Paradise & More (Torres Family Saga) (47 page)

      
“Little witch, you always fill my thoughts. I cannot live without you,” he murmured as she melted against him, her busy hands at work soaping and caressing all over his body.

      
“Kneel so I may wash you quickly,” she said as she pulled him down into the rushing current. The cool water felt incredible as it rippled over his sensitized skin. They rolled in the shallow stream until he lay on the soft mossy bottom and Magdalena reclined atop him with her hair floating down her back with the current. “You will drown ere I can bathe you this way,” she whispered as his head nearly submerged beneath the surface.

      
“I will risk such a sweet death,” he replied, pulling her down for an underwater kiss. Their feverish mouths moved, opening, brushing, tongues dueling. The rush of water lent a sensuous urgency to the kiss until he sat up, gasping for air. Magdalena, too, coughed and gulped breath into her lungs.

      
Aaron held her securely against his thighs with her legs scissoring his hips. “That was a most unusual way to go about a kiss, but I think it will last longer if we stay above water,” he said, pulling her into his embrace once again.

      
“And be sweeter without the water robbing me of your taste,” she whispered, opening her mouth to his kiss.

      
He rimmed her lips with his tongue, then plunged in to explore. She returned the caress, splaying her fingers in his thick wet hair and pulling his head close to hers. He reached up and cupped a breast in each hand, letting the water slick his fingertips as they teased the pebbly nipples. She arched against the tantalizing torture, wriggling her buttocks against his straining staff until he seized her around the waist, raising her up and then lowering her to envelope him.

      
Magdalena let out all her breath as the exquisite sensations raced through her body. Throwing her head back, she closed her eyes and began to move with his hands on her hips, raising and lowering her in a slow, languorous rhythm. “The water, oh...it...ooh,” she moaned.

      
His soft, breathy laughter rippled over her like the water. “Oh, yes, the water is very...very...good.” He punctuated each word with a slow, deep thrust.

      
Aaron could feel her nails digging into his shoulders as she clung to him, moving with him to the rhythm of the rippling stream. As they ascended to that higher plane of sweetest union, she opened her eyes and met his. Piercing blue and luminous green mirrored their souls' love as he quickened his strokes. He was as hot as the water was cool, now ablaze with the splendor of his love for this small, russet-haired woman in his arms. Magdalena, too, felt the fiery beauty of the moment and drew him deeper into her, holding him fast, wanting the moment to last forever. Yet this intensity could not last, lest it consume them. Together they spun out of control into a whirlpool of heat. He poured life into her body as the currents eddied softly around them, enveloping them, cooling the shuddering ecstasy of their release.

      
Magdalena's head fell on his shoulder and she collapsed against his chest, holding him tightly. His hands moved up her back, softly stroking her wet mane of hair as he murmured love words in her ear. How long she had waited to hear them!

      
“All my life,” she whispered against the hollow between his neck and shoulder, “all my life I have loved you.”

      
“And I shall love you, my fiery little temptress, all the rest of my life, upon my soul I shall.”

* * * *

      
“Tis not possible! Only yesterday he was healthy as could be,” Francisco said, looking at the fat, shiny tears trailing down Aliyah's cheeks.

      
She stood before him clutching a small jar. “When he died, I had him burned. Here is his spirit jar. I will save it for his father. You may tell his wife, ” she spat the word, “that no one but the
zemis
own Navaro now.”

      
“You may give the jar to Aaron yourself, Aliyah,” Roldan said with a sigh. “He only this morning arrived in search of Magdalena. He will be desolate. Do not let your hate for her prevent you from remembering what you and Navaro's father once shared,” he added with surprising gentleness.

      
Aliyah did not raise her eyes, but her mind raced. “Aaron is here? Would you send word that he come to my dwelling? I wish to tell him without that woman being present.”

      
“It shall be as you request,” Roldan said simply. As she turned to leave, bearing her small, sad trophy, he added awkwardly, “Aliyah, I am sorry.”

