"But if you take this island, you can have as many wives as you like. Just as you surely have now in Ife." She drew away, still not trusting the pounding in her chest. "What does one more mean to you?"
"Both my wives in Ife are dead." His hand reached and stroked her hair. "They were killed by the Fulani, years ago. I never chose more, though many families offered me their young women."
"Now you want war again. And death. Here."
"I raised my sword against my enemies in Yorubaland. I will fight against them here. No Yoruba will ever bow to others, black or white." He gently touched her cheek and smoothed her pale skin with his warm fingers. "You can stand with us when we rise up against the Ingles."
His touch tingled unexpectedly, like a bridge to some faraway time she dreamed about and still belonged to. For an instant she almost gave in to the impulse to circle her arms around him, pull him next to her.
He stroked her cheek again, lovingly, before continuing. "Perhaps if I kill all the Ingles chiefs, then you will believe you are free. That your name is Dara, and not what some Portugues once decided to call you." He looked at her again and his eyes had softened now. "Will you help me?"
She watched as the moonlight glistened against the ebony of his skin. This preto slave was opening his life to her, something no other man had ever done. The branco despised his blackness even more than they did hers, but he bore their contempt with pride, with strength, more strength than she had ever before sensed in a man.
And he needed her. Someone finally needed her. She saw it in his eyes, a need he was still too proud to fully admit, a hunger for her to be with him, to share the days ahead when . . .
Yes
. . . when she would stand with him to destroy the branco.