Savage Conquest Read online

  SAVAGE CONQUEST

  By

  Danielle Dubois

  © copyright by Danielle Dubois, June 2010

  Cover Art by Alex DeShanks, June 2010

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  Chapter One

  Early spring 1870

  RunningWolf sunk low to the ground when he heard the train pull in to the station. He watched as many pale faces got off. It was not until he saw the one with flaming red hair that he really paid any attention, however. To him, they all looked much the same, but the hair drew his gaze and he studied the delicate features of her face and the womanly shape of her body.

  He was immediately ensnared by her beauty, felt a sense of possessiveness move through him. This one, he thought, would be a prize. The urge to take her, to make coup on the pale faces, occurred to him. But she was not alone. He sized up the woman and man that were with her. They would not cause him much trouble, he decided with a trace of contempt. But this was not the first time he had come to town. He knew there were many men with guns that lived here. If he caused a scene, the others would come running.

  He would have to catch her alone, he decided. He would have to take her quickly and quietly before anyone realized she was gone. The gods favored him. As he watched, the opportunity presented itself. The man and woman she was with left her to go into a building. She was completely alone. Looking around, he decided that this was his chance. He crept closer, using the buildings as cover until he could get close enough to grab her. Walking up behind her, he put one hand over her mouth and grabbed her around the waist with his other arm, lifting her completely off the ground and setting off in a run.

  Shock completely paralyzed Gabrielle for several moments. Fear very quickly pierced it, however. She tried to scream but discovered her mouth was pressed so tightly shut that she couldn’t manage more than a garbled humming sound. Instinctively, her hands flew to what was covering her mouth and encountered a hand. She tried to scream again when she was lifted up off the ground—instinctively—not because she expected it to be any more effective than her first attempt.

  It congealed abruptly in her chaotic mind that she was being kidnapped! Oh my god! She’d been in town barely five minutes and already she was in trouble! She struggled against her captor, worked hard at the arm holding her around her waist, but his arm was like iron, and she could not loosen his hold on her. In fact, his arm seemed to tighten more until she began to feel lightheaded between the tight hand over her mouth, the vice around her waist, and the jarring from his running stride. Darkness threatened. It was only by sheer force of will that she fought it off.

  He had not made it far out of town when she managed to wriggled out of his arms.

  Gabrielle felt triumphant relief when she managed to win her freedom from whoever was trying to kidnap her. She did not take the time to get a look at whoever it was, though. She was more intent on escape. In dismay she realized the moment she darted away from him that she was too far away from town to hope to get there before she was recaptured since she knew her skirts would definitely hamper her running. The only other means of escape that was available to her was a river right in front of her. She knew because of the time of year that it would be ice cold, but she had no other choice. She could only hope that whoever was following her was unable to swim. She ran straight into the water without stopping to catch her breath. It was so cold it immediately took what little breath she had away, and worse, it was making her skirts heavy, causing them to tangle around her legs.

  She heard the distinct sound of a splash behind her. It spurred her forward. If she could just reach the other side, she would be okay, she told herself. But she did not manage to make it. She slipped on a rock and fell, bumping her head, and, suddenly, everything went black.

  * * * *

  Confusion filled her first awareness, but there was no doubt in her mind that she was completely naked.

  Gabrielle Lancaster was as bare as the day she had come into this world and twice as cold. What has happened to me, she wondered numbly, trying feebly to struggle past the lethargic hold that was keeping her away from full consciousness?

  Her innate survival mechanisms forced a colossal shudder along the length of her spine, making her teeth chatter and her limbs twitch with the force of her spasms. With some difficulty, her body functions still coming to life, she attempted to slowly lift a heavy frozen hand to her mouth to give it a breath of hot air, but, on the way to her mouth, her hand struck a nest of luxurious warmth.

  Why was she unable to remember anything, like where she was and what had happened to her to make her so cold?

  Too disconnected with reality to question the source of the wondrous heat she had discovered, too happy to really care, she burrowed against it.

  “It appears you live, my red-haired coup.”

  The sound of a man’s voice surprised Gabrielle into action, jump-started her nervous system like a bolt of lightning. She quickly opened her eyes to find the origin of the voice but was unable to focus on anything but darkness. Was it dark because it was night or was she in a shuttered room? Or blind? Was she having a bad dream or, was it much worse than that? Was she no longer among the living? When she opened her mouth to address the man, she could not manage anything except for a hoarse rasp.

  “Be calm, red hair,” the deep male voice crooned in her ear, “I am helping your blood to heat so that it may again rush through your body.”

  As he spoke to her, his strong hands coasted down the length of her back and cupped her bottom. Clasping her frigid flesh in his powerful grip, the unknown man brought her roughly against the length of his hot body.

  She realized in dawning horror the unthinkable. The stranger was naked! They were both naked and lying against each other!

  Assembling what scant strength she could, she pushed against the hot marble of his chest, her words coming out slow and sluggish. “Stop this at once, sir! Get away from me! You have no right . . . !”

