Wind Warrior (Historical Romance) by Constance O'Banyon Page A

Indian woman, Marianna saw that she was striking in appearance. Her black hair was pulled away from her face in one long braid that hung down her back. Marianna felt hope when she read compassion in the large brown eyes that rested on her injured arm.
    Although Marianna could not understand the woman’s words, she was able to interpret her hand motions—she wanted her to sit on the reed mat, so Marianna sank to her knees.
    Marianna’s head jerked toward the opening when she heard someone entering. The old woman who stepped inside was stooped with age; her mouth was crabbed with wrinkles and she looked frightful. Marianna cringed against the tipi wall as the two Indian women conversed, nodding at her.
    Finally the two of them came toward her. The whiteheaded woman bent to examine Marianna’s arm. She was surprisingly gentle. Then the two women talked some more.
    At last the dark-headed woman knelt beside Marianna and spoke softly, gesturing at Marianna’s arm. She didn’t want them to touch her because of the pain. The elder woman held on to Marianna while the younger grasped Marianna’s arm and yanked it hard.
    Stabbing pain ripped through Marianna, and she could not keep from screaming; then blackness swallowed her.
    When Marianna’s eyes opened, she had no idea how much time had passed. When she tried to sit up, she was hindered because her arm had been bound to her body with wide leather strips—it ached and throbbed, but she didn’t feel the sharp pain she had known before.
    Her gaze swept the tipi and she found she was alone with the younger Indian woman. When she saw Marianna was awake, she knelt beside her and forced her to drink a nasty-tasting herbal concoction. There must have been something in the drink that dulled her pain, and soon she sighed with relief.
    Smiling, the woman handed her a wooden bowl of meat. Marianna forgot all the manners her aunt had taught her. Aunt Cora would have been appalled if she had witnessed the way Marianna gobbled down a piece of meat and reached for another.
    By the time Marianna had eaten her fill, she could hardly hold her eyes open. As she lay back against the buffalo robe, her eyes fluttered shut and she realized the herbal drink had not only helped her pain, but it had also made her sleepy.
    Forcing her eyes open, she tried to fight against the drowsiness. She stared through the opening above her and saw night was falling, and that was all she remembered before sleep took her once more.
    Lillian’s captor was not a young man. If she was any judge, he was in his late forties. His neck was thick, his nose hooked at the end, and the last day before they reached the village, he had begun brushing hishands against her breasts, and once slid his hand down her belly and clamped it between her legs.
    She understood that he had offered her to the Indian couple who’d taken Marianna into their tipi. But she had not been chosen, and now she knew her fate was in his hands.
    Lillian had been thrust into a tipi and left alone, crying on a buffalo robe. As soon as darkness descended, the Indian returned. Lillian heard him speak to someone, a female who had entered at the same time. Surely he wouldn’t rape her if there was another woman present.
    Raising her head, she watched the two of them argue. The woman was thick-waisted, her face round, her arms and legs like tree stumps. It soon became clear to Lillian that the woman didn’t want her there. It was also clear that the woman was losing the argument.
    Lillian sat up quickly, her hand going to her mouth when the woman hurried out of the tipi and the man turned his attention to her.
    Dropping to all fours, she scrambled to the back of the tipi, knowing very well what the Indian’s look meant. Soldiers at the fort had often looked at her that same way, and she had flirted with some of them, welcoming the touch of those she liked. She’d frequently slipped off into the woods with different men to have her body caressed and give