Blackbird (20 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

ADAHYA lay awake listening to the sound of Katherine’s breathing.  He did not dare touch her.  Still not speaking to him, she had simply gone back to his lodge and lain down.  He was surprised she had agreed to come back at all.

He ached to touch her.  Katherine had no idea how her actions in front of Butler’s men had scared him.  Those soldiers could have easily taken her and bartered her back to the whites.  Or they could have taken her back to Fort Ontario where God only knew what they would have done to her.  He could not allow himself to even think what he would do if she was not in his life.

The Mohawks and the Senecas would be joining forces with the British to form a raiding party on the Colonials soon, and Adahya had given his oath to be part of it.  Katherine would likely run while he was gone. Frantically, he searched for the right words, the right actions to make her stay.  To hear her vow to wait for his return.

It was good that she had come back to his lodge.  Surely that meant something.

For what seemed like hours, he lay on his back watching the stars through the smoke hole in the roof and wondered what to do, what he could have done differently.  In one way, they got along as bad as he had with Song, but it was also so much better.  When Song had left, she had injured his pride, he realized now.  If Katherine left she would take a part of him with her.  Running into her at the mission was the best thing that had ever happened to him. 

Never before had he feared being alone.  Now it terrified him.

“What are you thinking?”

He was so preoccupied with his thoughts that he jumped when Katherine spoke.  Turning toward her, all he could do was just stare.  She was so beautiful lying there with her hair tousled and spilling over one shoulder.  He ached to reach for her but resisted, fearing his touch would infuriate her.  He had betrayed her once by not telling her that Song was still living, and now she knew how he had planned to have her killed, which now seemed so long ago.  For this, she would never forgive him.

To his utter shock, she leaned into him and softly touched her lips to his own.  She hovered over him, her hair falling around her face and onto his shoulders, waiting for him to respond, but he did not dare.  When she feathered her tongue over his bottom lip, he draped an arm over her waist and pulled her close, so close she was lying over his chest.  She was looking into his eyes, her gaze mirroring his own apprehension and regret.

“You do not hate me?”

“Hate is a strong word,” she answered, as if hesitant.  “I know where your responsibilities lie, and I know you fight for the people you love.  When you brought me here, I saw you all as murderers, but I know you now.  Star...the way we talk sometimes.  I never had a best friend before.”

When she buried her head against his neck, relief washed over him like a warm spring rain.  Would she stay with him?  She had not said she loved him, but she did not hate him either.  That was something at least.

She was draped across his bare chest, her legs intertwined with his own.  He ran his hands down the length of her back, wishing she was naked against him instead of wearing one of Star’s dresses.  His arousal came to life immediately, but he lay still beneath her.  Their bodies fit so perfectly together, and for now he was content to just hold her, smell the sweet soft scent of her.

She inhaled.  Then slowly released her breath just below his ear.  “You feel nice.”

Softly, she kissed the flesh just under his chin.  She trailed a path of chaste kisses from his ear, down his neck, and across his jaw line.  She did not even realize what she did to him, the sheer power she possessed over him, and he fought to remain in control for fear any bold movement on his part would set her off again.

Her hands were on his waist, and then slowly they moved up his sides, over his ribcage, just under his armpits.  She was watching him now, her expression intrigue and mischievous, as if she were enjoying this newfound power she had over him.

“Do you like that?”

“Yes.”

Her hands moved down again, slowly, deliberately.  They stopped at his hip where his breechclout tied.  Then, slowly she undid the ties.

Liquid fire raced to the pit of his stomach and centered at his groin as her innocent kisses resumed and dropped to the hard space between his breasts.  No woman had ever taken such bold initiative with him, and it both shocked and excited him.  But then Katherine was unlike any woman he had ever known.

Her tongue ran to his left nipple, which she suckled before moving to the right one.

His loins were about to explode.  He rasped her name and something else which he had no recollection to, but she did not seem to hear or understand him.

It did not matter.  He did not care.

Her tongue was playing a game of darting, licking, teasing all the while dropping closer to the part of him which was painful with need of her.  She nipped and bit playfully at his navel.  He tangled his hands in her hair, fanned it out over his stomach while gently coaxing her downward with his hands.

He felt her tongue touch the tip of him, and a heavy groan tore from his chest.  She was tasting him now, testing his length, withdrawing and taking him once more.

Song had never done this, and he had never asked for fear of embarrassing her.  Once at eighteen, he and Zachariah had paid a tavern maid to do this, but the whore had refused once she discovered they were natives.  Katherine’s mouth moving over him, engorging him, suckling him was more than he could bear, more sacred than anything he had ever imagined.  He moaned her name, urging her that it was time, but she paid no mind and continued her dance until it was too late.

He shut his eyes, threw his head back as he expelled his seed, and she took every drop of him.  When he opened his eyes, she was smiling down at him, her eyes alight with sleep and sex.  She kissed him openly on the mouth, and he tasted himself on her breath.  It was both forbidden and erotic.

She continued kissing him, and his need once again came to life.  He leaned into her, rolling her over with him, but she threw her bare thigh over his hip and pushed him back down.

“I’m not finished with you.”  A wicked grin spread over her face.  Straddling him, she pulled her dress over her head and threw it aside.  She caught his wrists and pinned them above his head and kissed him wildly.

She was an uncontrollable wildcat, and his senses reeled.  No one had ever loved him like this, not even in his most hidden dreams.

Releasing his wrists, she leaned back and lowered herself upon his engorged shaft.  She moved against him, riding him as if they had been sharing these pleasures for lifetimes.  Adahya grasped her slender waist and moved with her.  He rose and kissed her breasts, her shoulders, her neck. When he looked at her, her eyes were closed and her head was thrown back.  He had never seen anything so beautiful as this woman.  His woman.