      
She nodded and departed.

      
Late that afternoon when Aaron was escorted to Aliyah's
bohio,
he felt a strange sense of foreboding. The soldier sent to escort him would say only that the
cacique
's mistress desired speech with him and Roldan had dispatched him as messenger. As they crossed the compound, he stepped over several yipping dogs and two small boys playing with them in the muddy streets.

      
Navaro! Magdalena had told him only a few moments before he was summoned that the boy had been ill—or that Aliyah seemed to feel he was ill, although Roldan said he was quite well. Surely it could be nothing serious...yet there was fever in the village, as in Ysabel. Everywhere the white men came their diseases decimated the Tainos.
But Navaro is half white. He must be safe from these maladies!

      
Aaron approached the
bohio
and discreetly called out. Aliyah's voice was soft and low as she bade him enter. She was facing a corner of the room, seated on a plain low stool. Dressed in a simple grass skirt, her head was bowed toward the household
zemis
. Aaron knew with a raw surge of pain what she would say to him. “Navaro is dead.” Her voice was choked with pain. “Your white man's sickness killed him.”

      
Aliyah stood up and faced him with a small jar of ashes in her hands. She thrust them at him, saying, “Here is your son, the only one you will ever have if you stay with that barren stick you have wed! Keep Navaro's spirit to comfort your old age!” Jealousy and hatred flashed from her dark eyes, once so warm and lustrous, now cold as obsidian.

      
Aaron took the jar in trembling hands and said in a hoarse voice, “I will take our son's spirit jar to your brother's village, where he was born. It is fitting that he rest with the
zemis
of Guacanagari.” He hesitated a moment, wanting to offer her comfort, to share their grief, but her body radiated such intense anger that it struck him like a wall. There was no consolation they could offer each other. “Good bye, Aliyah.” He turned and walked away with his son's remains clutched to his heart.

      
Aliyah saw the tears in those wondrous blue eyes, magic eyes she had once thought, eyes exactly like Navaro's. A hard, bitter smile froze on her face as she watched his retreating figure. Soon, all the hated white men and their skinny women would be dead, especially that pig Roldan who had banished her husband, the royal Behechio!

      
Aaron walked slowly back to the small
caneye
he shared with Magdalena, feeling in need of the comfort, the understanding that he now knew only she could give him. The moment he stepped into the hut, clutching the small urn, she knew what had happened. His eyes were sheened with tears as he silently knelt in the corner near the window and reverently placed the urn on the floor. “The first light of sunrise should strike it here,” he said softly. Magdalena placed her arms around him and held him in a wordless embrace of consolation.

      
If only she could give him a child, a son—not to replace Navaro, but to fill their lives after the void of his loss. She had hoped for the past month, but could not be certain that at last she did carry her husband's babe. It would be cruel to raise his hopes after this painful loss and then have them dashed. After all the times they had come together over the past three years, she had not conceived. Perhaps Aliyah had been right. Maybe she was barren. Magdalena forced that thought from her mind and clung to her dream as Aaron began to speak.

      
“I never realized how bitter she is. Her love has turned to hate. Perhaps it never was love. She is not like her brother Guacanagari. He is noble and wise, tolerant of other's feelings, but Aliyah will ever be a spiteful child. I did not wish to wed her, even when I knew Navaro was mine. Some instinct made me want only my son, not his mother. She must have sensed that much. I am not even certain she truly mourns his death.”

      
“I think you are in enough pain for two parents,” Magdalena said, her voice muffled by her tears as she softly massaged his arms, trying to absorb some of the agony from him.

      
“You loved him, too, in spite of everything.” He said it not as a question, but a fact, which he now freely acknowledged.

      
“Navaro was your son. How could I not love him?” she said simply.

      
“I must return his ashes to Guacanagari's
zemis
. That is the Taino way,” he said after a few moments of silence.

