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An Excerpt From: SEASONAL WINDS ANTHOLOGY:
Autumn Wind
 CHARLOTTE BOYETT-COMPO, 2006.
All Rights Reserved, New Concepts Publishing
She did not know how long she sat there before she realized she was no longer alone. The hairs stirred on her arms and she turned her head from side to side, sweeping the area in front of her. Someone was watching her. The knowledge was terrifying for she was unarmed and alone and no one knew where she was. She could hear her heart pounding with fear.
With calmness she did not feel, she sat up and turned her head to look behind her.
He was hunkered down not ten feet away, his steady brown eyes locked on her, his elbows on his knees and arms dangling between his spread knees. She let out a long wavering breath.
"How long have you been there, Takoda?" she asked, relieved it was her intended's brother and not a renegade white man intent on raping her or worse.
"Long enough," he responded in that deep, husky voice she found so pleasant to listen to. "Be glad I was not an enemy. Your mind had flown this world, arechi hyegahaota."
She smiled at him calling her little whirlwind. That had been his nickname for her since they were children. Takoda was only a year older than her while Chaska was three years older than Takoda. "How did you know where I was?"
He stayed where he was, his face hidden in the shadows, his bare chest gleaming in the moonlight. "I followed you from the settlement," he stated.
Mina nodded. "That was you who called to me," she said. "I was too upset to notice."
"How much did you see?" he asked, no doubt thinking she had come upon his brother and the white whore after he left the room.
"I saw it all. I was in the closet when you and your brother came in," she said and saw him flinch.
Takoda got to his feet and came over to her. He dropped gracefully to the ground and sat there cross-legged as he looked at her. "I hesitate to make excuses for him but he was drunk," he told her.
"At that time of the afternoon?"
He shrugged. "It is not the first time, Mina. The Capitol Army did not need us today so he spent the day in the saloon drinking with the whore. I thought to get him back to his room before he passed out but I did not know he would bring the woman with him."
"He did not seem as though he were about to pass out," she said with a snort.
"The thought of rutting stimulates a man."
"I can not marry him, now, Takoda," she said, lowering her head.
"The tribal council will think differently," he reminded her.
"Let me be clear. I will not marry him, now," she corrected.
"You will not have a say in it," he said quietly.
She raised her head, her chin jutting forward, eyes narrowed. "Then I will kill myself," she said. "Rather than allow your brute of a brother to do to me what he was doing to the white slut. Such things are disgusting."
"You say that even before you know if you might enjoy what he was doing to her?" Takoda countered, his lips twitching with amusement.
"No, I would not enjoy it and this is not funny, Takoda Dark Wolf!" she threw at him and jumped to her feet. She started off only to find him at her side, having moved so quickly she hadn't seen him act. Such was the way of the men of his clan. He snaked out a hand to take her arm, his thumb rubbing along her upper arm.
"You may not think so now, but a year down the road, you might look back and laugh at your childishness," he said.
"Childishness?" she shrieked, jerking her arm from his light grip. "You think I'm being childish? What if that whore has a vile disease? Our Joining is less than a month away and he would have brought that disease to our pallet and given it to me!"
"Jasper's whores are not diseased," Takoda said, folding his arms over his chest. His pectoral muscles jumped, drawing her eyes to his brawny chest. Even in the moonlight, his scars were visible to either side of his long black braids. "He has them checked every week."
She was staring at the five inch long slits where the medicine man had inserted bone skewers under the muscles of his chest wall. The white ridged scars bore evidence that he had danced the Kachono-danced with the Sun-and pulled himself free of the skewers that had been suspended from ropes attached to the Sun Pole. The men of her tribe were proud of such scarring for it attested to their bravery and endurance in the face of brutal pain.
"I will not be his wife, Takoda," she said, forcing her gaze from his scars. Chaska had yet to dance with Sun and it was whispered he might not.
"And if he insists?"
"I will run away."
Takoda snorted. "Then the men of the tribe will come after you, arechi hyegahaota."
She stared into his eyes. "Would you be among those men?"
"You know I would," he stated. "Chaska is my brother and it is his honor at stake."
"He has no honor," she declared.
"My brother will be upset that you caught him behaving in such a manner."
"He should have thought of that before humping that whore!"
He laughed at her choice of words. "Men do not think with their brains when they are rutting, Mina," he said. "They think with something else."
She was eying her pony, wondering if she could get to it before Takoda caught her and decided it would be nearly impossible. He was the fleetest of foot among the warriors and it was his family's position in the tribe that would not allow her to escape.
"There is another solution," he said, his own gaze going to her mount.
"I do not see one," she said, her shoulders slumping.
"I could go before the tribal council and ask that you be given to me instead."
The very suggestion shocked Mina to her core. Her eyes widened. Takoda had never shown the slightest interest in her except as his brother's intended and that interest had been offhand at best. He had always treated her like a kid sister, ignoring her most of the time though-of late-she had caught him staring at her in ways that made her very uncomfortable.
"You would take me to wife?" she asked in a near-whisper.
"It would honor the Agreement of the Gahaota between our fathers. My mother would not object and I doubt yours would. It is time I settled down," he said. "My job with the Capitol Army will last only another year and then I will be free of them."
