Savage Beloved

But today there was something about his attire that was different. He wore a huge knife sheathed at the right side of his waist.

It looked deadly.

He also carried a lovely white, fringed dress across one arm, and held a pair of moccasins in his left hand. A thin, long piece of hardened leather was in his right.

She knew immediately what that strip of leather was: the hardened remains of a leather strop.

She grimaced at the memory of a time long ago when one of her friends, Sam, a twelve-year-old boy, had been punished by his father for bloodying the nose of a playmate. His punishment had been a whipping with his father’s leather strop.

She would never forget Sam’s yelps of pain as his father brought the strop down across his back at least a dozen times. Nor would she forget that afterward, his father had taken Sam by an ear and forced him to apologize to the other boy, even though as far as she was concerned, that boy had earned the bloody nose because he had yanked so hard on Candy’s pigtails. The pain in her head had lasted for a full day.

So . . . why had Two Eagles brought a razor strop into this tepee? Was it a way to frighten her even more?

Did he use the strop to punish anyone who disobeyed him?

She closed her mind to the possibility that he would use the horrid thing on her; surely he could not do such a thing to someone as innocent as she.

Her insides tight, and scarcely breathing, Candy watched as Two Eagles laid everything down.

She saw how his eyes went to the uneaten food, and then gazed questioningly at Candy.

As though he could read her mind, he bent to his haunches and removed the irons at her wrists.

“Eat,” he said, nodding toward the bowl of food.

Stunned that he had been thoughtful and understanding, Candy just stared into his midnight-dark eyes for a moment. Then when her stomach growled and she was reminded how hungry she was, she gave him a soft smile.

“Yes, I am terribly hungry. Thank you,” she murmured. She knew that after she was through eating, he would more than likely place the irons on her again, but for the moment she was free of them. For-getting that he was there watching her, she ate ravenously.

While she was eating she was only scarcely aware that he had removed his knife from its sheath. But when he began slowly sharpening it on the dried-up leather of the razor strop, slowly slapping and sliding the blade up and down the strop, a sick feeling rushed through her. Why was he gazing at her golden hair?

Was he sharpening his knife so that he could scalp her?

Had he fed her her last meal before killing her?

Suddenly her appetite was gone. Gagging, she shoved the bowl away from her.

She felt icy cold when Two Eagles paused in his work, then carefully plucked a hair from his head and held it dangling in the air before him.

Candy gasped and felt faint when he suddenly swept the knife blade in a vicious swing, cutting the hair in half. Nodding, he went back to sharpening the knife on the razor strop.

Candy reached inside herself for all the courage she could muster and asked, “Why . . . are . . . you doing . . . that?”

Two Eagles ignored the question. Instead, he gazed at her as he left off sharpening his knife. He could not help noticing how slender and supple she was, her hips curving into a slim waist.

Her face was oval and delicate, with blue eyes that mesmerized him.

Her lips. Ah yes, her lips. They were perfectly shaped and tempting; he found himself longing to taste the wonders of her lips.

And then there was the golden hair tumbling down her back.

Although Hawk Woman had the same color hair, it seemed more beautiful and lustrous on this tiny, fragile white woman.

But he reminded himself that no matter how much he admired her hair, soon it would be gone from her.

Candy sat rigidly still as she was scrutinized by this man who held her fate in his hands. She felt as though she were on display as his eyes lingered here and there on her, resting longest on her hair!

Oh, surely he did plan to scalp her!