following them for miles, even as they passed long out of range.

It would take more than distance to forget such a day, if ever they could. Maggie glanced back over her shoulder at the blazing town and shuddered. She clenched her arms tighter on Winn’s waist and hugged him.

***

The horse stopped from nearly a full gallop by burying his haunches in the dirt, his response immediate to Winn’s command. The warrior pulled Maggie into his arms and jumped clear of the beast in one motion, his stride purposeful yet laced with anger as he stalked to the cave. She knew better than to argue. Her skin tingled under his touch when he finally placed his hands on her face, cupping her jaw and clenching her hair with such desperation that she could feel the anguish and fear coarse through him. She moaned when his lips covered hers, rising up against him to meet his kiss. His skin muted with the scent of smoke and his tongue assaulted her own as she tasted the whisky he shared with the settlers before the slaughter. His blue eyes clouded as he pulled back, searching her own desperate gaze for a moment before he crushed his lips again to hers. Short, tender kisses followed along her cheeks, her neck, and back to her forehead, where he rested against her trembling skin.  She could not bear to move, her shaking contained by the way he clutched her to his bared chest slick with sweat and blood.  Neither one of them dared a word. Their silent truce remained intact when he released her, a fragile stalemate created from their act. 

Maggie let out a soft cry as he broke the embrace, but obeyed when he pushed her down to the furs at their feet.
She let him cover her with dry furs, sitting cross-legged next to the fire he started. She worried he would never speak or that he would leave, and she felt panicked until he sunk down behind her on the furs. Her eyes closed as his arms surrounded her, drawing her back to nest in his lap. Beneath the furs, she shivered as his hands darted under the coverings to rest against her skin. She writhed around in his lap to face him when his lips caressed her ear, unable to resist the surge of desire gathering in her belly. He chuckled, but she did not miss the edge of sadness in the gesture.

“My wanton
little
Tentay teh
,” he said, his lips still buried in her hair. “Why do you let me take you in anger?” he asked.

Her words caught in her
throat as she returned his stare. Sad, sincere, his eyes were like windows through the warrior, a glimpse of the tormented soul within. She hated to know she caused him such grief, and although there were many more players in this tragedy to cast blame on, the knowledge was of little comfort.

“
I wanted you, Winn. I was angry at you for refusing me,” she whispered. “How could you let me think you were dead?”

“I sent my brothers with word I lived, but it was too late.
”

“I saw him shoot you
. Thomas said you were dead, he brought your amulet to me as proof.” She touched his face with her fingertips. “Then I found out about the baby. I blamed myself…I didn’t know what to do.” She shook her head when he tried to interrupt. “I tried to stop Thomas from firing his rifle that day, and he suspected why.” She swallowed to steady her voice, omitting how Thomas had beaten her severely. “I had to get away from Thomas – he was going to send me to England. Benjamin said he would help me.  He said he promised you he would protect me, so…” she paused. “I thought you were dead … If you were alive, why didn’t you come for me? How could you leave me there? How could you?”

His shoulders dropp
ed and his face creased as if the breath had been stolen from his chest, his arms tightening around her as he pressed his lips into her damp hair. He closed his eyes as he inhaled and kissed her ear very softly.

“
Makedewa. He told me you carried a child. I would not steal you away from your happiness…even if it was not with me.”

“
But-” she reeled, confused. “Oh…I see.  You thought…no. You thought Benjamin was the father.”

He did not answer, and his silence infuriated her.

“So why not just leave me to hang then, if that’s what you thought?”

“You took my pride when you married your white man, but still I loved you. I would not let you hang.”

“But you would send me back to my own time, then? With no explanation?”

He pressed his lips against her cheek and she felt his arms
tense. “You once said you would give anything to return to your time. I had your Bloodstone. It was all I could give you.”

Maggie closed her eyes. So much had happened.

“Oh, Winn,” she whispered. “Nothing mattered to me anymore. I never loved him, Winn, it was never like that. I wished my own death, and damn you, I tried! But then there was the baby…and a reason to keep breathing, at least for one more day.”

She felt hi
s wordless nod against her hair and his chest expanded as he let out a deep sigh.

