Free Savage Tempest by Cassie Edwards Page A

from him and ate. As soon as her hunger abated, Joylynn eyed him cautiously.
    â€œHas your father returned from the buffalo hunt yet?” she blurted out, bringing his eyes quickly to her. “I know that your mother was worried. I’m sure you were, too.”
    Surprised by her sudden question, and her apparent concern about whether or not his father had returned, High Hawk paused in his meal and gazed into her beautiful green eyes.
    Then he shook his head slowly back and forth. “No,
Ahte
has not arrived home yet,” he said. He set his plate aside without finishing all the food on it.
    He glanced over his shoulder at his closed entrance flap, and then into Joylynn’s eyes. “I am worried,” he admitted. “Yet I have known my father to be gone for seven sleeps when hunting the buffalo. Surely he is all right now, as he has always been before.”
    â€œI hope he is all right,” Joylynn murmured. She popped a blackberry into her mouth and enjoyed the tantalizing juices as she chewed.
    Then she pushed her plate aside and gazed at High Hawk again. “Your mother and you have talked of your one brother,” she murmured. “Are there any other brothers or sisters?”
    â€œOur family numbers four,” High Hawk said. “Only two sons were born to my
ahte
and
ina
. My brother, the older, has taken much time from my
ina
, because he was born with a twisted back. It is sad that he cannot do as others his age do. But I have tried to make up for it by taking him with me whenever possible.”
    â€œI’m sure he appreciates it,” Joylynn said, finding it odd to be sitting there discussing such things with the man who was her captor.
    But the longer she was with him, the less she felt like a captive.
    It was as though she were just there as a friend, discussing things and enjoying his company.
    But it was foolish to think that way, for she knew that soon he would be giving commands about the things he wanted her to do.
    Yesterday it was helping to dig the cache pit.
    Today? She hated thinking what the chores might be!
    â€œI will always remember how my brother watched as I learned the skills of a warrior,” High Hawk said softly. “Before I was twelve winters of age, I was assigned to stalk a deer. My brother tried to join me, but found it too hard and had to return home.”
    â€œWhat were you doing that was so hard for him?” Joylynn asked, leaning forward so that she could look more directly into his eyes.
    â€œWhile stalking the deer, I had to move a smallbush before me, crawling, and pausing for long intervals as I watched the deer for signs of alarm. Lying flat, I waited to crawl again, doing so across long stretches of prairie. My brother’s body would not tolerate any of this. Even I learned the excruciating patience that was necessary to stalk the deer.”
    He drew his legs up before him and locked his arms around them as he gazed pensively into the flames. “Entering my teen years, I was allowed to track bear,” he said. “I am very glad my brother was not with me one day when I was doing so, for surely one or both of us would have perished.”
    â€œWhat happened?” Joylynn asked, her eyes anxious.
    He turned his gaze toward her. “I rounded a point of rock high in the mountains and came face to face with my first grizzly,” he said. “The bear rose, towering above me. In that brief moment of indecision, which only the eagle recognizes in the snake, I shot forward between the massive arms of the bear and plunged my lance into its heart.”
    Joylynn gasped and turned pale.
    â€œI dodged the crushing sweeps of its paws, running, inches from death, until the grizzly finally fell,” High Hawk said.
    Seeing how impressed she was by this tale, he squared his shoulders and told her another. “Often I rode recklessly as I hunted buffalo with my lance,” he said. “My friends and I drove