Native Wolf Read Online Free

breathless, she hardly resisted as he continued to lug her toward the open window. But when he climbed out and began to haul her over the sill, pushing her head down with one massive hand so she wouldn’t bang it on the sashes, she awoke from her stupor.
    Heavens, the man was abducting her!
    They were halfway out of the house when panic made her fight in earnest. She grabbed hold of the window, refusing to let go. She twisted and flailed against him until he fired a guttural grunt at her, probably an epithet in his native tongue.
    In a matter of seconds, of course, his strength won out. He unlatched her hands with a sweep of his arm and pulled her out onto the porch into the stark night.
    Maybe she could still make noise, she thought in desperation. Her screams might not be heard through the gag, but if she stomped on the planks and made a huge fuss, surely her father or one of the ranch hands would come to investigate.
    The man must have read her thoughts. Before she could make a single sound, he picked her up, tucked her between his arm and his hip like a sack of feed, and stole off the porch with the silent step that was a hallmark of the local tribes.
    Suspended on his hip, with her arms trapped against her sides, she couldn’t do much more than squirm against him, which didn’t hamper him in the least.
    She peered between the blunt strands of her newly cropped hair. Though he weaved a bit, he seemed to be heading for the barn.
    A slender slice of moonlight spilled in when he eased the door open, but the horses in the front stalls were unperturbed by the presence of an intruder. Hoping to startle them into a frenzy of neighing, Claire thrashed wildly in her captor’s grip. He grunted and squeezed her tightly about the waist, cutting off her struggles and her air. Then he took a coil of rope from a nail in the wall and started forward.
    He quickly found what he wanted—Thunder, her father’s five-year-old prize stallion. Stroking the horse’s chest, he managed to nudge Thunder out of the stall. Then, using one hand and his teeth, he fashioned a loop to slip over the horse’s head.
    She expected he’d make a break for it. He’d swing up bareback and throw her across his lap, slap Thunder’s flank, let out a war whoop, and race into the night. As soon as he did, of course, a posse of her father’s men would mount up and ride after him like the devil. They’d put a bullet in the villain before the moon rose even halfway across the sky.
    But he did no such thing. He led Thunder out of the barn as stealthily as he’d come in. To her amazement, the normally headstrong stallion followed willingly, as if the two of them were partners in crime.
    Still clamped firmly under the brute’s huge arm and against his lean hip, Claire tried to calm her racing heart and make sense of things. Surely this couldn’t be happening. Surely a stranger couldn’t march up to the front door of the formidable Parker house in the middle of the night, snatch her from her own parlor, and make off with her by the light of the full moon.
    Yet no one had heard him come. No one had roused when he left. It would be morning before anyone missed Claire. And, heaven help her, she’d left a note saying she was running away. Her father probably wouldn’t even bother to come after her.
    What were the man’s intentions?
    Obviously, he didn’t mean to kill her. She’d be dead already if that were the case. Maybe he meant to hold her for ransom. Samuel Parker’s prosperity was well known. This savage wouldn’t be the first scoundrel to go after her father’s wealth.
    But he was by far the boldest.
    They’d left the drive now, gone out the gate, onto the main road. The land on the other side was wild, uncultivated and overgrown, and the Indian led Thunder straight into the weeds. Tall grasses brushed the horse’s flanks and whipped at Claire’s petticoat as she sagged in the man’s grip.
    Once they’d descended the rolling hill, out of sight