Kaitlyn O'Connor by Enslaved III: The Gladiators Read Free Book Online Page B

even though it would never have occurred to her to make such an offer before. They were right, though. She wasn ‟ t capable of protecting herself and she needed someone to protect her. It still didn ‟ t seem right to expect such a thing, regardless of their „honor ‟ , and offer them nothing at all and she didn ‟ t have anything else to offer.
    They ‟ d seemed interested, but maybe she ‟ d just jumped to the wrong conclusion?
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    For that matter, she didn ‟ t even know if she had sex to offer, she realized abruptly. Lecur had said she was one of the prizes of the winners and she knew what that meant.
    Dismissing it after a few moments, she returned to the bench and struggled to lift the lower end to the wall. She succeeded, but it was a near disaster. She had to strain so hard to lift the thing so high that she was afraid for several moments that she ‟ d torn muscle or damaged her back and the thing damned near went over the wall and landed on the toilet. She had no doubt that it was heavy enough it would have shattered the thing, or crushed it, and creating a real mess, but she managed to balance it.
    She had to go lie down for a few moments to recover before she could even muster the energy to drag the blanket off the bed. Once she ‟ d thrown the blanket over the bench, though, she was almost deliriously happy to discover she had a hiding spot to take care of nature—and showers!
    She was so exhausted from her labors and her ordeal that she pulled her thin shift off and showered on the toilet. She could ‟ ve brushed her teeth at the same time, too, but there was no tooth paste and she wasn ‟ t ready to try the soap.
    The bastard that had kidnapped her had no doubt sold her bag and everything in it—including her toothbrush and her toothpaste!
    Anger hit her for the first time when she finished showering, scrubbing off the sticky residue from her stint in the pod on the ship and the soiled feel that remained from when the gladiators had pawed her, only to discover she had nothing to dry off with. It made things worse that the moment she turned the water off she began to feel like she was freezing.
    “Damn it! Damn it to hell!” she growled angrily. After thinking it over for a few moments, she added a few more curses she was familiar with. “Fuck! Shit! God damn it to hell!”
    She felt marginally better after she ‟ d expressed her frustration, but she was still fucking wet!
    Uttering another expletive, she snatched her „toga ‟ down and dried with it.
    She discovered when she pulled the blanket down to wrap up in it that she had an audience.
    She glared at them and then stalked to the bed and climbed in, turning her back to them. She shouldn ‟ t have been able to fall asleep with eyes boring into her back but the knowledge that all they could do was look—not get to her—added to emotional exhaustion and physical exhaustion was enough to knock her out after the therapeutic effects of her hot shower.

     
    * * * *
     
    Kael glanced at Dakaar and Balen when they returned to the cell the three of them shared.
    Neither looked any happier than he felt and surprise flickered through him. It had seemed to him that the pretty little maid their master had bought to torment them with appeared to favor them. It was that disappointment and anger that had sent him back to his cell when he had wanted to stay and simply drink his fill of looking at her and listening to the sound of her voice. He would have stayed to indulge his hunger to learn what he could about her if jealousy had not risen to turn his mood so sour that he hadn ‟ t dared to linger for fear it would repel her when now it was only a matter of her being less interested in him than the others because he was not as appealing to a maiden ‟ s eyes or as clever with the gift of charming with his tongue as they were.
    If things had been different, he told himself, she would have looked at him with as much admiration or more, for although