Gladiator by Kate Lynd Read Free Book Online Page A

clung to him and ran her tongue over his chest. “You saved my life. It is I who will protect you.”
    He kissed her tenderly as he trailed her neck with kisses, and when they made love this time, it was calmly and with the gentleness born of inner pace and satiety.
    * * * *
    It seemed like he was doing everything for the time first all over again. He stood at the window looking at the devastation. It seemed as if he could keep everyone else out of their lives, everything would be right again. She stirred and sighed, and he turned around and smiled at her. Never had any woman looked so beautiful.
    “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?” he asked, sitting down next to her as she sat up.
    “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me?” she repeated, and smiled.
    He tucked a lock of her long dark hair behind her ear and laid his hand to her stomach; it glowed at his touch. “I still can’t believe it,” he whispered. He gazed down at her and asked, “Do you know why you’re like this? Did it happen because of the fallout?”
    “No, I was born this way. And for a long time my mother was able to hide it. But when I found her and tried to resuscitate her, my secret was out. Almost instantly my father tried to use it to his advantage. But when I refused…that was…when the beatings began.”
    “You were so young. Did Veronica ever try to help you?”
    “Veronica had other issues. She’s a good ten years older than I. Katherine, her mother, was cruel—and when she died in childbirth, Veronica simply became her.”
    “Childbirth? I didn’t know there was another royal sibling.”
    “He was such a beautiful boy… But after what they did to him…” she trailed off.
    “What did they do to him?”
    “You have to understand I tried so hard to save him, to protect him. But I was just six, and soon after losing my own mother was I was subjected to the same horrors that he was. Sometimes I think maybe it should have been me in the pool that day…”
    She stared past him and out the window. A shiver went down his spine.
    “Whatever happened, there was nothing you could have done.”
    “Really? You saw what I did today at the prison. We all escaped.”
    “Yes, and it damn near killed you. If that would have happened it would have killed me, too. Then what?”
    “Jason was an Oracle. Whenever he was around water it seemed to act as a conduit. He would just blurt out whatever the images that he was seeing were. The day he died he had prophesized that a Healer would bring about the fall of the evil that had ruined the planet, and that with her blood the soil and waters would heal and replenish themselves. Instead of staying there to protect him, I ran and hid. When I realized he was being drowned by Veronica, and crying out to me for help, I was too scared to do what I was put here on this planet to do. I let him down. And a ten year old boy died because of it.”
    She looked at him with agony and remorse. He took her hand and placed it over his heart and covered it with his. “There is no one to blame for your brother’s death but your father and your sister. Understand?”
    “Then how come I feel like I ought to have done something?”
    “Because despite your supernatural gifts you’re only human.”
    She looked at him. “Your eyes…so blue. I love you, Tristan. For however long we have left on this Earth, I will love you.”
    Her eyes glistened with tears, her voice trembled with emotion. He touched her face with his free hand and wiped away her tears with his thumb. He was overwhelmed with emotion so intense that the only way he could describe it was the physical sensation of falling in love. His cock strained against his pants and he longed to be buried again deep inside her hot, tight, wet pussy. He wanted to stroke her clit with his tongue and remember again what she tasted like between her legs.
    Dropping her sheet, she pulled the blankets back and spread her legs for him. He knew they