Tomorrow's Dreams by Heather Cullman

others were eager to join the bullwacker in his molestation. Everyone was enjoying the ensuing brawl.
    Panicked, Penelope hastily presented her bruising encore, an act accompanied by the ever-gallant Bertram. Executing their movements with the precision of an elaborately choreographed ballet, Bert thwacked the bullwacker over the head with a prop tree while Penelope hooked her foot behind the man’s ankle and pulled his leg out from under him. The actors’ combined efforts were enough to send the drunk toppling backward, a performance that brought down the curtain …
    â€¦ Literally. In a wild attempt to break his fall, the bullwacker grabbed the curtains, wrenching them from their moorings. With a whoosh! of gold velvet the curtains billowed downward, engulfing everyone onstage in their suffocating folds.
    As Penelope grappled with the imprisoned cloth, she could hear her attacker cursing in the darkness … cursing that grew louder as the seconds ticked by. Alarmed by the man’s nearness and terrified of being recaptured, she scrambled toward a sliver of light. To her everlasting relief, the sliver broadened into a warm ribbon, and she easily found an opening in the curtains.
    But her relief was short-lived. No sooner had she crawled from her velvet prison than she was pulled from the stage by another man, this one drunker and dirtier than the first.
    Violently she struggled, gagging at the stench emanating from her new captor’s filth-encrusted clothes.
    â€œHows ’bout a kiss, girlie?” he growled, smiling in a way that displayed the sum of his teeth—two rotten stumps. Pinning her against his body, he ground his lips against hers, trying to force his tongue between her clenched teeth.
    Feeling as if she were living her worse nightmare, Penelope increased her struggles tenfold. But it was to no avail. Aside from grunting once when she managed to land a kick on his booted ankle, he easily ignored her frenzied efforts to escape.
    Somebody else’s efforts were harder to ignore. As the man groped at her bodice, Penelope heard a mighty smack! , which elicited an even mightier yelp! from her molester, immediately followed by a thud! and a breathless oomph! Bellowing like a wounded buffalo, the bullwacker thrust her aside and rounded on the man who was attacking him from behind.
    Without pausing to spare her rescuer so much as a backward glance, Penelope raced toward the stairs leading up to the private rooms, swatting away the arms that sought to recapture her. With breakneck speed she vaulted up the stairs until a stitch in her side forced her to sink to the steps. It was then that she heard the pounding of footsteps hot on her trail.
    On the verge of hysteria now, she tried to crawl the rest of the way up the stairs. But it was too late, and once again she was wrested into a steely grip.
    Blind to everything except her desperation to free herself, Penelope fought, kicking and punching with mindless fury. Beneath her screams she could hear the man shouting, but she was too panicked to listen. A year and a half of playing the gold circuit had taught her that most men’s intentions were less than honorable, especially where actresses were concerned. And she would have bet her lucky ribbon that this man was no exception.
    With that certainty in mind, she jabbed her elbow into her attacker’s belly with all her strength. To her relief, he uttered an agonized groan and released her. Feeling her freedom close at hand now, she gave him one final shove before turning to resume her flight. But before she could take a step, she heard him moan.
    â€œThat’s a hell of a way to greet a man, Princess.”
    That stopped her short. Only two people ever called her Princess: her brother, Jake, and …
    â€œSeth Tyler!” she gasped, finally looking at her latest captor. Even slumped on the stairs with his face shadowed by his veil of sun-kissed hair, the man’s identity was