Then she was gone, fleeing back to her longhouse. Thoughtfully, Sarita watched her disappear. She did not relish enduring a vengeful noblewoman as an enemy!
“What did she want?” came Fighting Wolf’s deep voice. Sarita turned, surprised. He’d come upon her so quietly. She realized Rough Seas must have seen him. Why hadn’t she stayed to confront him? If Fighting Wolf was her betrothed, she would have, thought Sarita angrily.
“She wanted you,” came Sarita’s terse response.
“What did you tell her?” he asked. She noticed he was eyeing her reddened cheek curiously. She put a hand to it, and turned from his gaze.
“I told her she could have you!” lied Sarita coolly. Let him think what he liked. She wasn’t going to let him know she had practically challenged that sloe-eyed woman over him.
Fighting Wolf burst into loud laughter and was still laughing as they entered the longhouse.
Sarita felt a sharp stab of regret as she thought of the jealous Rough Seas’ words. She should have known a man as attractive as Fighting Wolf would have a woman or even several women. What a fool she had been to think she meant something special to him. That she might even be the only woman he cared for. What a fool! Now he was going to marry that—that cruel woman.
They deserved each other, she thought angrily. What a fine marriage they would have—the woman-chasing warrior and the jealous, would-be murderer. Between the two of them, they’d probably happily slaughter half the slave population of the village! Well, she wouldn’t be around for the great wedding ceremony, she told herself. Especially with Rough Seas promising her death the next day. One more reason to escape, she decided. Let Fighting Wolf work his charms on someone else. Sarita knew better—now!
Sarita stole quietly to her bed in the alcove. She was the last person to leave the fire in the common living area. She had not seen Fighting Wolf all evening--he was probably visiting Rough Seas, she thought. Well, Rough Seas could have him! She, Sarita, certainly didn’t want him! Tossing and turning for a long time, she finally dropped off into a restless sleep.
She started awake. What was it—a noise? A mouse? Her eyes searched the darkened room, all senses alert. Then a shadow detached itself from one wall and glided towards her. Fighting Wolf knelt heavily beside her bed. She held her breath, suddenly afraid. “Are you awake?” he whispered softly.
His breath stirred her hair. “Yes,” she whispered back. “What do you want?”
He laughed a low rasp. “Come now, I should think you’d know,” he chuckled.
“Go to Rough Seas,” Sarita snarled. “She’s your woman.”
“What do you mean?” He grabbed her wrist in his strong grasp.
She tried to break his hold. “Leave me alone, Ahousat dog,” she spat.
“So we’re back to that, are we?” he sneered. “I was good enough for you out on the beach, wasn’t I? "Wasn’t I?” he demanded, crushing her wrist.
She winced, but no sound of pain crossed her lips. Angry now, she taunted, “Isn’t one woman enough for you? Do you have to have two women, or maybe three, panting after you?”
He laughed, hearing the jealousy in her words, and loosened his grip on her wrist. If she thought he was after other women, let her. He certainly wasn’t going to explain himself to a slave!
“Shut up and move over,” he answered, pushing his big body into her bed. “What I do is no concern of yours. You forget yourself, slave.” While the words were harsh, his tone was gentle.
He began to caress her breasts. His lips soon followed his hands as he dropped feather-soft kisses over the silken-skinned globes. He growled low in his throat, “Mmm, you taste good, woman,” as he continued to kiss and caress her.
Sarita, angry at his insults and casual expectancy that she would acquiesce to his touch, tried to push him away. Both hands against his hard chest, she shoved futilely. He laughed softly in her ear. “My golden-eyed cougar, you’ll have to do better than that to keep me away.”
He buried his head in her neck, rubbing his chin slowly against her soft skin. Then his lips began to kiss the sensitive flesh. Shivers tickled her spine at his mesmerizing touch. She thrashed her head back and forth, trying to avoid his ravaging lips, trying to break the tender spell he was weaving on her traitorous body.
The upper half of his torso leaned across her, holding her struggling body in place. As she continued to resist, he got angry. “Stop, Sarita. Stop fighting me,” he commanded. When she gave no heed to his words, he roughly pushed her legs apart with his hand and gently touched her private parts.
