Lord of the Wolves (9 page)

Crack!
The thunderous
report of a rifle split the still evening air, reverberating off the wooded
hills. Through the pall of sulfurous smoke, a spellbound Sarah watched as the
warrior dropped to his knees, still clutching his weapon. As Kingston emerged
from the forest, the dying man drew a whistling breath and took up a singsong
chant that lasted but a moment before he fell on his face and lay lifeless.

Sarah
covered her face with her hands. Then Kingston was there, wrapping her in his
strong embrace, holding her tightly against him. Arms locked around her, he
stroked her hair. His presence was comforting, but Sarah could not seem to
still her trembling. “When he stepped from the forest, I thought it was you—” She
broke off with a violent shudder, pressing closer.

His
heart hammered in his chest and his breath came quick and shallow. It was
obvious that he’d run a considerable distance. “How did you know where to find
me?”

An
odd look came over his face, the same haunted expression she’d noticed before
when he’d spoken of Caroline. “It does not matter. All that matters is that you
are unharmed, and that Killbuck will trouble me no more.”

Sarah
felt his fury, felt it rise up to enfold him even while he held her close. The
moment was broken and they both knew it. How strange it seemed that she felt
such regret. Was this distance between them not what she wanted?

Feeling
suddenly awkward, she stepped back, watching as Kingston went to his fallen foe.
“You knew him?”

“Yes.”
Bending down, Kingston took the knife from his belt with one hand, seizing the
man’s scalp lock with the other. His blade bit deep and the blood ran.

Sarah
turned away, sickened. The shock and the horror of the past few moments swept
over her in a tremendous wave. Never had she felt so far away from home, so
lost. The lush beauty of the evening had abated, leaving only savagery and
death, wariness and fear in its golden wake. Danger lurked everywhere in the
darkened landscape, watched in silence from the cover of the underbrush,
striding alongside her, pure menace in buckskin.

Overwhelmed
by all that occurred, dazed and confused, Sarah gave in to her mounting
sickness and went down on her knees, retching helplessly into the weeds.

Somewhere
in those miserable moments, Kingston came and knelt beside her, holding her
head. “Oh, Kingston. How could you?”

“He
was my enemy,” he said simply, almost gently. “You are English, and a woman. I
do not expect you to understand.”

Sarah
stood, pulling out of his grasp. “You have blood on your hands, your soul.”

“Sarah.”

“You
have killed a man, Kingston! You have taken a life!”

He
drew himself up as if she had slapped him. “Indeed, Madame. I took a life so
that you might live!”

“There
must have been another way!”

“What
way?” he demanded. “Should I have waited until after he’d fired his weapon into
your lovely white breast to ask his intentions? Then, as he was lifting your
scalp, I could have inquired if he would like to have mine, too?”

With
a sound of disgust, he grasped her arm and, retrieving his rifle and scalping
knife, dragged her back to camp where Sarah sat, rubbing her arms and looking
pointedly at the trophy that hung at his belt. “How many scalps have your taken?
How many men have you killed on this barbaric rampage?”

His
expression hardened, and the gold light of anger came into his eyes. “Call it
what you like.
I
call it war, and I assure you, I have not killed enough
by half. I will not rest until I have seen the last of them die.”

Sarah’s
nape prickled. This was not the Kingston she had come to know since Kathryn
Seaton’s death, a man given to small kindnesses, patient and teasing.
This
was the Kingston Sauvage who was the talk of the settlements, a man whose very
name evoked suspicion and fear. Fierce, he looked. Capable of anything, and it
was unwise to pursue the subject any further. She should be quiet until his
blood had cooled, yet she could not be.

She
had come to care for him, and she wanted to help him. Wanted to understand. “Every
last one of whom? What did Killbuck do that made you relish taking his life?”

For
a long while he stood unmoving and unresponsive. When at last he spoke again,
his words were forced. “He conspired with others to steal my life from me.”

