Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart of the Warrior
You are one of us! she had declared, and mercenary Roan Storm Walker knew that the words of the beautiful Amazon warrior Inca were true. Now, summoned by a power he scarcely understands, Roan is suddenly swept from his Montana home to the fierce jungles of South America for one purpose–to protect Inca and save countless lives.To her people, the mere mention of Inca's name evokes a woman whose beauty is rivaled only by her legendary power. But that influence comes with danger. When Inca turns to Roan to shield her against the far-reaching treachery of enemies, he must see beyond her compelling presence, into a wounded heart as vulnerable as his own.
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“What is it about you that makes me feel as I do?” Inca demanded.
Roan smiled at the spark of challenge in her eyes. “What do you mean? Do I make you feel bad? Uncomfortable?”
“No…I like being close to you.”
He saw her eyes fill with confusion for a moment over her admission. He knew Inca was a virgin and, more than ever, he realized just how innocent she was.
“You make me feel safe in my world,” she continued. “And in my world there is no safety. How can that be?”
Roan’s heart soared. She trusted him. He needed—wanted—that trust. Just as much as he wanted her….
A homeopathic educator, Lindsay McKenna teaches at the Desert Institute of Classical Homeopathy in Phoenix, Arizona. When she isn’t teaching alternative medicine, she is writing books about love. She feels love is the single greatest healer in the world and hopes that her books touch her readers on those levels. Coming from an Eastern Cherokee medicine family, Lindsay has taught ceremony and healing ways from the time she was nine years old. She creates flower and gem essences in accordance with nature and remains closely in touch with her Native American roots and upbringing.
To Karen David, a real, live warrioress and
healer. And a good role model for the rest of us!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Chapter 1
“No…!”
Roan Storm Walker’s cry reverberated around the small, dark log cabin. Outside, the rain dripped monotonously off the steep, rusty tin roof. Breathing harshly, Roan pressed his hands to his face, dug his fingers frantically into his skull as he felt his heart pounding relentlessly in his chest. His flesh was beaded with sweat. Lips tightly compressed to halt another scream, another cry of grief and loss, he groaned instead, like a wounded cougar.
Lifting his head, Roan turned the dampened pillow over and dropped back down onto the small, creaking bed. He had to sleep. Great Spirit, let me sleep. Shutting his eyes tightly, his black lashes thick and spiky against his copper-colored skin, he released a ragged sigh.
Sarah…how he missed her. Brave, confident, foolhardy Sarah. It had been two years and he still missed her. How badly he wanted to touch her firm, warm shoulder or to smell that jasmine scent that always lingered tantalizingly in the strands of her short red hair. Gone…everything was gone. Swept from his life like litter before some invisible broom. Sarah, his wife, was dead, and his heart had died, too, on that fateful day. Even now, as he lay listening to the rain splattering against the roof of his cabin high in the Montana Rockies, he felt the force of his aching grief. The waves of agony moved through him like waves crashing in from the ocean and spilling their foamy, bubbling essence on the hard, golden sand.
Unconsciously, he rubbed his fingers across the blue stone hanging around his neck—his medicine piece. He’d worn the amulet continually since his mother, a Lakota medicine woman, gave it to him—before her death many years ago. Composed of two cougar claws representing the cougar spirit that was his protector, and two small golden eagle feathers, it hung from a thick, black, sweat-stained leather thong around his neck. The center of the medicine piece was an opalescent blue stone, roughly fashioned in a trapezoid shape. The bezel around the stone was of beaten brass that had long ago turned dark with age. No one knew what the stone was, or where it came from. He’d never seen another one like it in all his travels. His mother had told him it came from their ancestors, passed on to the medicine person in each succeeding generation of the family. He always touched this piece when he was feeling bad. In a way, it was like sending a prayer to his mother and her line of ancestors for help with the heavy emotions he wrestled with. Roan never took off his medicine piece; it was as much a part of him as his heart beating in his chest.
He closed his eyes once more. He was good at forcing himself to go back to sleep. His mother, a Lakota Yuwipi medicine woman, had taught him how to lucid dream. He could walk out of one harsh reality into the more amorphous world beyond the veil of normal human reach. More than likely he was able to do this because he had the genes of that long line of medicine people coursing richly through his bloodstream. His father was an Anglo, a white man—a physics teacher. Between both parents, Roan found it easy to surrender over to a power higher than himself, give himself back to the night owl’s wings of sleep, which almost instantly embraced him again.
As he moved from the pain of the past, which continued to dog his heels like a relentless hound on the scent of the cougar spirit that protected him, his grief began to recede. In lucid dream and sleep, he could escape the sadness that was etched in his heart. This time, as he slipped into sleep, Walker heard the distant growl of thunder. Yes, a Wakan Wakinyan, a mighty thunder being who created the storms that roved across the Rockies, was now stalking his humble cabin hidden deep in the thick Douglas firs on a Montana slope.
