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She had not found any of them to her liking and had turned them all down flat.
Until now, no man had caused her heart to become crazed with a need she did not understand. It seemed like a sexual longing that started at the tip of her toes, languorously working its way throughout her.
She trembled even now at Fire Thunder’s closeness.
“All I can give you to eat now is beef jerky and black medicine,” Fire Thunder said as he offered her a piece of the jerky in one hand, and held out to her a steaming cup of coffee in his other.
Wanting to fight her fe
elings, Kaylene glared up at him and slapped the jerky out of his hand, and then the coffee, spilling it. “Keep your food . . . and . . . your so-called black medicine, which you so dumbly call coffee,” she hissed out. “I’d as soon starve to death as be your prisoner.”
“You are foolish if you do not eat and drink,” Fire Thunder said as he glared at the spilled coffee. He sat the empty cup aside and settled down next to his sister. “In time, you will get hungry enough to eat anything I offer you. I will wait now, until you ask. I do not force many things on women.”
“Hah!” Kaylene retorted angrily. “How can you say that? Aren’t I your captive? Would you not say that was forced on me?”
“Not by choice I took you in such a way,” Fire Thunder said sullenly. “I would prefer being with you under much different circumstances. Your father caused me to go about knowing you better in a much different fashion than I had hoped for, should we have ever met by chance.”
“You . . . wished . . . to know me better?” Kaylene asked, her voice trailing off in her wonder at his words. “You remembered that one time we chanced to see one another?”
“Yes, that is so,” Fire Thunder said softly.
He held a piece of jerky out toward her again. “Eat, we will talk later,” he said, going back on what he had said he would not do.
Feeling as though he was drawing her into something she still could not trust, thinking that he might be a skilled liar, Kaylene turned her eyes from him and folded her arms across her chest, again refusing the food.
Enjoying her own piece of beef, Little Sparrow had sat watching what was transpiring between her brother and the beautiful woman. She had not managed to read their lips. All that she could tell was that Fire Thunder was trying to make friends and Kaylene would not trust him enough to allow it.
And Little Sparrow understood. If Little Sparrow’s brother had been left staked to the ground, would not she hate the very one who did it?
But why could not Kaylene see how evil her father was, and that he deserved to be left to die? Surely if Little Sparrow’s brother had been as cruel, surely she would have understood the vengeance of those whom he had wronged.
Wanting to persuade Kaylene into loving both herself and her brother, hoping that her brother had finally found a woman he desired, Little Sparrow took the beef from her brother’s hand and scooted closer to Kaylene.
She placed a gentle hand on Kaylene’s cheek, drawing her eyes around to see her. With sign language, Little Sparrow asked Kaylene to eat. She even formed the word “eat” with her lips as she handed the beef jerky to Kaylene.
Nervously, Kaylene glanced over at Fire Thunder. When she saw that he was not watching, she took the beef jerky and gobbled it down.
Afterward, she hugged Little Sparrow and kissed her softly on the cheek.
Little Sparrow placed her hands together and leaned her face sideways into them to show Kaylene that she was sleepy.
Kaylene nodded, smiled, and watched Little Sparrow go to Fire Thunder’s bedroll and get comfortably between the blankets.
She nervously watched the other warriors as they retired for the night.
Before long, she saw dark lumps made by the bedrolls of the sleeping men, scattered at random around the fire.
“You must also have your rest before we venture up the mountain to my village at daybreak,” Fire Thunder said, taking one of Kaylene’s wrists as he attempted to bring her to her feet. “Come. We will make a pallet in a more private place for you. I have seen you look uneasy in the presence of so many men.”
Kaylene jerked her wrist away from him and refused to stand. “The men are all asleep. I’ll do just fine here,” she murmured. “That is, if you will sleep elsewhere.”
“You will sleep where I tell you to sleep,” Fire Thunder said, again grabbing her wrist. “Why do you fight me every inch of the way? I do not plan to harm you. So do you not see how much easier it would be for you if you just go along with what I ask of you?”
“And just what else are you going to ask of me?” Kaylene said, glaring into his blue eyes. “Aren’t I at your mercy? You are a man who has shown interest in . . . in . . . possibly seducing me. Everyone is asleep. No one would be the wiser if you forced yourself on me sexually.”
Tired of bantering with her, especially now since she had brought something into the conversation that incensed him, that she actually thought him capable of raping her, Fire Thunder yanked her to him.
“Is that what you want?” he hissed between clenched teeth. “To be seduced? Surely you must, or you would not have mentioned it for, woman, I have not made any wrongful advances toward you to give you even an inkling of an idea that I will take advantage of you sexually.”