“Your
life?” Sarah frowned. “I do not understand.”

“Nor
do I, and there is the irony of it. I did not ask for any of this. I wanted no
part of their damnable war, until they brought it to my doorstep. They gave me
no choice in the matter. But I vow upon my beating heart, upon my last drop of
blood, that I will make them rue that day!”

“This
has to do with Caroline, doesn’t it, Kingston? And the French renegade,
La
Bruin?”

For
a moment, he maintained his silence. When at last he spoke again, his voice had
lost its razor’s edge, had grown soft and full of melancholy. “I was hunting
when they arrived at our home, and Caroline, far gone in her pregnancy, was
alone. She could not have known who he was or what he wanted, until it was too
late. He lured her from the cabin by telling her he was a friend of mine and
when she was outside and vulnerable, he threw her down and took her.”

Tears
of sympathy were welling up in Sarah’s eyes. “I am sorry,” she said. Kingston
seemed not to hear her. The floodgates had creaked open, and the tragic truth
came rushing out.

“She
fought him, even while he savaged her body, great with our child. And when at
last, he had tired of her, he cut her throat and left her to bleed out her life
in the cabin dooryard.” A muscle worked violently in his cheek. “I returned
that evening as it was gathering dusk to find that our home had been reduced to
ashes, my life destroyed.” His voice cracked, but he went on. “Our son had been
born while his mother lay dying. So small that he barely filled my two
hands—too small, too weak to live.”

“You
lost him, too.”

“He
died in my arms. Sometime later, I buried them together, the child in his
mother’s arms.”

“I
am sorry, Kingston,” Sarah said. “I am sorry for your loss, your suffering, but
you must not go on like this. It’s is God’s place to mete out justice for
La
Bruin’s
sins, not yours.”

He
raised his fathomless black gaze to Sarah’s face. “Killbuck took part in the
raid upon my home. He was a killer of defenseless women and children, and he
got what he deserved.”

“You
do not understand,” she said angrily, but he cut her off.

“I
understand that your god’s justice is too slow in coming. Where was your god,
Madame, a few moments ago? If not for my skill with a rifle, you would have
been killed back there, and your god would not raise a hand to prevent it! Indeed,
your god is the same god who sat back and did nothing while
La Bruin
killed
my wife and child! An ineffectual, uncaring god.”

“You
must not say such things!” Sarah said, taking his hands in hers, gripping them
tightly. “Your heart is wounded, yes. You need time to recover.”

He
laughed at that, a dark and chilling sound, filled with hurt. “I have no heart,
cherie.
I buried it deep with my wife and my son in the secret place in
the woods. So, do not attempt to save me from myself. It can’t be done.”

Sarah
could not leave him to court his own death. She cared too much. “It can, if
only you will let someone help you.”

“Who?”
he replied with a snort. “There is no one left to give a damn if I live or
die!”

Sarah
gripped his hands more tightly. “I care. I care what you do, and what you
become. I care that your heart is wounded.”

Sauvage
looked at her, long and searingly. His blood lust, his passion, was still running
high, and what she was offering was terribly intriguing, the soothing balm for
which his soul had long cried out. “Do you?” he asked, softly, gravely.

She
nodded and, unable to resist, he reached out to cup her cheek. She closed her
eyes, but made no effort to pull away, to retreat. It was all that Kingston
needed. “Heal me, then, Sarah. Heal my ravaged heart, if indeed you dare.”

He
kissed her with all the pent-up passion, all the longing that had kept him
awake nights listening to the rhythm of her breathing as she slept, silently
willing her to waken, to come to him in passion and in want. There was little
tenderness in him now. Mercilessly, he crushed her lips against his, opening
and conquering her mouth and tongue, stealing her sweetness....

And
she allowed it. A single word could have stayed him, a gesture could have kept
him at bay. Instead she moaned against his mouth and joined in his savage play,
her arms stealing around his neck to hold him ever closer, her hands tangling
painfully in his hair.

