CASSIE EDWARDS, AUTHOR OF THE SAVAGE SERIES
Winner of the Romantic Times Lifetime Achievement Award for Best Indian Series!
“Cassie Edwards writes action-packed, sexy reads! Romance fans will be more than satisfied!”
—Romantic Times
THE STRENGTH OF THUNDER . . .
Suddenly Thunder Horse stopped and turned to Jessie. He swept her up into his arms and carried her onward to the camp. He kissed her as he leaned low and placed her atop the blankets.
“Techila—in my language that means, ‘I love you,’” he whispered against her lips. “I have wanted you from the moment I first saw you. I want you for my mitawin, my woman, for always.”
“I want you as much,” Jessie murmured, overwhelmed by the feelings and emotions exploding within her.
As he kissed her he slowly removed her clothes, until she lay splendidly nude beneath him. He quickly tore off his own clothes so that nothing remained between them. . . .
Other books by Cassie Edwards:
TOUCH THE WILD WIND
ROSES AFTER RAIN
WHEN PASSION CALLS
EDEN'S PROMISE
ISLAND RAPTURE
SECRETS OF MY HEART
The Savage Series:
SAVAGE VISION
SAVAGE COURAGE
SAVAGE HOPE
SAVAGE TRUST
SAVAGE HERO
SAVAGE DESTINY
SAVAGE LOVE
SAVAGE MOON
SAVAGE HONOR
SAVAGE THUNDER
SAVAGE DEVOTION
SAVAGE GRACE
SAVAGE FIRES
SAVAGE JOY
SAVAGE WONDER
SAVAGE HEAT
SAVAGE DANCE
SAVAGE TEARS
SAVAGE LONGINGS
SAVAGE DREAM
SAVAGE BLISS
SAVAGE WHISPERS
SAVAGE SHADOWS
SAVAGE SPLENDOR
SAVAGE EDEN
SAVAGE SURRENDER
SAVAGE PASSIONS
SAVAGE SECRETS
SAVAGE PRIDE
SAVAGE SPIRIT
SAVAGE EMBERS
SAVAGE ILLUSION
SAVAGE SUNRISE
SAVAGE MISTS
SAVAGE PROMISE
SAVAGE PERSUASION
CASSIE EDWARDS
SAVAGE ARROW
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
DORCHESTER PUBLISHING
Published by
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
Copyright © 2006 by Cassie Edwards
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Trade ISBN: 978-1-4285-1798-1
E-book ISBN: 978-1-4285-0403-5
First Dorchester Publishing, Co., Inc. edition: February 2006
The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Visit us online at www.dorchesterpub.com.
In the deepest of friendship I dedicate Savage Arrow to Tammy Russotto (my fan club president! Thank you, Tammy!), and also Jai Clark, who does so much to support America’s fighting heroes! (Thank you, Jai!) I also dedicate Savage Arrow to my special friends Paul and Carol Welton.
Love,
Cassie
Rain beats down on our bodies tonight;
as if blessed by the Great One, our two souls unite.
To never again be alone, we love as one,
and as each day dawns, we will rise with the sun.
Take me to where the ravens fly,
so high in your hands—don’t ask why.
The souls that wander the great plains
will be forever true.
When the night comes, they will smile,
as our love shines through.
So tell me, warrior, that you forever need me
as the moon does the sky.
Then we shall become as one, as the ravens fly high.
—Angela Dawn Reinhardt,
a poet and sweet, dear friend
Chapter One
Arizona, 1880
Moon When Cherries Turn Black—August
The sky was a turquoise blue overhead, with only a few puffy white clouds breaking its vastness. The air was hot and dry; an occasional breeze stirred the dust on the ground into small swirls.
Weak from fasting, Chief Thunder Horse rode across a high hillside on the way home to his village. He had been praying for the strength he needed to protect what remained of his Fox band of Sioux.
Because of one wasichu, one white man, Thunder Horse’s small band was out of tune with their universe. He had fasted to regain harmony with all things encompassed by the Great Powers.
As it had been from the beginning of time, it was incumbent upon the leader of his people to purify himself of the demands of the flesh by fasting on a high place. And so Thunder Horse had done, hoping for guidance through dreams, for sometimes dreams were wiser than waking thoughts.
It had been three days and nights since Thunder Horse’s fasting had begun. As always, he had prepared himself spiritually through song. It was well known that songs shut off twisted thoughts and emotions.
The fasting was now behind him, for he had received the answers he had sought in his dreams. He felt assured now that the course of action he planned was right.