  His laughter interrupted her tirade, taunted her as she fought to draw breath into her lungs, as she struggled to gather the energy with which to fight him off. Reality quickly set in. In the state she was in, she would be unable to fend off her niece let alone a brute of a man. She stopped struggling and weakly collapsed back against the coarse blanket under her.

  “That is good, red hair. Be calm and gather your strength,” he said soothingly as he slid a long muscular leg between hers, “and I will warm your body in a manner it has never been warmed before—the Sioux way.”

  Gabrielle’s heart skipped several beats. “Sioux?” she said on a gasp, her head spinning with the word.

  “Yes, fiery one, your spirit has been saved by the great Sioux warrior, RunningWolf. And, with my help, you will grow strong again here in my teepee.”

  “Sioux?” she said again in patent disbelief as she tried to make sense of everything as it coalesced in her mind. “I am in a teepee? You mean to say that you are a redskin … uh … an Indian?”

  He laughed again. This time, though, the sound was dark and forbidding with a faint hint of sarcasm. “Yes, English, I am an Indian. Are you upset to find that you lie in the arms of a savage?”

  “But … but you cannot be Indian. You speak English, for God’s sake, and you speak it well! This does not make any sense . . . .” Gabrielle objected somewhat hopefully, still utterly and completely confused about the situation she had found herself in.

  “Still your wagging tongue, woman!” he commanded as he pulled a large buffalo blanket across them. “A black robe who comes to walk among my people taught me to s
peak English when I was young. It is a gift, he says, that I have a mind for it, so that I do not forget what he has taught me. But you do not have to understand all of this. You need only to listen, to obey, so that I may warm your body.”

  In a dazed state of shock and confusion, Gabrielle remained stonily silent. She noted that the Indian took her silence as acquiescence and pushed the edges of the blanket under her cold shoulders. Slowly, she began to recall what had happened to her as her body and mind began to thaw.

  She had not long gotten off of the train when she had been accosted from behind. A large hand had covered her mouth while another had pulled her off her feet at the waist. Instinctively, she had lashed out at her attacker, trying to kick at him. She had managed to wriggle loose from his hold and she had run like all the hounds of hell had been at her feet. But she had been forced to run ahead, through the river, and when she had gotten in, her skirts had hampered her movements. She had heard heavy breathing behind her and she had been too scared to turn around, too scared that she would freeze in fear when she saw her attacker close on her heels. She had slipped, had gotten carried under the cold current by her heavy skirts. She remembered pain just before everything had gone black. She must have hit her head on one of the large rocks in the river bed.

  And now, here she was. But how was it that she had survived a watery grave to find herself taken hostage by an Indian? Was fate so cruel to give her life only to take it away again? She knew better than to let her guard down, knew from all the tales about the Indians she had heard on her journey West that this savage on top of her would only be satisfied after he had raped, tortured, and then killed her!

  For several moments, sheer terror threatened to gain the upper hand. Gabrielle prided herself that she was made of sterner stuff than most females, however. She took a deep fortifying breath and then renewed her efforts to escape the Indian’s clutches.

  The sound of the Indian’s taunting laughter increased tenfold. “If you want to escape me, fiery one, you will have to do far better than that.”

  Her body and spirit heating up, the horror of finding herself in this situation was quickly being replaced by indignation. Folding her hands into a half-fist, she put her elbows against his chest and tried to push him away. “Stop this at once!”

  “If I do as you wish, you will die from the cold. Stop fighting me, fiery one. Allow me to do what I have to to warm you.”

  “I will never allow you to do that, you, you . . . heathen!”

  “My name is not heathen. It is Running Wolf, and you would do well to remember that.”

  Gabrielle knew her insult was not lost on the Indian, not with his grasp on the English language. She did not know about the Running part of his name, but the name Wolf most assuredly fit him, and she had the distinct feeling that she was his prey.

  Running Wolf knew full well that if the white woman did not take heat from his body now, the chances of her making it through the night would be cut in two. With his knees he easily pried her thighs apart and slipped his body in between them. As he positioned himself closer, he could not help but drag his fingers through her beautiful, damp red hair.

  “I have heard it said that a white woman would rather die than allow an Indian to put his hands upon her. Are you that foolish, flame hair? Do you prefer death to my touch? Would you rather let your spirit leave your body than accept what I have to offer?” he asked in a low voice that was tinged with anger and something else that sent warming shivers through her. He punctuated his question by encasing her cold breasts in his hot hands, gently stroking the crest of them with the heated breath of his mouth.

  Shock at the intimate touch froze her, but it was the strange and unfamiliar sensations that fluttered deep within Gabrielle’s stomach as Running Wolf’s caresses grew bolder by the minute that gave her pause, that thoroughly confused her. As his touch warmed her body, instead of regaining the strength the cold water had taken from her, she felt herself becoming weaker and weaker.

  Despite that, maybe because the pleasure brought shame to the surface of her mind despite the myriad number of chaotic feelings he was invoking in her, her mind became clear. “Take your paws off me, you savage! I promise you, if you even think about compromising me, my sister’s husband will make sure you are drawn and quartered!”

