Conquered by the Werebear (BWWM Interracial Paranormal Shifter Werebear Alpha Male Erotic Romance) Read Online Free Page B

frightened.
     
    “Mistress… Are you… All right?”
     
    “I… Yes, of course I am. Why? What’s wrong? Are you all right?” I replied brusquely, gathering up the blankets on my bed in a lame attempt to hide my nakedness. Claudia appeared from behind the door, her eyes marked by a lack of sleep with huge, bruise-like smudges.
     
    “I’m fine, mistress. It’s just that… I heard the most amazing things last night…”
     
    “Did anyone else hear?” I demanded.
     
    Claudia shrugged. “I imagine not, mistress. Your father was at a banquet until early in the morning and only just now returned home. There was no one to hear but us.” Us, of course, referred to the slaves and the servants. In other words, people who didn’t matter.
     
    “Good. Let’s keep it that way,” I muttered, rising from my bed, letting the covers drop away from my naked body. Claudia gasped to see me: after all, I was covered in bruises from the werebear’s rough loving.
     
    “I’ve known a man, Claudia…” I whispered, looking at her seriously. “And not just any man… But Ursinus, the werebear gladiator. And let me tell you, he is far more than any man around here…”
     
    “But mistress! You’re not even married!”
     
    “Other noblewomen take gladiators into their beds to be satisfied by them… By their strength… Why shouldn’t I?” I demanded, looking fiercely at Claudia. “My father was out whoring until only a few hours ago—why shouldn’t I keep in the family tradition?”
     
    Of course, Claudia had nothing to reply to that. She just looked at the floor.
     
    “I was frightened for you, mistress. That beast… The beast who came to you in the night… I do not trust him.”
     
    “You needn’t worry about me, dear. I can take care of myself. All I need from you is for you to keep my secret. My father must not know of this.”
     
    “Yes, mistress. Of course.”
     
    “Good. Now, run me a bath, will you?”
     
    “Of course, mistress. Right away.”
     
    Claudia disappeared into the other room to begin heating perfumed water for a bath. As I listened to the relaxing sounds of water being poured, I found myself admiring my body in the mirror: my ebony skin, glowing with bruises and bites from my lover… Was this a woman’s body now?
     
    Yes. Yes, it most certainly was…
     

 
    Revelation
     
    Breakfast was served late, owing to my father’s excesses the night before. We gathered in the courtyard for a meal of roasted pheasant, olives, and fruits while a few slave boys entertained us with lyres. I picked at the olives, unable to shake the image of Ursinus’s massive, powerful body from my mind…
     
    “Tomorrow I’ll be fighting that so-called bear,” my father announced suddenly. “You’ll come to watch, won’t you?”
     
    “The bear?” I asked, feigning disinterest, even though in my heart of hearts, I was terrified on Ursinus’s behalf. “What’s that?”
     
    “Don’t you remember? The huge slave I purchased just the other day—the man who can transform into a bear—supposedly.”
     
    “Oh, yes…” I murmured absently. “What was his name? Something rather ridiculous?”
     
    “Ursinus,” my father said with a  grin stretching over his fat, fleshy face. “Unconquered. A truly ridiculous name for a slave if I ever heard one.”
     
    “Maybe it’s that he’s unconquered in his heart,” Quintus said, picking at his pheasant. He wasn’t allowed to bring Theolon to meals and he was always sad when he was away from the beautiful Egyptian boy.
     
    “Bah. Foolishness,” my father murmured. “Slaves don’t have hearts or souls or anything of the sort. He’s just meat—meat that will fight for me.”
     
    I choked on an olive—shocked as I was to hear my father talk so crudely about my lover—though of course, how was he to know?
     
    “I’ll come, father,” I answered finally. “I haven’t been to the games in several moons. And I’d like to see how