Suddenly his thoughts were interrupted by activity down below him. He heard the thunder of horses’ hooves, and the screams of a mitawin, a woman.
He drew rein, stopped his steed, then wheeled his sorrel around.
His eyes widened when he saw a stagecoach down below, pulled by a team of six horses running totally out of control.
But what surprised him the most was that there was no stagecoach driver. The reins were flopping here and there while the horses raced onward as though they were crazed.
Hearing frantic screams for help, Thunder Horse spotted a woman leaning out one of the stagecoach windows. Not one to interfere in white people’s troubles, he he
sitated to help the woman in distress.
But when he saw the horses suddenly veering to the right, now galloping hard toward a cliff, he knew that he could not just sit there and watch the horses and the woman plunge to their deaths.
Although weak from lack of food these past three days and nights, Thunder Horse sank his moccasined heels into the flanks of his steed. He scrambled down the hillside, then urged his horse into a hard gallop toward the stagecoach.
When he drew alongside the team of horses, their hoofbeats sounding like thunder in his ears, he steadied himself, then leaped onto one of the lead horses.
He reached out and finally was able to grab the reins. Pulling hard on them, he finally managed to get the horses under control.
Once the animals had come to a halt, he spoke soothingly to them until they had quieted. Thunder Horse then leaped from them to the ground and ran to the stagecoach door.
The woman’s eyes watched him fearfully through the window as Thunder Horse opened the door.
As she came fully into view, Thunder Horse found himself gazing onto a face of pale pink perfection. It was complemented by hair the color of a setting sun, which flowed across her tiny shoulders and down her back.
She was young, surely no more than nineteen winters of age, and petite in every way. Her tear-swollen green eyes were filled with fear as she looked upon him.
Needing to make her understand that he was a man of peace, a man of honor, who had never harmed any white woman in his lifetime, who especially would not harm someone as tiny and helpless as this woman, Thunder Horse released his hold on the door and stepped back. He spoke to her in good English, which he had learned long ago in order to be able to parlay with whites.
“I am a friend,” he said slowly. “I saw your trouble. I came to save you from harm. The horses were running straight toward a steep cliff.”
When she still didn’t say anything, but only sat there trembling and staring at him, he again spoke to her.
“You have nothing to fear from me,” he said softly, marveling at her loveliness. She was like no other woman he’d ever seen, with her hair the color of fire hanging long past her shoulders from beneath a fancy bonnet.
He looked back in the direction from which the stagecoach had come, then gazed at the woman again. “Where is the driver?” he asked, imploring her trust with his midnight dark eyes.
He could not help her any further if she would not communicate with him. Yet he did not want to leave her alone out here in the desert.
“How is it that the horses got so spooked, they came close to carrying you to your death?” Thunder Horse asked, frustrated that the woman still did not trust him enough to answer his questions.
Truly mesmerized by the Indian, Jessie Pilson stared back at him in utter fascination. She was held silent not so much by fear as by surprise. Never had she imagined being so close to an Indian. And this Indian, with his bronze and noble face, his flowing black and glossy hair, was perhaps the most handsome man she had ever encountered in her life!
He was a man of regular, yet striking features. His cheekbones were high.
His midnight-dark eyes spoke of a free and open life on the plains and in the mountains.
Although he was dressed in fringed buckskin that covered most of his body, she could tell that he had a powerful build; that he was a physically perfect man.
Afraid that the Indian’s patience might be wearing thin, and feeling more at ease as she saw the concern in his eyes and heard the kindness in his voice, Jessie finally found the courage to speak.
“I was on my way to Tombstone. The stagecoach was ambushed a short while ago by outlaws,” she blurted out. “The outlaws shot and killed the driver and threw him from the stagecoach. They . . . they . . . took my bag from the top of the stagecoach and ransacked it. They became angry when they only found my personal things, which were of no value to them.”
Seeing that she still had more to say, and glad that she did not seem afraid of him any longer, Thunder Horse said nothing, but instead listened.
“For a moment I was afraid that the outlaws would kill me,” Jessie said, her voice breaking as she recalled the vile, filthy men, whose features were hidden behind neckerchiefs tied around their faces.
“Go on,” Thunder Horse softly urged when he saw that it was hard for her to continue telling him all that had happened. “Tell me. Then the fear will be lifted from your heart and you can live better with it.”
Stunned that this Indian could be so gentle with her, so patient and caring, Jessie gazed more intently into his dark eyes.
She was shaken by how his eyes affected her. There seemed so much in their depths, unspoken words that might show her a world so different from any she had known before.
