Shawnee Bride Read Free

hung at his waist and the elegantly crafted bow balanced in his left hand.
    Flinging herself onto her belly, she made another lunge for Maynard’s knife. This time her fingers closed around the handle. She rolled swiftly, drawing in her knees and coming up in a tight crouch, the weapon raised in defiance.
    The stranger had not moved, but from her new position, Clarissa could see him more clearly. His powerfulchest and arms were bare except for the leather strap of his arrow quiver and a small decorated pouch that hung from a thong around his neck. His long wavy hair, decorated with twin eagle feathers at the scalp lock, was raven-black, tinged with an azure glow where the light fell on it. Flat silver ear studs, set into his lobes, glittered as they caught the rays of the sun. His eyes, shadowed by craggy brows, wereHer thoughts scattered like alarmed birds as he took a step toward her.
    Clarissa tensed, clutching the knife. She had vowed to die fighting rather than be taken alive. Now that vow would be put to the test. “Don’t come any closer!” she hissed.
    He took another cautious step, then one more. “Don’t be afraid,” he said gently. “I won’t hurt you.”
    Clarissa was beyond hearing his words, let alone comprehending them. Her pulse exploded, pumping her system with the fury of a cornered animal as she sprang upward to meet this new enemy. The steel blade flashed in the sun as she struck wildly, blindly at the stranger’s chest.
    She heard him grunt as the razor edge skimmed his flesh. His huge hand captured her wrist, its momentum whipping her against him, where he caught and held her fast. Clarissa had dropped the knife, but she continued to fight like a wildcat, her hands clawing his chest, her feet kicking his solidly placed legs.
    A glancing blow from her raised knee caught him off guard. Still gripping her waist, he stumbled backward and stepped into the entrance of a badger hole. His fall carried them both to the ground. They rolled in the grass, legs tangling, knees jabbing as he struggled to subdue her.
    Their tussle had displaced his breechcloth. Clarissa feltthe masculine bulge brush her thigh. The contact triggered a disturbing tingle, flooding her body with rivulets of heat-but the sensation was swiftly dashed by terror. This man, this Indian would ravish her, she thought, just as Maynard had meant to do. Then he would use that deadly tomahawk to hack away her scalp, leaving her body here for the crows and buzzards.
    He had managed to seize both her wrists and pinion them above her shoulders. Wild with fear, Clarissa twisted to one side and sank her teeth into the firm bronze flesh of his forearm.
    “Stop it!” He jerked away, his voice raw with anger now. “Stop now!”
    Clarissa went rigid with shock as the realization struck her. This half-naked savage was speaking to her in English.
    “What…?” She struggled to form a question, but it was no use. The words died somewhere between her mind and her tongue as she found herself staring up into a pair of cold, angry eyes.
    The irises of those black-centered eyes were a deep cobalt-blue.
    Wolf Heart felt the girl’s body go limp beneath him. Where his hands gripped her wrists, he could feel her pulse racing like the heart of a rabbit in a snare. She was still frightened, but at least she had stopped fighting him.
    “I don’t mean to hurt you,” he said, groping for the words of a language he had spoken but rarely in the past fourteen years. “But if you bite me again, you will wish you hadn’t!”
    She stared up at him, her wide eyes the color of deep mossy pools. “You’re a white man!” she whispered incredulously.
    “No.” Wolf Heart’s reply was as cold as the chill her words evoked. “I am Shawnee.”
    Her gold-tipped lashes blinked as she strained upward. “But your speech, your eyes-”
    “I was a white boy once, a very long time ago. I have never been a white man.” Wolf Heart raised his body, aware, suddenly, that