Soul Deep

Chapter Twenty-One

“What is that?” Amanda stared at the article hanging above the bed drowsily. It looked like a spider’s web, spun within a circle of branches. Small gems were threaded into the web, and above, where it hung from the ceiling, several small pouches were attached to the string.

“It’s a dream catcher.” Kiowa lay on his side, snuggled close to her, one arm beneath her head, the other thrown over her stomach as she rested against his chest.

“I’ve heard of those.” She frowned.

Kiowa grunted. “My mother was half Kiowa Indian. She wove it before she sent me away with my grandfather. It’s supposed to bring good dreams. To catch visions and hold them in place while allowing nightmares to escape and trouble you no longer.”

She tilted her head curiously.

“Most of the Breeds resemble Native Americans, why is that?”

He sighed at her question, shifting onto his back to stare up at the dream catcher.

“The genetically altered sperm has a lot of Native American coding. The scientists, in their studies, decided that it would create fiercer fighters, more savage soldiers when combined with the animal DNA.” He shrugged dismissively.

She tilted her head, staring at the intricate, fragile weave and the small crystals that looked like dew upon a spider’s web.

“Does it bring good dreams?” she asked him then, turning to look at him.

The expression on his face was a mix of regret and acceptance. He didn’t resent the past, but he was determined it wouldn’t be repeated.

“It’s a keepsake.” He finally turned away from it and she knew it was much more than that to him.

She continued to stare up at it silently.

“Did you ever see your mother after your grandfather took you?” she asked. She couldn’t imagine her life without her family. As aggravating and frustrating as they could be, they were still her family.

“Never.” That unemotional tone again.

She looked over at him as he rose from the bed, seeing the mask firmly in place.

“Are you ready for breakfast yet?”

Amanda eased up in the bed, aware of sore muscles, tender flesh. He had taken her long into the night, riding her with a desperation and a skill that had nearly destroyed them both on several occasions.

“Kiowa,” she said softly. “This is why I ran from you last night. If you won’t talk to me, then this mating thing is never going to have a chance.”

He grunted at that. “Last I heard from you, you weren’t giving it a chance anyway.” He moved to the dresser and pulled out a change of clothes. “I’m going to get a shower. I’ll fix breakfast while you take yours.”

Amanda lowered her head, biting her lip nervously.

“I’ll keep running, Kiowa.”

He stopped. She raised her head, watching the play of muscles beneath his dark skin.

“You run again and I’ll make you wish you hadn’t.” The tone of his voice was frightening, his eyes, when he turned to look at her, were so dead, so dull of emotion that she wondered where he hid the pain and anger she knew must be swirling within him. “Don’t make that mistake again, Amanda. For both our sakes.”

“The woman that bore you sent that dream catcher.” His grandfather pointed to the web, dripping with crystals and feathers that hung from the corner of the living room wall. “She made me promise I’d keep it here with you. Animals don’t have dreams though, do they, boy?” he snapped angrily. “It takes a soul to dream.”

Kiowa lowered his head, staring down at his hands. He had dreams, soft gentle dreams of a mother singing lullabies, her voice whispering around him.

“Be a good boy, Kiowa. Find your soul…”

His soul. “What was a soul?” the child he had been had questioned daily. It seemed to him that if one had a soul, they wouldn’t leave a child alone. They wouldn’t leave a child cold, shivering in a shack alone, uncaring of the fears that kept it from sleep.

Did mothers have a soul? he had wondered. How could they have and give their child into the care of such a man?

“You were created, Kiowa,” his grandfather had snarled. “Created and forced on a helpless woman. Evil created you and the evil they put in you will destroy you. I should have drowned you like an unwanted pup when you were born.”

Kiowa stood beneath the pounding spray of the shower and sighed wearily. The memories were brutal and ones he wished he could banish forever. He should have known better than to leave the life he had created for himself and taken a job that would give him time to reflect.

Amanda made him think of all the soft, gentle things he had once dreamed would be his. At fourteen, leaving the mountain, he had sworn that he would one day have everything his grandfather had made certain he had done without. Instead, Kiowa had learned that the dreams, the magic lives he had seen on the television, were all an illusion. And through the years, he hadn’t let himself forget it.

Until Amanda.

Soft, gentle Amanda.

Her laughter had stolen his heart before he had ever touched her. The magic of her smile and the gentleness of her voice had soothed a part of him that he hadn’t known still ached. She had made him dream and damn if that didn’t hurt.

His lips quirked in wry mockery as he jerked the washrag from the small rack he had placed it on and soaped it quickly.

The mating was a biological, hormonal reaction. It wasn’t emotional. It wouldn’t miraculously make a woman love what she couldn’t accept. Just as motherhood didn’t.

“They told her the abomination they were placing in her body,” his grandfather raged at him when Kiowa had dared to suggest he was a child, not an animal. “They showed her the creatures they had whelped so far, mewling, disgusting little animals that looked like a babe and sounded like an animal. You’re no more than they were. Forced on her. She birthed you because her conscience wouldn’t allow her to do otherwise. But you sickened her from the day you were born…”

Kiowa flinched at that memory before scrubbing his face roughly with the soapy rag. It was over, but it still had the power to make him bleed. Amanda saw him as an animal, forced upon her by the mating heat, too hard, too rough for the dreams she had. She wanted more than she thought he could give her, and at the end of the day, Kiowa always prided himself on his honesty, if nothing else. There was very little he could give her.

He had enough money from the less than legitimate work he had done over the years, so she wouldn’t miss the material things she was used to, because he could provide them. But she was still President Vernon Marion’s daughter. Raised to marry an acceptable, elite member of society and to know she was not meant for the dregs of humanity. Kiowa was the dregs of humanity. Hell, some days, he wondered if there was even any humanity left within him.

Long minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in jeans and black t-shirt, he left the bathroom and stared at Amanda as she sat silently in the middle of the bed. She stared back at him with chilly silence, her hazel eyes resentful.

“I’ll fix breakfast. You have half an hour,” he informed her quietly, pushing the dark needs and his own anger deep into the place he had created for them years ago.

“You have half an hour to think then.” She rose from the bed, staring back at him with haughty distain. “You can discuss this, and come to a reasonable solution, or you can start making plans on how best to lock me up. Because this is not going to continue.”

“I hope ham and eggs work for you,” he said calmly. “I’ll have to go down to the storehouse later.”

Her lips thinned furiously. “Fix whatever the hell you like. You’ll be eating it alone. And think about this, Kiowa. The vote on Breed Law comes up day after tomorrow. How long do you think you can force me to stay here after that?”

She swept past him, her head held high, her hair swirling around her like a short earthen cape as she stomped to the bathroom.

“Never thought I could keep you to begin with,” he murmured, quietly. “But that doesn’t keep a fool from trying.”