Gasping in shame and humiliation at this blatant outrage, Sarita fought him in earnest now. But he too, was in earnest. Determined to conquer her, he spread her legs wide and quickly moved against her.
Her choked sobs and hands pushing hard at him served to bring him out of his overwhelming, single-minded desire for her… He leaned back from her, his breathing harsh, as he realized how close he had come to hurting her. What he wanted to do was burn his way into her soft flesh.
But she had cried out against him, and he knew, deep within himself, that he did not want her broken and destroyed. He could do that to her, he realized suddenly, and the thought made him almost physically ill.
He rolled off her, hearing her cries, hearing her anger. He looked down at her naked body, her face now covered by her hands. She was laid out like a feast for the taking.
His
taking. But he couldn’t do it.
She pushed futilely against him and he wondered what to do. He wanted her…. Oh how he wanted her…
Slowly, he began caressing her. “Sarita?”
Slowly, slowly, she lowered her hands and met his eyes. “Not like that, Fighting Wolf,” she whispered at last. “Not like that.”
He nodded and bent to kiss her. His kisses were meant to console her, to say with his mouth and his body what he couldn’t say aloud: that he cared for her and wanted her.
Sarita felt him continue to ply his magic against her until her body felt heavy and sluggish, love-drugged. She felt herself slipping over the edge. “Fighting Wolf,” she murmured, holding him by the shoulders.
He moved gently within her and she pulled him closer. “Come with me,” was his hoarse response.
They rocked together. Suddenly he stiffened and massive shudders shook his strong frame. At the same time, hot spasms passed through her. Wave after mindless wave shocked her lithe frame until at last she lay spent, in a quiet torpor.
Fighting Wolf lay, unmoving, on top of her, the rapid beats of his heart vibrating through her chest as he held her tightly to him. He rolled off her and encircled her with his arms. She lay relaxed in the cradle of his arms, her head against his chest. Afraid to speak, not knowing what to say, and afraid to destroy this fragile peace between them, she drifted off into a gentle slumber.
Sarita woke later. All was quiet and she knew it was still night-time. She was alone. As she lay in the dark, memories of Fighting Wolf flooded over her. Shamed at her response to his sensuous attack, she closed her eyes, castigating herself. How could her body have betrayed her like that? He had only used her as a receptacle for his lust--and she had loved every moment of it.
He was gone, she told herself bitterly. Here, in his own territory, Fighting Wolf was merely a womanizer. He would use her until he tired of her, then cast her aside.
She lay through the long night, her heart aching. She had reveled in his touch—she, who was nothing but a slave to him. Sometimes she cried into the furs on her bed. Was this what her life was going to be like now? At the mercy of a man who could arouse her body at will? Who cared so little for her that he could take other women to his bed? A man who owned her body, and perhaps, her heart?
She must squelch any tenderness she felt. She would not let him know how much he had meant to her, how much his touch had moved her. Yes, she thought, that would be the only way to protect herself.
* * * *
Fighting Wolf was taking great care to avoid Sarita. For the first time in his life, he was feeling confused about a woman. He needed time to think. At the beach, things had gone well between them. Now, back in his village, he realized he was again slipping into the role of conqueror, and he wondered if that was what he really wanted to be. He remembered her laughter, her spontaneous jokes at the beach, and knew that he would see little or nothing of that part of her if he used her to quench his lust.
He could have her body, his greater strength proved that, and she lived under his roof, there was nowhere for her to go. But did he want only the shell of her? Or did he want something more? He was preoccupied as he went about his work that day.
The men were making preparations for moving the village to its winter location, back inland, away from the cold seas. The move meant dismantling all the planks on the longhouses and packing up possessions into cedar chests, baskets and boxes and carrying then the long distance to the winter site. And after the move, there was the dog salmon run. This harvest of fish was critical to his people and would supply them with their winter meat.
With Sarita by his side, life suddenly seemed happier to Fighting Wolf. She would be accompanying him to the winter village and he thought hopefully of the winter festivities he could enjoy with her.
Now that he thought of it, perhaps it would be best to go gently with her. He wanted her to enjoy her life with him, too. Fighting Wolf was surprised at the direction his thoughts had taken. Ruefully, he wondered if he was getting old and soft.
