Authors: Cassie Edwards
Savage Flames
CASSIE EDWARDS
SAVAGE FLAMES
I recently received the very sad news of the passing of Beverly Stevenson, a special person, friend, and very proud bookstore
owner.
It was at Bev’s bookstore at the Village Square Mall in Effingham, Illinois, that I did one of my very first autographings
as a new author. Bev made me feel welcomed and relaxed on a day that became very special to me as I autographed books for
so many of my readers who were as new to reading my first books as I was to writing them.
It is with much thanks, warmth, and love, that I dedicate my book Savage Flames in Bev’s memory.
Always,
Cassie Edwards
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 BOOKreviews
“I feel such a connection with you and your people and we have only recently become aware of each other’s existence,” Lavinia
murmured. “That first time, when I saw you in the tree, I was not afraid, but instantly drawn to you.”
“You have also seen the white panther,” he said, searching her eyes for her reaction. He could see that she was surprised
he would speak of it, confirming the existence of the mystical creature.
“The white panther is something that everyone has learned to avoid,” he went on, now wanting to change the subject.
This was not the time to share the magic that he held within his heart. It was something that might frighten her away from
him.
And he could not chance that.
He needed and wanted her too much!
Animal spirit
What are you to me?
Are you that powerful being within me?
Are you there where even my eyes cannot see?
Show yourself to me, I plead,
Come to me when you know that I am in need.
Are your eyes so like mine
That I have seen you in my lifetime?
Animal spirit,
To you I am bound,
As the sky to the ground.
I call to you, yet I hear not a sound.
Is it me that you surround?
Animal spirit,
Forever, together, are we truly bound?
Animal spirit,
What part of me have you truly found?
—Mordestia M. York,
Poet and friend
CONTENTS
Let men tremble to win the hand of woman,
Unless they win along with it the utmost
Passion of her heart.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne
Florida…1851
The magnolia trees were abloom.
White herons and pelicans shadowed the bright blue sky as they soared from one tree to another.
Spanish moss, resembling fancy lace, festooned the cypress forest and nearby swamp, cloaking the trees. Lavinia Price stood
outside her huge, pillared white mansion in her flower garden. She was delicately formed, with golden hair and violet eyes,
her white skin slightly freckled from the sun.
Although her flower garden was already vast and colorful, Lavinia was on her knees, planting new seeds, which would one day
grow into more beautiful flowers.
Tired, her face flushed from the late-morning heat, she rose slowly to her feet.
She removed her straw hat and fanned her face with it. She groaned when she looked down and saw the dirt smudges on the skirt
of her dress. The morning had been so beautiful, without a cloud in the sky, and she had been so anxious to get outside to
work in her garden, she hadn’t changed from her pretty dress into one of those she usually wore to garden.
Now dirt was smeared across the front of the full-skirted pink dress with the delicate white flowers embroidered on it.
She swatted at the worst smudges with her hand but only succeeded in spraying dust up into her nose, making her sneeze fitfully.
When the sneezing finally subsided, she caught sight of her eight-year-old daughter, Dorey, who was romping and playing with
her best friend Twila, an eight-year-old African girl, the daughter of slaves at the Price Plantation.
Twenty-four years of age, Lavinia had been blessed with only one child, her sweet Dorey, but she still hoped for more children.
Her daughter gave her so much joy and peace.
Lavinia smiled when Dorey squealed happily as she ran across the green yard. She and Twila were playing tag.
Lavinia always enjoyed seeing the girls together. She hated slavery with a passion and regretted that her husband kept slaves
on the plantation he had recently purchased with his brother Hiram. Virgil was willing to free their slaves, but Hiram refused
to allow it, saying they would never find anyone to work their tobacco fields.
Lavinia sighed heavily as she thought about how her husband and Hiram, his older brother by oneyear, didn’t approve of Dorey’s
association with Twila and the other slave children.
But when both men were away, Lavinia gave her daughter permission to play with whomever she pleased. Lavinia had even bought
the same dolls for Dorey and Twila last Christmas.
It had warmed her heart to see them playing with their toys together when her husband and his brother were away on business,
as they were today.
She turned and looked at the Bone River, which ran alongside the vast plantation. Sunlight poured over the green and brown
expanse of saw grass and water, shining and slow-moving.