  Having expected her fear and confusion but not her fury, Running Wolf leaned back and looked down at the shadowy silhouette of her figure. Did the white woman think he was going to take her body by force? Amused by her threats, he laughed. “I had not thought to compromise you. I was focused on keeping you from freezing to death, but that is a very good suggestion. First I will warm you so that you do not feel like ice and then I will compromise you.”

  Horrified that she seemed to have put the very idea in his head that she most wished to avoid, Gabrielle couldn’t think of anything to say for several moments. She recovered swiftly, however. Seeing that she was getting nowhere fast, she set her chin determinedly and attempted another route. “I demand that you return me to town this instant!”

  “Demand?” Running Wolf asked incredulously, grabbing her by the shoulders, his patience with the red-haired white woman quickly ebbing. “You do not make demands on Running Wolf, woman!”

  Gabrielle pursed her lips in irritation. If he was not going to take her back, she was going to have to get away. Finding his face in the darkness with her hand, she raked her nails down the side of his cheek.

  “By all the spirits!” he yelled, cradling his cheek in one hand while he pushed himself up on his elbows and knees with the other, preparing to snatch her off the buffalo blanket.

  His position gave Gabrielle a clear shot at taking him off guard, and she did not let it slip by. Kicking up and out with all the strength she possessed, aiming for what she knew, without having ever seen it, was every man’s most vulnerable area, she then rolled out from beneath his body before he had time to respond.

  Amongst his bellows of pain, she seized the opportunity to take possession of the blanket, wrapping it around her nakedness as she blindly scrambled across the teepee until she smacked headfirst into a pole. Trying in vain to make herself as small as she could, her small amount of energy completely depleted now, she curled up into a tight ball and shivered uncontrollably in the dark while she waited in dread for his reaction.

  Struggling to his feet, Running Wolf yelled at her from across the teepee. “White women are crazy women! What you have between your legs is only a prize in your mind!”

  Gabrielle’s eyes flew wide open at his words, and she gnawed worriedly on her bottom lip. Was what she thought about him in the beginning true? Did this insolent stranger intend to kill her or do something far worse to her? Or was he considering it now that she had hurt him? Now that she had been foolish enough to retaliate against him and not escape, it was a definite possibility, she realized. She consoled herself that at least she was not beneath him anymore and drew on the only resource she had at the moment, her silence.

  In the dark, he did not know where she was if she was quiet. So instead of throwing more threats at him or begging for her life, she remained still and quiet and listened. She heard him moving. Thankfully, though, he was not coming closer. She wondered what he was doing until she heard a crackle and a small fire came to life not far from where she was curled up.

  Blinking a few times at the unexpected sudden flooding of light into the room, she was able to spot the savage’s naked form on the other side of the flames. She was surprised to see that he was even bigger than she had pictured in her imagination, which did not bode well for her escape plan. But, in spite of his size, he did not look as feral and intimidating as she had thought he would.

  He turned away from her when he saw her eyes upon him.

  With his back was to her, the taut curves of his nicely rounded buttocks were exposed to her heated gaze. Her cheeks burned with the indignity of the situation. She had never been naked in the same room with a man before, and she had certa
inly never seen a naked man before. She knew she should not be looking at him while he was in a state of undress, but, somehow, she could not deny the want to watch as he stepped into his breech clout.

  Pulling on his buckskin pants, the rigid muscles of his powerful legs rippled in unison, drawing her attention to his slim hips and trim waist. Then he turned back toward her, exposing his broad chest to her view. As a lady of propriety, she knew that she should dutifully avert her virginal gaze, should have done it as soon as the fire had illuminated his naked form. But then she recalled what her sister’s husband had told her about how rare it was that she did anything she should. She would most assuredly burn in hell, but if she was going to die soon, she would look all she wanted. As the savage finished getting dressed and concealed her distraction, her thoughts from before returned with a vengeance and she wondered if she would be able to escape the night with her life.

  Running Wolf put his leggings and moccasins on before wrapping his shoulders in a buffalo robe. When he was done, he eyed the fiery one. Even though she had tried her best to hurt him, it did nothing to deter his body from wanting her. She was what he had called her, fiery, and not just because of her beautiful red hair. No, she had the spirit to match the name. He had his hands full with this one.

  As he approached her from across the teepee, Gabrielle could literally feel the heat from his gaze as it bore down on her, could hear his steady breathing over the sound of the flames licking at the wood.

  She swallowed hard, a difficult task for her dry throat, and raised her chin defiantly. He could do his worst to her. She would not be cowed. Lifting her gaze slowly, she pinned him with defiance in her eyes. She tried to analyze his expression, what he was thinking, his motives as he moved closer, but the weak light from the fire only illuminated his leggings and a blade hanging from the rawhide at his hip. Strain though she might, his features were nearly completely engulfed in the darkness except for the faint hint of an amused twinkle in his eyes.