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

them what they wanted. Willingly she had tasted their kisses and trembled with pleasure as they had stroked her naked flesh.
    But this was different. This would be rape by adirty savage. She didn’t want him to touch her in any way.
    She felt his hands on her waist and he flipped her to her back, hovering over her. Lillian’s eyes widened. “Please don’t.” She shoved against him. “I beg you not to do this.”
    The Indian jerked Lillian’s gown up to her waist, his hands seeking and finding her most intimate places. It hurt when he jammed his finger into her, and Lillian would have cried out in protest, but she knew it would do no good.
    Squeezing her eyes together tightly, she swallowed a sob. She tried to think of home and of the life that had been ripped from her, but it was hard when the Indian jerked her head around and forced her to look at him.
    When he drove into her body, she quivered with revulsion. He pumped into her hard and fast, not caring if he hurt her.
    When he finally shuddered and fell forward, his weight pressing into her, Lillian thought she was going to be sick. She didn’t dare move, hoping he would leave her alone.
    But he was not finished with her.
    “No. Not again,” she moaned, as he took her again, and still again.
    Later, when he left and the woman had returned, Lillian huddled in a ball, wishing she had died like Susan.
    Her body ached and her spirit was crushed. She thought of Marianna and wondered if she had suffered the same fate.
    Dark thoughts took over her reasoning. No, preciousMarianna had not been raped. That woman had taken her to tend her wounds.
    She despised Marianna because she was everything Lillian wanted to be. Crying quietly because she knew she would be beaten if the woman heard her, she rolled her head back and forth, writhing in misery.
    She was sore and hungry. Her mouth was dry because she had not had a drink of water since the day before.
    Trembling with fear, Lillian heard the man return. Closing her eyes, she hoped he would go to his wife, or whoever the woman was to him.
    But he didn’t.
    He came to her, ripping what was left of her soiled gown, and plunged his hardness into her. Grunting and sweating, he pumped harder in a dance she thought would never end. Her humiliation was twofold because Lillian knew the other woman could hear everything that was happening to her.
    Tears ran down her cheeks and she tried to think of something to take her mind away from what was happening to her body.
    Again her anger against Marianna raged through her. At this moment Marianna was probably being shown every kindness, while she was being denigrated and misused.
    In Lillian’s twisted way of thinking, everything that had happened to her was Marianna’s fault. The seeds of hatred had been planted in Lillian’s mind, and they now festered and grew.
    “I despise you, Marianna,” she whispered. “I’ll make you pay for what you’ve done.”
    Marianna awoke during the night to find herself wrapped in a warm buffalo robe. She was too weary to dwell on what might happen to her at sunrise. All she knew was that she had escaped the horrible savage who had captured her.
    At least for now.
    She felt the roughness of the buffalo hide and thought of the softness of Aunt Cora’s sheets, which always smelled faintly of lavender. She was still drowsy, and tried to focus on conscious thought.
    Why had she been placed with these people?
    What if the cruel and evil Indian who captured her came back for her?
    Hearing the mournful howl of a wolf pierce the night air, Marianna closed her eyes, wondering what had happened to Lillian. She tried to picture the faces of her aunt Cora and uncle Matt.
    In her mind Marianna hummed the song Aunt Cora had always sung to her as a small child. But it didn’t help much.
    Aunt Cora had always bragged to anyone who would listen that her niece, Marianna, was a happy child, always laughing or smiling.
    Well, she wasn’t happy now. And she doubted