“I know
something of this pain.” His gentle hands closed tighter, and he clutched her back against his chest, his words forced out through a half-choke, half-groan. “I wanted to explain, to tell you so many things.  But when I saw you standing there, like a fire goddess, like you would strike me down before you let me touch you- I knew nothing but that I needed to have you, if only to purge your ghost from my mind. Even if you loved another, even with his babe in your belly, I would have you once more and it would be finished.” 

She reached out to touch his face, but he caught her hand and pressed it to his chest against his heart, where she could feel the tortured thud as it beat against her palm.

“I was only a fool.  When I walked away from you, I knew your ghost would never leave me, that I would see your face in my dreams and each day when I woke. I am so sorry,
ntehem
.”

Maggie found no words to answer, wanting to comfort him as much as she wished to bury her face in his bared chest and weep.
She closed her palms on each side of his face, kissing him softly. His mouth opened as he groaned and pulled her so close her legs parted and fell to straddle his hips. She sat above him, holding his head as his mouth dipped to her aching breasts, arching up to meet his kiss.  He fumbled with the strings of her chemise and she pushed his hands away to untie it herself, loving the way his eyes widened and he smiled as she lifted the shift over her shoulders. His fingers traced a line down both of her upraised arms and her skin felt laced with fire as he grabbed her face and ravaged her lips again, a shudder running through her at the touch of his skin against her own.

“Don’t stop, my heart,” she whispered. It was all he needed. One arm slid around her waist, the other guided her hip, and she clutched his head to her breast as he moved. Slow, steady, a tantalizing rhythm that rapidly began to build like a wave, he showed her how to move to catch the crest, melding her buttock with his strong hand as he controlled the pace. She lost herself in the startling blue depths of his eyes, the anguish in her chest ebbing away with each touch of his hand, each needful thrust, each measure of his desire tearing down the barrier around her soul.

Later they lay
in a tangle of furs and sweaty skin. He covered her face with kisses as the searing sweetness of his touch left her breathless, her lips tasting salty where it pressed against his chest.

“
Ktaholel
,” he said softly, his lips pressed into her hair.

“I love you, too,” she whispered back.

“I could not stop, you know,” he said quietly, after their breathing began to slow and their limbs lay still, threaded through furs and soft flesh. “When you married him, I still could not stop wanting you. Even though I knew you were lost to me. These eyes haunt my dreams,” he whispered. Her eyes closed as he pressed his soft lips against each lid, and then grazed across her lips. “I betray all that I am, all that I know. I walk alone now,
ntehem,
I cannot return to live among my people. Still none of it matters. I lay here with you, and tell you I would do it again!”

His hand closed around her face, his fingers firm but gentle, his face creased and his brows pinned over his slanted blazing eyes. She cried out when he kissed her, not from pain, but from something much more as his soul cast out molten embers that scorched her
stubborn heart, like desperate fingers licking a flame. 

“Did you come to me with this power, from your future time? Why do I think nothing of betraying my people, if only to be here, with you, like this?”

“I have no power,” she said softly.  She briefly recalled his Uncle, the legendary leader who also believed her a witch, but the memory passed back into the recess of her mind where it belonged. He shook his head and placed his hand on her belly, using one calloused finger to trace a line from navel to her throat, then up under her chin, where it stopped at her swollen lips.

“No,
ntehem
, no power,” he whispered. “Only my lifeblood, a prisoner here,” he dropped his lips, and kissed above her left breast, then placed his palm against the gentle swell of her belly. “I am your prisoner,
Tentay teh.
Do with me what you will.”

***

Maggie heard horses approach, the sounds of hooves scrambling up the mountainside unmistakable. She joined Winn outside to greet the riders, surprised to see it was Makedewa, holding Rebecca in his arms. She slumped over, clearly unconscious after her harrowing ordeal.

“Chetan returned to the village?” Winn asked.

“Yes, he took the Pale Witch to mother, she will tend her.  I brought this one here. Will you let Maggie see to her?” Makedewa answered.

She stepped up beside Winn.

“Of course I will. Bring her inside.”

Makedewa lifted her easily and brought her into the cave, where he set her down on the furs next to the fire. Winn said something in
Paspahegh, which elicited only a grunt from Makedewa, and the two men quickly left the cave.

She stared after them for a moment.  She imagined they expected her to know what to do.  After all,
wasn’t caring for the sick a woman’s duty?  Looking down at the exhausted girl before her, all she could think to do was give her a nice hot bath. A long soak would go a long way towards her tired muscles and weary mind.