      
“I will go with you...if you wish it.”

      
He turned and placed his hands on the sides of her face, framing it gently. “I wish it, Magdalena, my wife. I wish it very much.”

      
At Magdalena's insistence, Aaron rested for a few hours that afternoon, although he would eat nothing. He had ridden for three days across Española with little sleep, none at all the night before he had arrived. She knew when Lorenzo and Peralonso returned, there would be a fight. Roldan would encourage the two enemies to battle to the death. Even if the
cacique
did not, Aaron would insist on his vengeance against the man who had killed his family and abducted his wife. As Aaron finally drifted into a restless sleep, Magdalena prayed he would be victorious.

      
She could see the gray lines of fatigue about his eyes and mouth, even in repose. Perhaps if she asked him, Roldan might hold Lorenzo prisoner for a few days so Aaron could regain his strength before the duel. Praying she might have such influence, Magdalena decided to approach the enigmatic Francisco Roldan,
cacique
of Xaragua.

      
Roldan's bushy eyebrows beetled over his shrewd brown eyes. “You realize this will change nothing? Aaron will not be denied his revenge, nor would I withhold it.” .

      
“What revenge if Lorenzo kills him, Francisco? He is so exhausted and stricken with grief for his son he might well be the one to fall, not Guzman!” Her expression implored him as she leaned across the table with her palms pressed on the rough surface.

      
He hesitated a moment, then said, “As you will. I will have Guzman and Guerra placed under guard for a few days. I warn you, Aaron will take it ill when he learns what I have done.” He paused and then smiled at her. “But as I am the
cacique
here, I may do as I wish and he will abide by my decision.” His humor mercurially shifted then, and he said sadly, “He is distraught over the boy's death.”

      
“More, it would seem, than Aliyah. I saw her leaving the compound as I came here. She did not look to be mourning the loss of her only child.” Oddly, she felt none of the old jealousy, but only pity for a woman who was so shallow a mother.

      
Francisco scratched his bushy hair and shook his head in perplexity. “I still do not understand it. The boy was well enough when last I saw him.” He flushed, then added self-consciously, “Aliyah had him brought here each day when it was time to feed him. Yesterday morning he had no fever.”

      
Magdalena's heart skipped a beat. In a cold, stiff voice she asked haltingly, “Do...do you think she killed her own son in revenge...because of me?”

Chapter Twenty-Three

      
“What can you mean by this? I will have that murdering butcher! Why do you protect him?” Aaron shouted at Roldan.

      
Last evening, when he awakened from an exhausted sleep, Magdalena and Francisco had convinced Aaron that Guzman would return to the compound by midday following. When Lorenzo did not appear, Aaron began inquiries and found the
cacique
had imprisoned the couturier in a
caneye
under heavy guard.

      
“I will hold him until you are fit to do battle,” Roldan replied.

      
Aaron's eyes narrowed and his expression hardened. “Magdalena is behind this. She fears for my life and has pleaded with you to keep me from that scum.”

      
Roldan shrugged, neither denying nor admitting the accusation. “When it suits me, you may slash each other to bloody ribbons.”

      
“And when will it suit you?” Torres grated out.

      
“Mayhap at sunrise tomorrow. Does that please you?” the
cacique
asked indifferently.

      
“No! Every hour he breathes is an affront to the House of Torres.”

      
Roldan looked at the blazing fury etched in every line and angle of Aaron's taut body. “You had best save your ire for the morrow and focus it on Lorenzo Guzman.” He waited until Aaron nodded and turned to leave, then said softly, “Have no fear. The fop will die soon enough.”

      
“You seem quite certain of the contest's end,” Aaron said, studying the shrewd brown eyes of the white
cacique
.

      
Roldan grinned. “I have seen him duel at court—and I have seen you hack down half a dozen Moors at one time, any one of whom was the equal of Guzman. Yet do not be overconfident. He has skill with a blade and he is crafty.”