Savage Abandon

She looked toward the closed entrance flap, wondering if everyone beyond it had experienced the same tremors as she and Wolf Hawk.

She didn’t hear any excitement or cries of terror outside, so if his people had felt and heard the shaking, they were no more excited than Wolf Hawk.

“Do you see fear in my eyes?” Wolf Hawk asked, smiling at Mia.

“No,” she murmured.

“Then you should not be afraid, either,” Wolf Hawk said softly. “I will not allow anything to harm you ever again.”

He smiled into her eyes. “Our Earthmaker keeps us safe,” he said, still holding her hand.

Before she had become alarmed, Wolf Hawk had felt the yearning in Mia’s kiss and the way she had clung to him. She had even pressed her body against his as though to tell him that she accepted them as a true couple now.

That was what he desired from the bottom of his heart. He wanted her to want him as badly, as deeply, as he ached to have her. Not only for a moment or two, but forever.

He wanted to make her his wife.

“Your Earthmaker is something like my God, I am sure, yet God doesn’t always stop bad things from happening,” Mia murmured, seeing her father’s grave in her mind’s eye.

“Nor did your Earthmaker keep the two young braves who died in the traps safe,” Mia went on.

She saw his body stiffen. He seemed affronted that she was questioning his people’s god.

She lowered her eyes, then looked up into his again. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have said that about your Earthmaker. I apologize.”

“You never need apologize to me about anything,” Wolf Hawk said. He placed a hand on her cheek, loving its softness. Her skin was as soft as were her lips against his.

“Just as in your world, your god cannot guard your people against all evil, so it was with the trappers who caused the deaths of our young braves,” he said. “It is just the way of life…birth, death, and…happiness. I have learned that one must take from life what is given, both bad and good. But it is true that the Earthmaker is always there for my people in all ways when his guidance is needed. I’m sure you pray to your god for the same sort of guidance.”

“I understand that sometimes misfortunes occur, such as my stepping into those poison ivy vines before I realized it,” Mia murmured. “I understand that neither God, nor your Earthmaker, can reach down suddenly from the sky and keep those types of things from happening. I also realize that life is ruled by both good and evil, and that everyone must do what they can in order to have good on their side.”

She smiled at him, loving the way he rested his hand on her cheek. The touch of his flesh against hers made it hard for her to think.

She ached for his kiss again, for the feel of his body against hers.

These things were new to her.

These feelings!

These wants!

These yearnings!

“I know that you have told me I don’t need to thank you for things you have done for me, but I must thank you again for what you did for me when I was so ill,” she said.

She was unable to keep herself from shuddering with the memory of how awful she had felt. She stretched her legs out before her and ran a hand down the smoothness of one of them. “It’s a miracle that my skin is not left scarred,” she murmured. “The sores were so horrible.”

She turned to him, and as his hand fell away from her cheek, she held it between hers. “I shall always be grateful for what you have done for me,” she said, her voice breaking. “You took me in your own home and cared for me even though I was no more than a stranger to you, a woman you first saw as your enemy.”

She fell into his embrace as he wrapped her gently in his arms and held her close.

He laid her down on the plush pelts, then moved atop her so that his body gently pressed against hers. She moaned with ecstasy when his lips came to her mouth in a passionate kiss.

She felt as though she were melting inside as she returned the kiss and twined her arms around his neck. She couldn’t believe that she’d ever thought him guilty of evil things. She knew now that he could not possibly be responsible for the death of her mother. She knew that he was not guilty of her father’s death. It was her father’s weak heart that had taken him from Mia.

No, it was truly not Wolf Hawk’s fault that Mia had been left without a mother and father. He was kind and generous and loving, everything Mia’s father had been.

She had always said that she wanted to marry a man just like her father, who had been so gentle with his wife and daughter in every way.