Hostage to Thunder Horse

Tired beyond endurance, he pulled the covers aside and lay in the bed beside her, gathering her into his arms as he’d done in the cave.

“Maddox?” His mother hovered in the door of the guestroom. “Is she okay?” She twisted her fingers together, her brows dipped in a worried frown. “Are you okay?

His eyelids weighed so heavily, he closed them. “I don’t know, Mother. Somehow, I don’t think I’ll ever be okay.”

Chapter Four

Lights glittered in the myriad chandeliers hanging from the vast ceiling. Too bright, all merging and blending together as she spun around the room, dancing from partner to partner. In a deep red ball gown, her hair piled high on her head and the world at her feet, Katya smiled, laughed and drank champagne from crystal goblets.

At one point her father danced her around the room. She was a little girl all over again, smiling up at him, proud of the man who ruled Trejikistan and made her feel loved and protected. So relieved to see him healthy and happy, she leaned against him and hugged him tight. “They told me you were dead.”

He just laughed and spun her into the arms of her brother, Dmitri, so tall and handsome, his wavy black hair so much like her own. His hands held her, gently guiding her through the steps of the intricate traditional dance of her ancestors. Hands of a doctor, a man meant to do good for the people, with a heart so big he could love every child in their country.

Katya smiled and laughed at him. “Where have you been, Dmitri? We have all been so worried.”

Before he could answer, the music ended. Dmitri tweaked her nose, just as he had since she’d been a small child, and disappeared into the crowd.

Standing alone in the crowd of guests, Katya looked around for her father and brother, suddenly sad, lonely and afraid. The orchestra played a waltz, the music so beautiful it melted Katya’s fears and sadness away. As she glanced around the ballroom, the sea of blurred faces parted and one man stood at the center. Unlike the other guests, this man didn’t wear a tuxedo or the uniform of a military man. He wore buckskins and moccasins, his long black hair hanging down around his shoulders, a wild gleam in his brown-black eyes.

As if drawn to him by a magical thread, Katya floated across the room toward him, the other guests fading away in a haze of gray. She could see his face so clearly, every line, angle and shadow etched in her memory. When the tall, swarthy Lakota native took her in his arms, he moved with the grace of a lion. At ease in his traditional dress, he waltzed her around the room, ignoring the whispers and comments made by statesmen and their wives, oblivious to the pomp and circumstance strictly adhered to in formal settings.

For once, Katya did not care that she might not fit in, that the man she danced with would draw censure from the exalted guests. Princes, princesses and leaders of foreign countries did not matter to her as long as she remained in the Lakota native’s arms. The world didn’t exist, except for the two of them.

As the music faded to a halt, the world crowded in. Her father gripped her arm and pulled her away from the Lakota.

“No!” she cried out. “I want to stay with him.”

But her father’s grip tightened and he led her out of the palace and into a waiting limousine where her brother sat, shaking his head.

“No! Let me stay. I want to dance,” Katya called out.

The limousine sped into the darkness, the lights from the palace fading with each passing mile. Katya looked back, her tears blurring her vision.

When she slumped into her seat beside her father and brother, she could not stop sobbing. “Why?”

Suddenly, the vehicle lurched, rammed by another car speeding along the highway. The limousine spun around and around, the motion flinging Katya around the inside. Out of control, it pitched over the edge of the road and tumbled into a ditch.

The door nearest her flew open and Katya fell into the ditch, facedown, her beautiful gown ruined in the mud.

She lay for a moment, wondering if she had died. But the sticks poking into her hands and face made her open her eyes and look around.

The limousine lay on its side, riddled with bullet holes.

“No!”

MADDOX HAD AWAKENED WHEN Kat first kicked out in her sleep. He stared down at the woman who’d managed to end up in his arms yet again.