Read Claimed (The Flash Gold Chronicles, #4) for Free Online

movement. Not surprisingly, nobody was there, but when he knelt to check for tracks, he spotted small prints in the mud. Human prints. From their size, they must belong to a woman or, more likely, a boy.
    Cedar jogged off in the direction they headed, parallel to the creek, and kept an eye on them and an eye on his surroundings. Less than a minute had passed since he had seen the movement and breached the tree line, so he might be close enough to—
    There.
    He hopped a stump and charged toward an elbow sticking out from behind a tree. A startled squawk came from his prey before the small figure sprinted away from his hiding spot. Less than five feet tall, the boy couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven, but Cedar didn’t get a good look. The youth tore away with impressive speed, almost losing the cap on his head.
    With his long legs, it didn’t take Cedar more than a few steps to catch up. He grabbed the child by the collar and hoisted him from his feet with one hand. This drew more squawks and an impressive amount of kicking and flailing. One of the stray boots connected with Cedar’s knee with enough force to draw a wince. He resisted the urge to thump the kid against a tree a few times, as he usually reserved such tactics for murderers and rapists, or at least people old enough to shave.
    “I see you’ve caught a truly dangerous criminal this time,” came Kali’s voice from the edge of the trees.
    “You wouldn’t say dangerous so sarcastically if you’d received one of his kicks,” Cedar said.
    “ His ?” Kali pointed at the boy’s face, which Cedar, holding his prey from behind, hadn’t seen yet. “I don’t think so.”
    “Eh?”
    Cedar rotated his captured spy, taking care to evade the flailing arms and legs. In the process, the youth’s cap fell off, revealing curls that tumbled about a dirty, impish face. A girl, yes, though beneath all that grime, it was hard to tell.
    “Easy, girl,” Cedar said. “We just want to know why you were spying on us.”
    “She was probably just out here playing,” Kali said.
    “Playing at spying on us? Her tracks were paralleling the river, coming from the same direction we came from.”
    “I just wanted to see the... thing.” The girl pointed through the trees.
    The SAB wasn’t in sight, but Cedar couldn’t imagine she meant anything else. It had arrested the interest of another youth on their last trip out of town, Tadzi. He had turned out to be a useful guide.
    The girl’s feisty arm flails stilled, and she stared up at Cedar with wide, innocent brown eyes. “Can you put me down, mister? Please?”
    “Er.” Cedar had a feeling the girl had used that look to get out of trouble before, but he couldn’t justify dangling her above the ferns all day. Besides, Kali was giving him a shouldn’t-you-be-picking-on-someone-within-a-foot-of-your-own-size look.
    He set the kid down, expecting her to sprint off, but she only backed out of reach, then gazed toward the creek, toward the bicycle.
    “Maybe she would like a ride,” Kali said. “If it’s all right with her parents.” She waved in the direction where they had left the couple with the mules.
    Cedar doubted many sane parents would let their daughter go traipsing off on some unfamiliar steam contraption—especially if they’d been watching when it had almost pitched him into the creek—but it turned out to be a moot point.
    “Those aren’t my parents,” the girl said. “I’m out here with my sister and brothers. We’re working a claim up that-a-way.”
    “What’s your name?” Kali asked.
    “You wander about in the woods alone often?” Cedar asked, not certain he believed the girl’s story. He had met a lot of kids who would lie like hardened criminals to get out of trouble.
    The girl scowled at the hint of disapproval in his tone. “I’m Mary, and I was checking my traps. I get us squirrel and rabbit and sometimes beaver for the stewpot. I’m not big enough to help much with the