She knew how much the men of her tribe hated having to work alongside the white men who treated them as barbarians, savages of little value. The Dark Wolf clan had been kept longer in the service of the Capitol Army than the warriors from among the other tribes.
"But you do not know that we would be compatible," she said. "You do not know!"
He moved again in that lightning quick way he had and hooked his left arm around her waist, jerking her to him in a fierce hold that made her blood sing and a strange moistness flow abruptly between her legs.
"Tell me my body would not be compatible to yours," he said, his hard chest pressed tightly to her breasts, his groin prodding her lower belly. His right had cupped the back of her head. "Tell me you would not rather have me than my slovenly brother." He was much taller than her-taller even than Chaska-and she had to crane her neck to look up at him standing so close to her.
"Takoda!"
He swooped down and slanted his mouth over hers. His kiss was searing and unlike any stolen kiss his brother had ever taken. This kiss sent shivers down her sides and caused a tightening in her womb. He anchored her head so she could not pull away from his lips but pulling away was the last thing she wanted to do. Her arms moved around his waist and she held him to her as fiercely as he held her.
It seemed only natural to sink to their knees upon the ground. He lowered her gently, stretching out atop her, his strong, solid body covering hers as he intensified his kiss. His right hand slid down her shoulder and onto her breast.
Mina jumped as though she'd been prodded with a red-hot brand. Chaska had once touched her there but it had been in passing, almost as an afterthought after a very chaste kiss. Takoda"s hand was molding her, kneading her, squeezing her gently and the sensations such an action caused made her squirm beneath him. It pooled the blood between her thighs and made her moan low in her throat.
He tore his mouth from hers, his dark eyes moving over her face as though trying to memorize every feature. "I have loved you since you tripped me and sent me into that mud puddle when you were four years old."
"You remember that?" she asked.
"I remember everything about you from when we were growing up,arechi hyegahaota," he said. "I remember your awihya ishnaha, your coming of age ceremony. You were so beautiful and I felt such pride. That day our fathers sealed the Gahaota between our families for you to become Chaska's wife and it became the worst day of my life."
"Takoda," she said. "You were just a boy. You could not!"
"I was thirteen winters old, Mina. I was nearly a man and I ached already for the loss of you."
She smiled at him and reached up to lay her palm against his smooth cheek, stroking her thumb over his chiseled lips. "Why did not you say something to me?"
He turned his face so he could place a kiss against her palm then fused his eyes with hers. "What was I to say? You had been given to my brother. It would have been dishonorable to have spoken to you of my feelings."
"Yet you do so now."
"Now you have vowed you will not accept the Joining with Chaska," he said. "Now I can offer you my protection and my love. I would make you a far better husband than Chaska ever could."
At that bold statement Mina could not help but compare the two men. Chaska was the shorter of the two, heavier in weight and given over to a bit of flab around the waist and under his chin. Takoda was leaner with a tightly honed body upon which not an ounce of fat could be seen. Where Chaska's braids were longer than Takoda's, his hair was coarser and usually smelled musky. In contrast, Takoda's hair was sleek and shiny and as she stroked her fingertips along the tip of his braid, she discovered it was as soft as a duckling's down and smell of sweet grass. Strips of otter-skin intertwined with a twisted deerskin thong had been added to each braid to stiffen it. Among the Dark Wolf clan, Takoda was a warrior of some note, while Chaska seemed content to follow his younger brother and not take upon himself the mantle of leadership.
"Chaska Dark Wolf is lazy," Mina had heard one of the elders remark. "And he has embraced many of the unhealthy practices of the white man. It is said he hates to return to human form when he changes for it takes too much energy."
She lowered her gaze to Takoda's mouth. Unlike Chaska's tobacco juice stained teeth, Takoda's were straight and very white for he disdained the filthy habit. And then there was Chaska's fondness for the white man's strong drink.
"What are you thinking?" Takoda asked. He lightly rubbed his thumb across her nipple and shifted his weight upon her so she felt the hardness between his legs.
Mina gasped but did not push his hand away. She was enjoying the heat from his hand through the buckskin of her dress. Enjoyable, too, was that hardness that brought an ache to her lower body. "I am wondering what the tribal council will say. Do you think they will set aside my betrothal to Chaska so easily?" she asked.
"I will go before them and offer to engage in a contest with Chaska for your hand. I have supporters among the council of elders. I believe they will allow me to challenge for you."
She could not imagine brother against brother in combat for her. Chaska was not known for his warrior abilities and she doubted he would be willing to meet Takoda on the field of battle. There was no uncertainty of who the champion would be.
"I will speak to your father, first," he stated. "That is the honorable and right thing to do."
"What if my father does not accept your suit?" she asked.
"There is but one way to assure that he does," he said with a growl.
His slid his hand from her breast and down her side to her thigh. Shifting slightly so his entire weight was not upon her, he crushed the skirt of her dress in his hands and began inching the hem up her leg.
"What are you doing?" she asked, her eyes wide.
"Claiming you so there will be no mistaking who you belong to," he answered.
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