Pain
was nothing to Sauvage. She could have raked him with her sharp little nails
and he would have gloried in it. Pain, at least was something with which to
fill the throbbing chasm of his being, something to combat the hideous
emptiness.

Dead
inside.
That’s
what he’d been until he’d found her at the hunter’s camp, and she had breathed
life back into his withering shell and forced him to feel again.

And
he did feel, sensation so keen it brought an unaccustomed moisture to his eyes.
He wanted her more than he had ever wanted a woman, even Caroline. The longing
under which he suffered was intensified tenfold by his abject loneliness. “Sarah,”
he said, his fingers swiftly unfastening her buttons, drawing her bodice over
her shoulders and down. “Sarah, speak to me. Tell me this is real, and that I
will not wake in abject misery.”

In
silent reply, she grasped his hands and kissed each in turn... then kissed his
cheeks, his chin, his lips... and Sauvage began to quiver. “It must be a 
dream,” she said. “Otherwise, I would not be in your arms. And if it is a
dream, then I do not wish to awaken.”

He
trailed heated kisses down her throat and claimed her breast, taking her
luscious pink nipple into his mouth and feeling it harden. His emotions were
raging inside him. They tugged at him, insisting, screaming, demanding of him,
until he wanted to throw his head back and howl like a beast.

Was
that not what they called him now? He’d caught wind of the whispers, and he’d
never gone out of his way to dispel the rumors. Those rumors, combined with his
penchant for solitude, had only served to enhance his reputation, to strike
fear into the hearts of his enemies.

He
wanted his enemies to fear him, but not Sarah. Never, Sarah. He wanted to
possess her, to please her, he did not wish to harm her—and so he slowly gained
control over the red tide swirling and gathering and dashing itself once more
upon his senses, crushing it small beneath an iron will.

Think
of Sarah.
Think
only
of Sarah. Tamping down his lust and loneliness, he lowered her
slowly, gently, to the ground. Raising her skirts, he lavished her soft white
breasts with kisses, his questing fingers seeking and finding the downy curls
that capped her womanhood, and the dark jewel hidden within.

Still
caught in the throes of passion, Sarah welcomed him, reveling in his possession.
Flesh loving hungry flesh. She’d never known such sensation, such depth of
desire could exist. Pious and trembling Sarah, pink, white, and brown little
mouse, had at a touch miraculously turned to a wanton.

Where
was her propriety now?

Her
sense of good and right?

Her
loyalty?

Gone
like a puff of dust before the howling gale. Kingston had been right. Whatever
this was between them—infatuation, attraction, physical want—it was too strong
to resist, and she could not stand stalwart before it. He kissed her and she
crumbled. He begged her to heal him and she fell into his arms, willing to do
anything, to give anything, to ease the haunted look in his eyes.

Sarah’s
familiar world was ending, and standing amidst the dust and rubble that
remained was Kingston. Nothing else existed for her in this moment. Nothing
else mattered. Not the great gulf that separated them, not cultural
differences, not religious faith, or the lack thereof.

He
touched her flesh, fingers splayed, as if he would savor every inch of her
body, and that flesh, that body, tingled. Fire scorched her breast as he kissed
it, licking clean through to her vulnerable heart. There was no part of her
left untouched.

Kingston’s
hard hand swept up her thigh, beneath her skirts, and a welter of blistering
heat followed in its wake. Sarah sighed and moved against him, fighting to
catch her breath. His fingers stroked the ache between her thighs, and she
arched her hips, straining to meet his kiss as the flames leapt higher, wave
after searing wave of unbearable ecstasy.

“Sarah,”
he whispered hoarsely. “Sarah, my angel. Only you can deliver me from this
torment.”

“Hello
the camp!”

Kingston
buried his face in her breasts and she heard him curse virulently through
gritted teeth. Reluctantly, he rose to find his rifle, shielding Sarah from
view as the visitor stepped from the trees.