Not far downriver the Everglades began. There, huge swamps were connected by a maze of narrow waterways, and the few small
islands of dark trees were inhabited by poisonous snakes.
It was certain that when Lavinia went canoeing, eager to explore her new home, she avoided those more dangerous places deep
in the swamp.
Instead, she went downriver only a short distance, enjoying the exotic sight of blossoming flowers, as well as forests with
an endless variety of green foliage and cool shadows, where the trees were hung beautifully with Spanish moss.
Lavinia had taught Dorey to be alert to danger when in the swamps, and she now trusted her daughter to know which places to
avoid. Recently she had begun allowing Dorey to make short trips in the canoe by herself.
But Lavinia would feel much better if her daughter didn’t have such a love of adventure and exploring. She was afraid that
one day she might regret having given her daughter such freedom.
But Lavinia had always been the adventurous sort herself, and had vowed long ago that she would not stifle that part of her
daughter’s character. Lavinia believed she would not have grown up to be as strong an individual as she was had her parents
not allowed her such freedom.
Having rested enough, Lavinia started to put her hat back on, but as she turned, she was startled by something in a massive
live oak tree that stood near the house with lovely Spanish moss hanging from its limbs.
She paled and clutched her throat, dropping her hat as she found herself gazing directly into the green eyes of a snow-white
panther. It was resting on a thick limb, halfway up the tree.
It didn’t seem at all threatened by her presence nearby. On the contrary, it continued to sit there calmly, its beautiful
white coat contrasting dramatically with the dark green leaves of the tree.
Lavinia had heard about a lone white panther that stalked the Everglades, but never had she seen the creature.
Then she blinked her eyes and saw something equally startling in that same tree, on that exact spot where she had seen the
panther only seconds ago.
Was it true?
Was it real?
Was she now seeing a magnificently handsome Indian resting there instead of the panther, his greeneyes gazing back at Lavinia
with the same interest as she felt seeing him?
He had long, flowing black hair, and his muscles bulged under his deerskin breeches and a tunic which looked as though it
were made from Spanish moss.
His face was strong, with a dignified aquiline nose, and if he were standing on the ground, she knew he would be tall.
Her wonder at what she had just experienced was cast aside when she heard Hiram, her brother-in-law, frantically shouting
her name.
She turned quickly and everything within her went cold when she saw Hiram running toward her. Her husband Virgil lay limp
in his brother’s arms, with an arrow protruding from his chest.
When Hiram shouted that Virgil was dead, it was too much for Lavinia. Her knees buckled and she fell to the ground in a dead
faint.
As small, round-faced Twila stood quietly by, Dorey ran to her father and stopped, staring at his lifeless form.
Tears quickly flooding her eyes, she looked up at her Uncle Hiram. “Is…Papa…truly…dead?” she asked weakly.
“Yes, Dorey, he’s dead,” Hiram said thickly. “An Indian did it. I didn’t actually see the attack, but the arrow in your daddy’s
chest is proof enough.”
Sobbing frantically, Dorey looked away from both her papa and Uncle Hiram.
Twila ran to Dorey and put her tiny arms around her in a comforting hug, although she knew that such personal contact was
forbidden by Massa Hiram.
Still holding Dorey in her tiny arms, Twila dared to look up directly at Hiram.
She had always been afraid of the one-eyed man with his flaming red hair and mean temper. “What ’bout my own pappy?” she gulped
out. But she always smiled inwardly every time she recalled how he had lost his eye. She had seen it happen one day while
he was whipping another slave. Hiram had momentarily lost control of the whip, and the end of the lash had coiled clumsily
around and slapped him in the left eye, instantly blinding it.
“How dare you speak to me!” Hiram spat out. “Don’t you know your place yet?”
Then he shrugged. “Yep, your pappy died, too,” he said, enjoying seeing the misery his words brought to the child’s eyes.
“But…where is my pappy?” she managed to ask between heart-wrenching sobs. “I don’t see him nowhere.”
“And you never will,” Hiram said. He smiled wickedly. “The river took his body away, deep into the Everglades. More’n likely
he’s already been eaten by an alligator.”
Twila gasped.
Her eyes widened with fear.
Then she turned and ran toward her mother, who was working in the fields.