Chapter 9

(Georgia, 1838)

"Its official," Daniel Ross spoke in bitter tones. "The removal is going to take place."

"There's nothing that can be done?" Dani Ross, his sister asked. Her voice was resigned. She was as intelligent as she was beautiful and knew the answer already. I suppose she was hoping for some surprise that would change everything.

"No. The so-called treaty has been ratified by the Senate and President Jackson has ordered the Army to begin 'moving the Cherokee to their new home'."

The room resounded with the buzz of conversation from the people gathered there. I sat quietly in the back of the room. It was not my place to offer opinions or comments. I was a guest here. These were the people who were going to be torn from a land they had held for many years and thrust halfway across a continent.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I recalled the uprooting of my own people beginning in 1653, when they were driven to barren Connacht. Untold thousands upon thousands had perished, either during the movement or afterward. I would have ground my teeth together except that my fangs got in the way. I made a tremendous effort and they withdrew, having dropped when my memories bubbled to the surface.

I had first come to New Echota, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, when gold was discovered in the Georgia hills. I didn't come for gold, after all, money was not something I needed. Rather, I had been moved by curiosity and my bump of wanderlust. And, well, "wander" was not the only lust I had been feeling.

I had met Daniel and Dani Ross over a year previously in Savannah. I moved in reasonable social circles, not the planter elite but the next step down; that of prosperous tradesmen and merchants, the smaller cotton factors and ship owners. I was passing as the widow of a Barbados planter. Single women, especially of means, were looked upon somewhat askance, and I could not afford too deep an examination after all. I had a town house of modest proportions and entertained and received invitations to parties in return. I did enjoy the parties and opportunities they offered to meet interesting people of both sexes.

As did those of my kind who could, I also had a well concealed hiding place in another part of town. In my case, it was several rooms near the waterfront. Comfortably furnished, they provided a base for the nights when I prowled looking for a meal. I ranged carefully over a good deal of the city, never feeding twice in a row from the same area. As well as safety, that also ensured I was extremely unlikely to feed from someone I had previously bitten. Two encounters in too short a space of time and I might have actually killed someone. My hunger had to be satisfied but at the same time I did not want to murder an innocent person.

It was at one of those parties one spring when I was introduced to the Ross's. Both of medium height, they had matching black hair and copper skins. Daniel's eyes were black. Dani's were blue, showing one of the strains that had mixed with the Cherokee over the centuries. I was taken with both of them from the first introduction. Their appearance stirred memories of the Orient and the lovers and peoples I had known there.

As distant cousins of John Ross, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, they were both well-educated and knowledgeable. I was fascinated to learn about their nation inside a nation, a nation with its own languages, written and spoken. A nation with its own laws and newspaper and all its own accoutrements and ways. I was also fascinated by them.

At a party one evening, I was standing alone on a dark porch, enjoying the night sea breeze when a voice spoke behind me.

"Out in the dark, Mistress Severin?" Daniel's voice came to me, using the name I was going under at that time.

"Bridget, please, Mister Ross" I turned and smiled at him. Enough light floated through the nearby windows to outline his form, and the two glasses he was holding. He extended one to me.

"Champagne?" I took the glass and he continued. "I would like that, Bridget. Please then, call me Daniel." With a hint a bitterness, "After all, 'Mister' seems to be a title that some here think I am not entitled to have."

"Then they're fools," I said simply. I touched my glass to his. "Your health."

We drank and chatted. As the night drew on, I asked him if he would be kind enough to see me home. The host summoned my rented carriage and Daniel assisted me into the back seat. I kept his hand in mine as he followed me into the coach. He squeezed my hand, then he disengaged his fingers from mine and gently stroked the skin on my arm. I shivered slightly and smiled.

We spoke little on the way home, but we sat close and I could feel the heat from his body. When we arrived I tipped the driver generously and led Daniel into the house.

It was dark and I lit a lamp in the hallway.

"No live in servants?" Daniel inquired, as he followed me up the stairs. I had made no verbal invitation to him, but the look we had exchanged in the foyer was enough. His own smoldering gaze had seen the desire in my eyes and matched it with his own.

"No, I prefer my privacy," I replied. That was true, I also didn't want anyone too familiar with my comings and goings. I also have a vivid imagination and could just see a helpful cook or maid bringing me breakfast in bed and opening the heavy curtains to a glorious sunlit morning. They were tightly fastened to avoid such an occurrence, but I was a devout follower of Murphy long before his famous law was written down.

