The Bloodgate Warrior Read Online Free

the air in this place. He said he wasn’t from Earth, that he’d walked as a man for a thousand years. If he was a god, then this would be his heaven.
    “The Tlaxacalan princess whom Alvarado loved gave me a very great gift. With the last of her magic, Xicoténcatl tied her bloodline to me so that I could someday avenge her people. Only a woman descended from her could have opened the gate directly to me. Water provides the way, but your blood is the key that unlocked what had not been opened in hundreds of years.”
    I strained to keep my gaze away from him, concentrating on the thick growth below. If I looked at him too long, I’d be lost in his arms. Only a dream. Again. In the morning, I’d wake up aching and deliciously sore, and I’d bawl my eyes out again because he was gone. He was only a figment of my obviously damaged imagination.
    Yet he was telling me things I’d read in the journal. Was that confirmation the journal was right? Or just my subconscious picking up what I read and sticking it into this dream world of my own creation?
    Were there towns? People? I hoped he hadn’t been alone in this place all these years. He’d died over five hundred years ago. My eyes burned. Surely from staring too hard at the endless trees. “I don’t believe. I’m sorry, it just doesn’t make sense. I didn’t know a gate existed between our worlds, let alone how to open it. I didn’t know anything about you.”
    Gently, he trailed his fingers down my arm, a soothing touch that only made me burn hotter. I appreciated his gentleness, but what I really ached for was the domination that swept all refusals and fears from my mind. Then I couldn’t doubt him…because he wouldn’t allow it.
    That was why I fought him each time. I never wanted to face the truth of what I wanted from him.
    I was a successful, driven salesperson. I took time out of my killer schedule for no one but my best friend. It wasn’t even the money I loved, although I had a tidy sum saved for some nebulous future that had nearly drowned in a lake. Certainly no man had ever been able to compete with my desire to be the best. Independent, strong-willed and at the top of my game before the accident, I needed nobody and nothing.
    Except to be taken by this man as hard and as often as he wanted.
    I couldn’t have asked for this kind of dream, because it confused and even repelled me on so many levels. I didn’t want to be controlled or used, let alone abused.
    Yet my body knew exactly what it wanted, and it wanted to be conquered . I wanted to fight and challenge a man with every ounce of my being until I had no choice but to surrender. Until I had nothing left but him . And he knew it, as easily as he knew Mom had been the only one to ever call me Cassie.
    “It doesn’t matter what you know or believe when you can see me with your eyes, touch me with your body, taste me with your mouth. Am I not real, Cassandra Gonzales? Do I not breathe? Didn’t you feel how much I ache to take you again?”
    Taste him with my mouth. My mouth watered at that invitation. My heart pounded so hard my chest hurt. Despite my words and logical arguments, I wanted him. Badly. I ached deep inside, empty and lost, drowning without his arms, his kiss, his body.
    I threw myself against him and pressed my mouth to his. His lips opened, letting me taste him as he’d taunted. So sweet, like rich, warm guava drizzled with honey, yet with a hint of dark-chocolate bite. His hair slipped against my cheek, shiny with tropical oils that smelled divine. Feathers tickled my face and shoulders. He wore many of the turquoise feathers in his hair, but sometimes I swore I could see wings stretching out behind him.
    Quetzal wings.
    His tongue wrapped around mine, dragging me deeper as though he would swallow me whole, and I didn’t care. Not if I could stay with him.
    Fisting my hands in his black hair that gleamed like the obsidian pyramid beneath us, I tore my mouth away. “I don’t