Chapter Seventeen Torn Promises
The trees swallowed the Kiowa camp behind Violet, muffling the sounds of women’s voices, the crackle of fire, and the low whisper of the river.
Thomas’s hand remained clamped over hers, hot and unyielding, dragging her forward through the high grass.
Ezra trailed behind, his steps careful, his silence heavier than words.
Every stride jolted through her body like betrayal. She wanted to stop, to turn, to look back again, but Thomas’s grip was iron. She dared only the smallest glance over her shoulder. The camp had vanished. Only a faint plume of smoke rising above the tree line marked where her heart still stood.
Her throat burned, though no tears came. She had chosen. She had spoken the words. I will go. And now each step carried her farther from the warmth of Grey Horse’s eyes, farther from the braid heavy against her back, farther from the sense that her life might yet be her own.
Thomas said nothing, but the weight of his possession spoke louder than speech. His hand crushed hers, his belly jostling as he moved, his breath harsh in the damp heat. He smelled of sour sweat and stale tobacco, nothing like the clean earth and river scent of Grey Horse.
Her heart shrank. She had imagined someone else, someone younger, someone who might at least smile. What she had instead was this man—older than she had thought, thick in the waist, his face rough and pitted, his beard streaked with gray. His eyes held no gentleness. Only claim.
Shock rippled through her again, so fierce her knees wobbled. Can this truly be the man I promised myself to?
Yes. And she could not take the words back.
?
At the river’s edge Thomas pulled her onto his horse with a grunt, seating her before him in the saddle as though she were a sack of goods. Ezra mounted his own gelding and said nothing.
Thomas kicked his bay into the shallows. The current surged, cold around Violet’s legs. She clutched at the saddle horn, her stomach knotting as the horse fought for footing. Thomas’s bulk pressed hard against her back, his arms tight around her waist.
“Keep still,” he barked.
She bit her lip, nodding.
Finally on the far bank, the horse’s hooves found wet clay. Thomas turned and looked back, his eyes sweeping the woods with suspicion before he jerked his head toward Ezra. “We move fast. Hard. I want miles between us and them before they think to follow.”
Ezra gave a short nod, though his eyes flicked to Violet with something unreadable: pity, perhaps, or warning.
Thomas gripped her painfully. “You’re mine now.”
The words stung harder than the river’s chill.
?
That night they camped in a hollow away from the river.
Ezra gathered wood while Thomas tethered the horses and spread his blanket with the air of a man laying claim to the ground itself.
Violet stood near the fire, her arms wrapped around herself, the braid Grey Horse had woven heavy across her shoulder.
Thomas’s eyes fell on it. “Take that out,” he said flatly.
Her breath caught. “What?”
“That braid. I won’t have you looking like some savage’s squaw.”
Her hands rose slowly, trembling. She loosened the ties and let her hair fall free. It tumbled around her face, a shield against his gaze, but inside she felt stripped bare.
Thomas watched with satisfaction. “Better. You’re not one of them. You’re mine.” Then he narrowed his eyes and stared right through her. “He didn’t have you, did he?”
“What?” she responded, puzzled.
“Are you still unspoiled, woman?”
“Unspoiled—?” she stuttered, still confused.
“I mean are you still a virgin?” Thomas spat.
Her face turned hot and red with embarrassment. “Oh, yes. Yes, of course.”
He gave a laugh that chilled her. “Good. I’d have had you anyway, even if he’d had first go. But I’m glad he didn’t. I like breaking in my own ponies!” a chuckle followed.
She bowed her head, her stomach churning. All she felt at his words was humiliation and disgust.
Ezra shifted at the edge of the firelight, his expression stiff. He said nothing, but she felt his silence like a presence standing between her and despair.
?
Back at the camp, Grey Horse stood like stone long after Violet’s form had vanished among the trees. The firelight flickered across his face, but his eyes were fixed on the dark horizon.
“She chose,” Pale Moon said softly behind him.
His jaw tightened. “She was torn.”
“She is not ours,” Pale Moon pressed. “Her promise belongs to another. You cannot take what is bound.”
Grey Horse turned to her, his gaze fierce. “A promise made in words is not stronger than a promise made in the heart.”
Pale Moon’s eyes glittered, hard with jealousy. “Yet she walked with him.”
He did not answer. His chest burned as though a lance had pierced it.
The sight of Violet’s hand in Thomas’s, the sound of her voice saying I will go—it replayed in him with every breath.
He wanted to follow, to tear her back from the man who had no real right other than some words on paper. Yet he knew to act in rage was to fail.
Still, he could not let her go. Not without trying.
He would follow. Quiet, patient, as the wolf follows the herd until the time is right.
?
Sleep escaped Violet that night. She lay on a thin blanket near the fire, the night sounds pressing close. Thomas snored beside her, loud and steady, while Ezra kept watch at the edge of camp.
Every time she closed her eyes she saw Grey Horse’s face, the pain in his eyes when she stepped away with Thomas. Pale Moon’s words whispered in her ear: His heart belongs to the past. If freed, it will be mine.
But she knew that was not true. His heart had turned toward her, Violet. She had felt it in his gifts, in his hands braiding her hair, in the quiet way he looked at her when words were not enough.
Her chest ached. She had walked away from that, turned toward the man who now slept heavily beside her, reeking of ale and rotten sweat. She had chosen obligation over desire.
Had she had chosen wrong?
?
The days that followed blurred into one another. Thomas drove them hard, his temper quick to spark, his words sharp. He complained of the pace, of the heat, of the rations. He spoke of his ranch, of the work awaiting her there: cooking, cleaning, tending stock.
“You’ll earn your keep,” he told her, his eyes cold. “I don’t keep idlers. You’ll pull your weight.”
She nodded, her throat dry.
Ezra remained distant, though his gaze often lingered on her with quiet sympathy. Once, when Thomas had gone to fetch water, Ezra spoke low.
“You don’t have to like the road you’re on,” he said. “Just remember there are forks in it yet.”
Her eyes stung, though she forced a small nod.
Thomas returned then, and Ezra said no more.
?
The next evening, as the sun bled into the horizon, Violet wandered to a stream’s edge alone. She bent to wash her face, the cool water shocking her skin. Her reflection trembled in the ripples—hair loose and tangled, eyes wide and wary.
She hardly recognized herself.
A movement stirred in the trees beyond, a shadow shifting against the light. Her breath caught. She knew that shape, that stance. Grey Horse.
Her heart lurched. He was following. Watching.
For a long moment their eyes met across the water. His gaze held hers, steady, unbroken. She wanted to run to him, to fling herself into the current and let him pull her out. But she could not. Thomas’s claim bound her like a chain.
She lowered her eyes, trembling. When she looked again, the trees were empty.
Had she only dreamed him? Or had he slipped back into shadow, waiting?
She returned to camp, her heart hammering, her guilt heavier than ever.
?
From the trees, Grey Horse watched her walk away from the stream, her head bowed, her step heavy. He felt the rage twist inside him again, but he held it, banked it, as a blacksmith banks the fire. Heat must be guided, not loosed.
He would wait.
The river was long. The trail was longer. And sooner or later, the chance would come to strike.
For now, he watched.
For now, he remembered the weight of her hair in his hands, the promise of her eyes in the firelight.
She had walked with another, yes, but her spirit had not left Grey Horse. Not yet.
And he would not let it.