Daniel's fingers touched my shoulders from behind. He gently removed the shawl I had draped around me and carefully placed it over the banister of the stair we had just climbed. Carefully, but forcefully, his hands drew my dress down my arms, leaving my shoulders bare. His lips followed, tracing my collarbone, then sliding up the side of my neck. For an instant they paused, where my pulse would have been, and I felt a tinge of worry. Then his tongue moved on, following the line of my jaw up to my ear.

His fingers were undoing the buttons down the back of my dress, even as his tongue slipped inside my ear, darting deep inside the porches. The speed that my dress fell down my body spoke of much practice on his part. He spun me around and pulled me into his arms, his mouth seeking my upturned one. We kissed; quickly once, then twice and then our mouths closed on each other and remained as his tongue burrowed into my mouth.

He reached down, one arm behind my back and the other circling my knees. In one motion he scooped me up into his arms. He broke our kiss long enough to demand "Where?".

"The end of the hallway," I managed to gasp in return. He carried me down the hallway, pushing the door open with his shoulder and then kicking it closed behind us. I have never been able to see "Gone With the Wind" without seeing Daniel carrying me down that hallway to the bedroom. Nor do I want to forget.

Once securely in the room, Daniel bent his attention to removing my petticoats. As in a distant future I would refuse to put up with a girdle, in that earlier time I disdained to wear a corset and stays. Take me as I am or leave me alone. Therefore he was able to speedily strip me, I having "forgot" pantaloons. Again.

I was surprised to see that his skill in undressing a woman also extended to undressing himself simultaneously. I was impressed. I was also impressed by his rigid cock. It curved up slightly from sparse but dark hair and was already glistening.

I made a move to capture it, but Daniel forestalled me, taking my hands in his. He kissed me again and then took me to the bed, sitting on the mattress and then drawing me to him. When I was beside him, his kisses started anew, this time deep and passionate. He sank down onto the bed and took me with him, gently stretching me out and then covering my body with his own.

The time for talking was past. Our mouths closed on each other anew, tongues searching, demanding, possessing. I parted my legs and felt the head of his cock press against me. One hand cupped my right breast, gently squeezing it and toying with my nipple. I bent my knees, planted my feet and lifted my hips. With a single long gentle motion, he slid inside me.

For what seemed like forever he remained still. Only his lips moved as he continued to kiss me. Even his hand was motionless, my nipple caught between two fingers. Then his hips began to rise and fall, slowly, oh so slowly at first. His shaft rasped back and forth in me, the head gliding along my silky inside walls. Then he braced his hands on either side of my body, just grazing the sides of my breasts. He raised up, holding his slender muscular body in the air, touching me only at three places, his weight supported by his toes and hands. I gasped silently as his mouth parted from mine.

His arms flexed, lowering himself to cover me. His hips pushed forward, filling me with his cock. Then he pushed up, his hands tightening on my breasts. Somehow it felt wildly erotic to have so much of his weight pressing against my small breasts, knowing they were holding him up.

Down and up, in and out, he pumped. He moved faster and faster. Pinned by his weight on my breasts, I could still arch up to him, meeting each down thrust with a push of my own. The silence was shattered by both of our moans, growing louder and louder with each thrust of his cock in my pussy, with each slamming up of my hips to take him deeper into me. His knees were on the bed now, allowing him to slam forward as well as down. I felt him beginning to swell inside me. In response, my internal muscles tightened on him, until he was battering to keep pounding all the way inside. His head fell back and he released a hot flood deep in my already soaking pussy.

We slept, woke and then made love again. For as long as he visited the city we met discreetly and arranged many more lovely nights together. The visits began to trail off in late 1837 as the growing tide of the campaign to dispossess the Cherokee grew. Finally I received a letter telling me that he and Dani both had decided it was no longer safe to come to Savannah.

I wasn't in love with Daniel but I didn't want to stop seeing him. I felt more akin to the Cherokee and their plight than I did to my neighbors. So I moved, something I had done a number of times before and knew that I would do again.

From the first I loved the low, rolling mountains of North Georgia. I longed for the nearness of the ocean, but the morning mists and the gentle, worn peaks covered in trees gave comfort to an eternal outsider. I took great care in my feeding, generally traveling to the nearby gold camps. Daniel and I were still friends, but no longer lovers. Somehow that seemed right. Things were different in the Cherokee Nation than they had been in Savannah. It was as though darkness covered the land. Voices were muted. The mood was somber. I missed him in my bed, but I understood.

There were occasional attempts to lighten the atmosphere. Daniel and Dani held a party one evening and invited me. There was food and drink and conversation. If the objective was to take everyone's minds off the current crisis it was a dismal failure. People huddled together in small groups and spoke with hushed voices. Then came the news of the ratification of the treaty and the announcement of its enforcement