The Renegade's Woman Read Online Free PDF

and tomahawks over their heads. One brave pulled his rifle from its holster and shook it in the air. Then he pointed it right at her.
     
    She took one look at his harsh, glittering eyes and sank to the ground in a dead faint.
     
    Chapter Three
     
    With narrowed gaze, Standing Bear watched his companions circle his captive on their ponies. He knew Two Otters would not fire. They were too close to the wagons. His friend Whistling Hills and Black Crow, the Cheyenne who'd joined them for the trading mission, looked more surprised at finding him with a white woman than eager for trouble.
     
    When Pale As Moonlight's spirit fled and she started to fall, Standing Bear moved like lightning and caught her before her head hit the ground.
     
    "I claim her, " he said, and watched the men's reactions. He lifted her limp body across his arms and stood, defying any one of them to challenge his right to the woman.
     
    "Have you gone crazy?" shouted Whistling Hills, who had known him since his first winter, a look of horror on his face.
     
    "We will all have a turn and then we will kill her, " said Two Otters, dismounting with the grace of a cat, still holding his rifle trained at her -- and him.
     
    Pale As Moonlight stirred. Standing Bear cradled her against his chest, adjusting her weight. She murmured something unintelligible and her eyes fluttered open, gazing up at him with slow recognition. She smiled, then gasped as she remembered what had happened, her body going rigid when she spotted the three warriors closing in on them. An unexpected wave of protectiveness swept over him. He would not let them hurt her.
     
    Everyone spoke at once, loudly. He knew it was a mark of the extraordinary situation that the usual calm council between warrior brothers did not reign. Standing Bear carefully let the woman's feet drop to the ground and held her while she gained her legs before he quietly interrupted the chaos.
     
    "She is mine. She comes with us. "
     
    She slid around behind his back, her trembling hands clutching his waist like a drowning child. He was gratified at the way she hid herself from the other men's prying eyes, telling them she belonged to him alone.
     
    "She will leave her scent like a bitch in heat, " Two Otters snarled. "And the white dogs will track us down for violating her. They will kill us and everyone in our village. Better to put a knife in her heart right here and now. "
     
    "The village is well hidden. The whites will never find us. "
     
    Whistling Hills laid a hand on his shoulder. "Do not do this thing, my friend. You must think of the mission. Many are counting on a good trade with the wagons. Without the exchange of our hides and dried meat for their cloth, blankets and trinkets, we will have nothing to offer when the Pawnee come to trade their crops. Then we must live on buffalo. "
     
    Whistling Hills might as well have said, 'Then we must live on thin air, ' for they all knew how hard the buffalo were to find these days. It was the only reason their band had joined with the Cheyenne to organize a trading mission with their mutually sworn enemy, who had recently begun bringing their trail of wagons through the territory.
     
    Standing Bear sloughed off his friend's hand and ground out, "Then we shall live on buffalo. I will have her. "
     
    His head ached. He shouldn't have to think about something as natural as keeping a woman. It was the way things had always been done, since ancient times. Always, until the white man came -- along with their unnatural weapons and wagons and their unnaturally hostile reaction to the abduction of their women. Against these, the ancient ways of the Indian did not stand a chance.
     
    A sickening feeling settled in his stomach. Could he really sacrifice the welfare of his people for the sake of his misplaced lust? For that was all this white woman meant to him. A sweet, warm receptacle to slide his hungry cock into. Nothing more.
     
    He wouldn't let her mean