Shadow Keepers: Midnight by J. K. Beck Read Free Book Online

demandedthat his thrusts be harder, deeper, he knew that he would deny her nothing. She was his, for then and forever, and he would have her completely.
    Over and over he claimed her; deeper and deeper he took her, watching her face with each thrust, seeing her lips part and her eyelids twitch as her passion grew, and then—when he was on the brink himself—she arched up, taking them both over at once until finally, sated, he collapsed on top of her and could do nothing more than breathe in her scent and thank the gods that fate had brought her to his arms.
    “I feel alive,” she whispered after they’d laid lain together in silence for an eternity.
    “As do I,” he said.
    She rolled over to face him, her expression remarkably serious. “I must tell you,” she said, stroking his cheek with the palm of her hand. “I’m betrothed.”
    Her words were like a knife to his heart. “To whom?”
    “An old man,” she said. “I don’t love him, and I know—I know I will never have this again.” Her teeth grazed her lower lip. “That was why … in the stable … I wanted you to save Antonio, of course. But I also wanted to know how it felt. How it felt to be loved by a man.”
    “And now?” he asked.
    Her smile bloomed. “Now I know. And now I want only you.”
    She spooned against him, and he stroked her hair, thinking of her words, and wondering at the depth of pleasure they brought him. Idly, he ran his hand over the curve of her breast and the rise of her hip.
    “A boy,” he scoffed. “As if it were possible for you to pass as a boy.”
    She smiled up at him. “It was a sound plan—at least until I was discovered.”
    “And attacked. And almost violated.”
    “Indeed,” she agreed. “That part did not go as I had planned it.” She pressed her head against him, and he reveled in the joy of having her near—he who had spent centuries as a warrior and a leader now brought to his knees by the touch of a woman, and willingly, too.
    “I could have killed him,” she said, shifting in his arms to face him. Her green eyes were blazing, and there was no mistaking the sincerity of her words. “I would have sliced his throat without a moment’s hesitation. He was foul. He took liberties he had no business taking, and I would neither mourn his passing nor fear for the safety of my soul when he fell dead at my feet.”
    By the gods, he loved her.
    The realization shot through him, so simple, so true, and so utterly inconvenient. He could not have her, of course. Not forever. She deserved life and the sun, and those were two things he could not offer her. But the truth of the word weighed on him nonetheless and could not be avoided.
Love
.
    “I shall call you Caris,” he said after a moment, then put his hand over her heart. “Be Carissa to all others, but let me see the warrior within, for hers is a heart that understands my own.”
    Caris
.
    She liked the way it sounded. Most especially, she liked the fact that it was a name he’d given her. As intimate as a kiss, more precious than a rose. She wanted to curl up in it, in him, and never leave this bed. Here was safety.
    Here was the fantasy. The belief that everything would be okay. That Tiberius would never leave. That Antonio would be saved. That her marriage to Giancarlo would never come to pass.
    And that Baloch would never be heard from again.
    The mere thought of his name sent fear coursing through her, and she shifted in Tiberius’s arms, covering herself with the blanket as she sat up to look at him. “Why did you come? Why are you willing to face Baloch?”
    Something dark flashed in his eyes, and she saw for a moment the man her father had so feared. “I come because I must. Facing Baloch—that, my darling Caris, is a happy bonus.”
    The way he spoke Baloch’s name sent a shudder through her. So much loathing, so much hatred. There was more here than Baloch’s horrific reputation, and until she understood it, she knew she would never