Jessie made herself focus on what she should be saying, instead of what she had been thinking. Today’s meeting with this Indian was just a chance encounter, and would soon be relegated to the past, like so many other things that had brought a moment of sunshine into her life.
“When the outlaws found nothing of value in my bag, or in the stagecoach, they grew so angry, they purposely spooked the horses,” she said, her voice breaking again. “I was left stranded inside the stagecoach.”
She looked to her right, toward the window at the other side of the coach, and saw the steep drop-off.
She shivered at the realization of how close she had come to dying there.
Feeling truly blessed that the Indian had come when he did, and had cared enough to save her, she glanced up again at him and smiled. “Thank you for rescuing me,” she murmured.
Then without even thinking about the fact that he was an Indian, not a white man, she said, “What . . . am . . . I to do now?”
Thunder Horse was so taken aback by the question, for a moment he could not respond. Instead, he searched her eyes, shaken to the core by what he saw.
Was it possible this woman had been brought to this place, at this moment in time, just for him to meet her? Had destiny brought them together?
Up until now, his life’s purpose had been to keep his people safe. Unwilling to allow anything to distract him from that purpose, Thunder Horse straightened his spine.
“I cannot take you into town on the stagecoach,” he said tightly. “The white eyes in Tombstone would not understand my reason for being with you, a white woman, on a white man’s stagecoach. They would shoot first, ask questions second.”
Jessie nodded. “I understand,” she murmured. “I am skilled with horses. I’ll drive the stagecoach into town myself.”
Quickly forgetting that only moments ago he had decided to ignore his feelings for this woman, Thunder Horse marveled at her strength and courage.
“Your name . . .” he asked, gazing into her green eyes.
“Jessie. Jessie Pilson,” she murmured. “And yours?” she blurted out. “Would you mind telling me your name?”
Thunder Horse’s shoulders squared proudly. His chin lifted. “Chief Thunder Horse,” he said. He noticed a new look of respect in her eyes as she realized that he was no mere warrior, but a chief.
“I am Chief Thunder Horse of the Fox band of Sioux,” he added.
Jessie was speechless again for a moment. She was in the presence of a powerful chief, someone whose main purpose in life was to protect his people. Yet he had gone out of his way to save her.
“Hiyu-wo, come, and I will help you up to the driver’s seat,” Thunder Horse said, reaching a hand out for Jessie and helping her as she stepped from the stagecoach to the ground.
“Thank you,” Jessie said, her heart pounding when she found herself standing close to him. She was so close she could smell the fresh mountain scent that seemed to come from his skin.
She gazed up into his eyes from where she stood a head shorter than he, and found him gazing just as intently back at her. Her knees felt strangely weak.
She smiled somewhat bashfully, then stepped away from him and hurried toward the front of the stagecoach.
Suddenly she felt strong hands at her waist, lifting her, and a moment later she found herself sitting on the driver’s seat. Thunder Horse placed the reins in her hands.
She tried not to see the blood on the seat that had been left there by the horrible murder of the driver.
She made herself focus on getting into Tombstone.
“Are you certain you can do this?” Thunder Horse asked, bringing her eyes back to his. “Will you be alright?”
Jessie still could not believe the gentleness of this chief.
But it was clear he was concerned about her. She could tell by the softness and the careful way he had lifted her onto the seat.
Actually, she hated to leave him, for she doubted that she would ever see him again. It was obvious he normally avoided white people.
“Yes, I’ll be alright,” she finally replied. “But . . .”
The pleading in her eyes as she gazed into his made Thunder Horse feel there was a real connection between them, yet he knew that he must avoid these feelings.
He must remember that she had come to this territory for her own reasons. Reasons that had nothing to do with him.
Someone must be waiting for her in Tombstone, where many evil men lived. He could not even imagine that sort of man touching this beautiful, sweet, and gentle lady.
“You were about to say?” Thunder Horse prompted, eager to know what else she might need from him.
In truth, he hated letting her go, for more than likely, he would never see her again.
“I would feel better if you could stay close enough to watch me get safely to Tombstone,” Jessie blurted out.
Then she said, “But I wouldn’t want you to be close enough so you would be seen. I . . . wouldn’t . . . want you to get into trouble over me.”
She wondered at herself for asking help of an Indian, when it would make more sense to be afraid of him. She had read horror stories about what some Indians did to white women. But she just couldn’t see this man committing such crimes as rape or murder.
“I will ride far enough behind you not to be seen, yet close enough to make certain you are not accosted again before you reach the town of Tombstone,” Thunder Horse promised.
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