They climaxed almost simultaneously, and Katherine fell into his arms.

“Thank you,” was all he could think to say, and they both laughed.  “Where did that come from, Chogan?”

“I don’t know.  I guess you brought it out in me.”

He chuckled, suddenly too exhausted for words.  “I wish to take you somewhere today.”  He closed his eyes.

“Where?”

Katherine’s question echoed in his ears and he fell asleep without answering.

* * *

KATHERINE followed Adahya up a path that cut through the forest.

“Where are we going?” she asked for the hundredth time, but he passed by a row of hemlock and hurried too far ahead to hear her.

He looked magnificent today.  His hair, still wet and shining, was tied back with a leather thong, and he wore a quilled breechcloth and leggings.  His chest was bare, and he had a red damask robe draped across one shoulder.

He had given her a dress made of bleached doeskin and matching leggings.  Such gifts only added to the intrigue of where he was taking her and why it required such adornment.

“Are we almost there?” she called after him.  He walked so swiftly she could barely keep up.

“You sound like an anxious child.”

He was teasing her again.  She had never seen his mood so elated.  Earlier this morning, he had fixed her a breakfast of berries and venison and asked that she tell him how her parents met.  After she told him how they had attended grade school together, he told her how each member of his family met their life partner.

She wondered why the sudden interest in relationships.

“Where are we going?”  She raised her voice, curiosity too strong to contain now.

“I already told you.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I didn’t?”

She laughed.  “You know you didn’t!”

“Then perhaps I forgot.”  He stopped walking and when she caught up to him, he wrapped an arm possessively around her waist and kissed her.  “You do not handle secrets well, Chogan.”

He released her and abruptly resumed his swift pace.  “We are almost there, Katherine.”

“Almost where?”

“To the secret.”

The forest suddenly opened to a stockade wall of timber.  This was smaller than the wall which surrounded Adahya’s village, but the fortification contained a blockhouse on each corner.  Two redcoats guarded the entrance, and she stepped back, immediately frightened.

“Do not be afraid.”  Adahya gripped her hand.  “No one will harm you here.”

“Who are those men?  What is this place?”

“Fort Hunter.  This is a mission, Katherine.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

SONG quickly ducked behind a tree so Adahya and the white woman would not see her.  When they were long out of sight, she relaxed and stepped into the warm sunlight.

She wanted to hit or kick something, but she was too tired to do anything but curse.  It was not fair.  The whole thing--her plans, her dreams--had all gone wrong, and it was not fair.  She fought the urge to cry; something that strangely seemed impossible to stop lately.  She did not understand her actions. The old Song would have never let someone as insignificant as Adahya hurt her feelings.  The old Song would have picked herself up and went on to greener pastures.  There were certainly better looking men in the village than Adahya.

Adahya looked happy with the white woman.  Happier than he had been with her.  Song cursed the white whore a thousand unpleasant deaths.  Even She-who-commands, who claimed to hate this Blackbird, had stuck up for her against the redcoats the other day.  She-who-commands said she had done it for Adahya’s sake, that he would be pained if Blackbird was taken away.  Song had become furious with her ex mother-in-law, and the old woman had ended up telling her to leave her hearth.

Everything was always for Adahya’s sake.  She hated him, and she hated herself for leaving him.

And she hated being pregnant.

If only she looked to be farther along than five months.  She could have fooled Adahya into thinking the child was not his, and he would have taken her back.  She had loved Roudeaux, the trader who had fathered her child.  At least she thought she had.  But once she left the village they began fighting, and it seemed it was all they knew how to do together.  She could not live like that.  Her life with Adahya had been tedious at best, but at least he had never struck her.

When she decided to return home she assumed Adahya would be cold toward her at first, but she never expected him to have taken a woman.  Especially a white woman.  She had no idea what he saw in her, what the others saw in her.  She certainly was not pretty.  She was smart, yes.  She knew how to put the white man’s language down on parchment.  But pretty?  Definitely not.

Song walked a few yards then sat down under the shade of a hemlock, her legs aching miserably.  Walking seemed to help her back, but it was awful on her legs; once slim, beautiful legs that now shown trails of tiny, ugly, purple veins. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye.  She was once a beautiful, flawless woman.  Now she was bloated and fat, and tiny red lines trailed the sides of her waist where her child began to grow.  Men still spoke to her, still pursued her, yes, but she no longer felt the desire to flirt with them, to tease them as before.

She removed the bundle of bloodroot from her possible bag.  She had repeatedly asked White Swan, the old medicine woman, for the potion, but the woman always refused, saying she was too far along to take it.  So she had just stolen it last night when the woman had been out relieving herself.

Song smelled the foul stench of ground plant root.  She reached for her water skin and poured a small amount of water into a pewter mug.  She had no idea how much was needed to do the task, but just to be certain she emptied the entire contents into the water and stirred it around with her finger.

It was the worst thing she had ever tasted, and she fought the urge to gag.  She drank the entire solution.  Then drained the remainder of water in the skin to rid her mouth of the horrid taste.

She sat in silence and listened to the forest birds.  She wondered how long before the drug took effect, and she wondered what it would feel like.  Surely there would be no pain.  She would not be going into labor, after all.  The task would be quick and painless, and she would soon be able to put this whole incident behind her.

And no one would have to know about this.  She would tell people she fell, and they would believe her.  They would take pity on her and shower her with kindness and affection.  They would not think badly of her, call her a horrible person who would be cast into the eternal damnation of Heno after death.  She would tell no one about the bloodroot.  Ever.

And everything would be all right.