Through the Fire (The Native American Warrior Series) by Beth Trissel Read Free Book Online

there?”
    Shoka had very nearly gotten the name from her and answered gruffly. “I make no such promise.”
    “ Just close enough so I can find my way?”
    “ I’ll not betray my people.” She’d be a fount of information for frontiersmen eager to hear what she knew of their war party.
    “Wait. I’ll pay you,” she bargained.
    He stood and hauled her up with him. “All that you possess is mine, if I choose to take it.”
    “ But you don’t know all that I have.”
    “ Yet.” Gathering his musket and shot pouch, he slid the straps back over his shoulder. “Come. We must return to camp.”
    She caught his arm. The warmth of her hand radiated through his sleeve. “Help me, Shoka.”
    He looked down at her, wanting to catch her to him. He didn ’t dare. Not after all he’d suffered and particularly not this woman. “You have my protection.”
    Her mouth tightened. “Not if you sell me. Oh, damn it all. Keep me with you, then.”
    He almost choked. “You would stay with me?”
    Eyes on his, she gave a slight nod.
    “To do this I must make you my wife.” And that he could not possibly do.
    Realization washed into her expressive face. “You already have one, don’t you?”
    Bitterness ate at his gut. “No longer.”
    “ Then why—”
    “ It is better you go with the French,” he broke in, not inclined to explain.
    Brows colored the hue of her brown lashes arched in an incredulous curve. “You are refusing me?”
    “ I will find a good man for you,” he said flatly.
    “ There are no good Frenchmen!”
    “ My father was French.”
    She threw her hands up. “That just proves it.”
    “ Rebecca, with the French you are white among white. Your life will be easier,” he reasoned.
    “ What do you care? You’ll have your money.”
    If she ’d lashed her tail, she couldn’t have appeared more on the verge of springing. “Now you are peshewa again.”
    “ I hate you,” she snarled.
    “ You just said you wished to stay with me.”
    “ It seems I’m not good enough. I’ll suit an English lord but not a warrior.”
    “ I did not say this.”
    The infuriating little minx turned her back on him with a withering glare and stalked off. He caught her shoulder and redirected her step. “Camp is this way.”
    She jerked at his restraint. “Don’t touch me.”
    “ Then go where I wish.”
    He took the lead with no further attempt at conversation. And clearly, she wasn ’t speaking to him. He saw her struggle to retrace her steps with lips sealed to any plea for assistance. She was trembling and breathless when they arrived at the stream. Part of him admired her resolve to continue until she dropped, the other part irked by her stubbornness.
    Visibly exhausted, she sagged against a tree while he found a place where the stones formed a kind of bridge from one side of the rippling water to the other.
    Surely, she’d accept his aid now. He held out his hand. “I will help you over.”
    A mulish shake of her head signified her reply. The tilt of her chin and pouting lips made him burn to cover her mouth again with his. Before he succumbed to temptation, he left her to flounder and easily stepped across gaps in the stones.
    She followed and lost her footing on a moss-slicked rock. Flailing her arms, she toppled backwards, yelping as water covered her head. She sat up in the streambed, gasping.
    Shoka waded back to her. Too miserable to object, she remained silent apart from chattering teeth as he heaved her to her feet and carried her dripping to the bank. He wanted nothing more than to strip off that wretched corset and her shift and hold her naked in his arms. But he couldn ’t keep this woman, no matter how achingly he desired her. He bore her to the campfire, wrapped her in the blanket Meshewa handed him, and laid her down in the circle of warmth.
    Wrenching his eyes from Rebecca ’s bewitching face, Shoka turned on his heels and strode out of camp. If only he could leave the tantalizing images of