Morgan's Mercenaries: Heart Of The Warrior by Lindsay McKenna Page A

was always something soothing about the gentle rocking of a boat in the arms of the Amazon River. “At times like this, I feel like a babe in my mother’s arms,” she confided throatily. “The rocking motion…somewhere in my memory, a long time ago, I recall being rocked in the arms of a woman. I remember fragments of a song she sang to me.”
    “One of the priestesses?”
    “No.” Inca picked at a frayed thread of the fabric on her knee. “I remember part of the song. I have gone back and asked each woman who helped to raise me if she sangit, and none of them did. I know it was my real mother….”
    Roan heard the pain in her low voice. He saw her brows dip, and her gaze move to her long, slender, scarred hands. “I was abandoned in the rain forest to die. As I told you before, a mother jaguar found me. I was told that she picked me up in her mouth and carried me back to where she hid her two cubs. When the first jaguar priestess found me, I was a year old and suckling from the mother jaguar. I have some memories of that time. A few…but good ones. I remember being warm and hearing her purr moving like a vibrating drum through my body. Her milk was sweet and good. The woman who found me was from a nearby village. In a dream, she was told where to go look for me. When she arrived, the mother jaguar got up and left me.”
    Inca smiled softly. “I do not want you to think that the people who raised me from that time on did not love me. They did. Each of them is like a mother and father to me—at least, those who are still alive, and there are not many now….”
    “You were on a medicine path, there is no doubt,” Roan said.
    “Yes.” Inca brightened. “It is good to talk to someone who understands my journey.”
    “My mother set me on a path to become a medicine man, but I’m afraid I disappointed her.” Roan laughed a little and held up his hands for a moment. “I didn’t have her gift.”
    “Humph. You have a spirit cougar, a female, who is at your side. Medicine people always have powerful spirit guides. Perhaps you will wait until middle age to pick upyour medicine and practice it. That is common down here in Amazonia. Most men and women do not even begin their training until their mid-forties.”
    “You were trained from birth, which means you brought in a lot of power and skills with you,” Roan said. He saw Inca smile sadly.
    “There are days when I wish…” Her voice trailed off. Shaking her head, she muttered, “To be hunted like an animal, with a price on my head…to be hated, feared and misunderstood.” She glanced over at him. “At least the Indians of the basin understand. They know of my vow, know I am here to help protect them. The white men who want to destroy our rain forests want my life. The gold miners would kill me if they saw me. The gaucqueros, the gem hunters, would do the same. Anyone who wants to rape our land, to take without giving to it something equal in return, wants me dead.”
    Roan felt her sadness. Quietly, he said, “It must be a heavy burden to carry. I hope you have friends with whom you can share your burdens and dreams.”
    Rubbing her brow, Inca whispered, “I am all but thrown out of the Jaguar Clan. Grandfather Adaire has sentenced me and told me never to return to the village where all clan members train. I—I miss going there. Grandmother Alaria…well, I love her as I’ve loved no one else among those who have raised me. She is so kind, so gentle, all the things I am not…. I am like a rough-cutemerald compared to her. She is so old that no one knows how old she is. I miss talking to her. I miss the time we spent together.”
    “Then you’re an outcast?” Roan saw the incredible pain in every feature of Inca’s face. In some part of hisheart, he knew she was opening up to him in a way that she rarely did with anyone. The energy between them was tenuous…fragile, just like her. He found himself wanting to slide his arm across her proud