Their love is more than she'd imagined, a way to talk to the gods, but will the price be too high?
Sacrificing her shyness and worn dress may be a way to talk to the gods, but it also opens up the way to young Redbush's loincloth. In his warrior arms she feels safe, loved, wild. Freeing her own shaman power to talk to the Allfather, she will come to understand a terror that might be and the high price of loving someone.
Though he creates heady sensations she has never known before, she will learn that everything has a price. Love opens many channels and closes many doors.
Though his touch can make her see heaven, she will learn that you can't create without sacrifice. In the wilderness there are many dangers, the least of which might be losing her heart to her handsome young buck.
Full of bravery, passion, and fear, she will aid her people—or destroy them. In the untamed wilds before America as we know it, history isn't just written—it is lived through blood and tears and love.
General Release Date: 7th January 2013
"What are you doing?"
The voice. It’s Redbush. I didn’t hear him approach. Today his skin glistens with a sheen of sweat, the sun striking him from behind, as though it too loves the shape of his body, the graceful curves of his legs under his loincloth.
I stare at him, a shy maiden.
"Don’t give me that. You are as talkative as bluejay." His tone is humorous.
"At least you didn’t compare me to a crow," I say with a sigh. His eyes see through to my inner heat, making me squirm while I gaze at him. I love to admire him.
"Why the sigh?" he asks. He sets his bow down and squats beside me. His muscles ripple like the sides of a deer. His chin looks as hard as the rock I am sitting on, which is far enough away not to be found by any of my tribe—or so I had thought.
And yet he is here. Great.
"I was thinking. I wish for the makings of a new dress. I would sacrifice this one to the gods, but then, what would I wear while waiting for the answer?" My dress is hideous. The wooden beads are broken and worn, the hem frayed. I feel the material for wear, especially across the chest where the decorations are falling off. The buckskin fringe is worn and cracked from too many washings, dancing unevenly under my fingers.
"Would they listen to you?" He laughs.
I don’t hit him because secretly, I have always had a feeling for Redbush—as in, I have a feeling declaring my love for him would make him laugh. I’m too shy to talk to him much, ever since he turned more desirable to the young girls of the tribe than any other male in the tribe. His red-fletched arrows stick up above his right shoulder. He carries no meat, I notice.
"How was the hunt?" I ask, avoiding his question. Do the gods listen to women? I finger a rip at a seam of my dress, the one that connects the shoulder to the sleeve. Grandpa used to say if I made a sacrifice they might talk to me, a woman. He knew because he was a great shaman, and his wife had told him to tell the gods she would give anything for a son, but he hadn’t. When she’d become pregnant, he’d known they’d heard her. When his wife had died during childbirth, he’d known they had taken something. My mother had told me not to listen to Grandpa, to only pretend to listen. But I’d listened.
"Did you catch anything?" I ask.
"It was a good hunt. I stopped to watch clouds, to see their beauty. I missed the rabbit." His voice is casual, that of a man confident in himself.
I laugh. "Beauty?" I love clouds, but only the dark grey ones, the stormbringers with their many shades of grey, the troubled ones.
I pull a thread, a long piece of sinew, and the dress unravels slowly, the arm coming loose. Fine. But then the chest starts to fall away and I freeze, holding the thread taut.
From the corner of my eye, I see Redbush watching intently.
The air is cold on my breast—cold and delicious like a quick dip in a still lake during summer. My breasts are half covered by shadow, the tops peeking out like sloping mountains, the nipples just hidden by the folded, stiff hide.
Xssa is currently employed at one of those jobs, the ones that pay rent/bills. She's really a writer, volunteer firefighter and ravenous bookworm. Xssa Annella is currently published with Whispers Publishing and now with Total-E-Bound. She is looking forward to someday being in print and publishing a lot more books.
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