Savage Beloved

Candy yawned again as she fought off the urge to sleep. “No, I’ll be fine,” she murmured, giving him a hug before stepping from his tepee.

As the sun hit her eyes, Candy saw Hawk Woman through the golden haze. A sudden uneasiness swept through Candy, for if she was in a drugged stupor, Hawk Woman might try to take advantage of her.

Trying to look as though she wasn’t drugged, Candy managed to get inside her tepee.

But as soon as she did, she fell in a half faint on her bed. Remembering the ants that had been there, she managed to crawl away, then got to her feet long enough to take the blankets outside and shake them.

Again she felt Hawk Woman’s eyes on her.

Candy ignored her and hurried back inside the tepee, turning quickly when she heard movement behind her.

She had expected to see Hawk Woman there, but instead it was Shadow.

Candy dropped to her knees and welcomed Shadow in her arms. “Where have you been?” she asked. “Don’t you know how much it worries me when you leave?”

Shadow snuggled closer.

“Yes, you know, don’t you?” Candy said softly.

Having enough strength left to rearrange her blankets, Candy stretched out on the bed with Shadow next to her, snuggled as close as she could get.

“What must I do about that terrible woman, Shadow?” Candy whispered, her eyes slowly closing.

Candy just wasn’t certain yet whether she would tell Two Eagles about Hawk Woman’s latest act of hate. She would decide by the time he returned.

But for now, sleep was all that mattered to her.

As her eyes drifted closed, she was glad that Shadow was there to keep her safe while she slept. Hawk Woman wouldn’t dare try anything while Shadow was near.

Chapter Thirty-two

Ah! Who shall lift that wand of magic power,

And the lost clue regain?

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Candy was awakened from a sound sleep by the distant howling of wolves. She leaned quickly up on an elbow, already aware that Shadow was no longer cuddling against her, as she had been when Candy had fallen asleep.

Instead she found Two Eagles sitting beside her bed, gazing lovingly at her. “You are home,” Candy murmured, starting to sit up, then stopping when she saw what he held in his hand. It looked like the bullhorn plant she had thrown outside.

Sitting up slowly, she looked at Two Eagles again as he held the plant out toward her.

“Why would I find this outside the entranceway?” he asked, glancing at the red welts on her arms. Even with the creamy white medicine covering them, he could see how inflamed the bites were.

Then he searched her eyes with his.

Feeling uneasy, Candy was at a loss for words. She wasn’t yet ready to tell him what Hawk Woman had done. She realized she wanted to solve this problem with Hawk Woman herself. She needed to be the one to finally put her in her place!

He tossed the plant into the lodge fire, then reached behind him and brought a bag out for Candy to see. “Crying Wolf stopped me after I arrived home and told me of your problem with the ants,” he said. “He said he was not sure how you got bitten by them, but thought I might want to bring more of his special medicine for you to use before we retire for the night.”

“He is so kind,” Candy murmured, hoping that Two Eagles would not insist on knowing how she happened to have been bitten, or pursue the question of how the plant had wound up beside his lodge entranceway.

She felt careless now for having left it there. She should have burned all traces of the plant.

“Let me put the cream on now,” Two Eagles said. He opened a vial and dipped his fingers into the white liquid; when it dried, it looked like chalk on the skin.

Candy held one arm out and then the other as he gently applied the medicine to her bites. Then she lifted her skirt so that he could medicate those on her legs.