The next night he came to her. She was lying awake, unable to sleep, a small lamp burning by her bedside. “Having difficulties sleeping?” he asked solicitously.
She sat up, glaring at him. “What do you care, Ahousat dog?” she said insolently.
Let him use someone else.
She wasn’t going to make it easy for him, he saw. He held his anger in check. “I care,” he answered as patiently as he could.
“Hmmph,” was her answer to that.
“Do you remember our time together at the beach?” he asked softly.
She nodded, unsure of what he was up to.
“So do I,” he went on. “I truly enjoyed the time I spent with you.”
She looked at him, wanting to believe what he was saying, but not trusting him.
“Did you?” he coaxed.
She nodded, almost imperceptibly.
“I don’t want it to be difficult for you here,” Fighting Wolf continued. “I want it to be for us like it was at the beach.”
“Then let me go!” It was a cry from her heart and it caught them both unawares. Realizing what she had said, she knew she had to continue. Reaching for his hand, she looked into his eyes, imploringly, “If you really want it to be good between us, let me go. I want to be free. Only then can I feel free to be with you as a woman is with a man.”
Shaken, he could only hiss fiercely, “No, I can’t let you go. I will not let you go. You’re mine!”
She saw that she had gone too far. She dropped his hand. ”Then we are back where we started from,” she said dully.
He got up and paced, trying to think. “There will be no more talk of freedom,” he said sternly. “You’re mine, and you will stay mine. I will not let you go,” he repeated succinctly.
Then, he dropped to his knees by her bed, where she was sitting. “Can’t you see, Sarita?” he asked softly. “I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay with me. To be happy with me. To make love with me.”
She looked at him. Her golden eyes met his piercing dark gaze, unable to believe the imploring note she heard in his voice. “What about Rough Seas?” she asked speculatively.
Taken aback, he hesitated. “She’s nothing to me. She imagines she’s in love with me.” His tone dismissed Rough Seas as a concern.
“Oh? That’s not what she tells me.”
“What does she tell you?”
“That you are to marry her!” Sarita waited for his reaction, confident she’d caught him in his lies.
To her astonishment, he threw back his head and laughed. “Marry her?” he repeated, incredulous.
She watched him warily.
He looked at her, saw she was serious. He strove to match her mood. “She would love to marry me,” he said seriously. “She’s asked me a few times. But I –I care little for her. It’s you I care about.”
Sarita began to relax, surprised at his admission of caring for her. “Will you marry her?” she pressed.
“No,” he chuckled. “Not unless I suddenly decide I want a life of misery. For surely that’s what she’d give any man foolish enough to become her husband.”
“That—and the dead bodies of his concubines,” Sarita muttered under her breath.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.” She smiled brilliantly at him, relief evident on her face. He gazed at her beauty, a warm feeling spreading through him.
“Fighting Wolf, how long can we go on like this?” Sarita asked, serious once again.
“Like what?”
Her golden eyes bored into his. “I will be honest with you. I—I care about you, too.” She dropped her gaze, momentarily regretting telling him her feelings. Still, the way he was tonight, with the rapport between them, she felt she could do no less than speak truly. She raised her eyes. “How long could we be happy together? Chiefs and slaves have no future together.” There, she had said it. Their biggest problem: the status difference. She couldn’t take the words back. Let him deny it if he wanted to, but she—she had been honest.
He took her hand, “We’ll be different. We can be more than just slave and master here, in the privacy of my house. I’m willing to let you be fee here under my roof. Not in the village, of course, but here in my house.”
She shook her head. “It’s not as private as you think. There are many that live here.” She gestured around them. “Many that observe you and talk about you. You don’t give them a second thought. They’re only slaves,” she added, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
Fighting Wolf was silent, plans turning over in his mind. “That’s the best I can offer you,” he finally said.
She was acutely disappointed. Her position was still the same. She sat silently, lost in thought. Beside her, Fighting Wolf waited quietly, his mind busy. At last Sarita roused her flagging spirits. He’d said he cared for her. That was an improvement, she thought ruefully.