Read Online Slave to Passion by Elisabeth Naughton - Free Book Online

take her body; he could even take her freedom, but she wouldn’t let him break her spirit. No one could take that from her. Not unless she let them.
    “Let me try,” she whispered, wanting—no, needing —to help him for reasons even she couldn’t totally understand.
    His eyes searched hers. For truth or lies, she wasn’t sure. But something shifted in the air between them in that moment. Something she felt all the way to her toes.
    He slowly released his grip, turned his head away, and closed his eyes. And as her chest thrummed with the weight of what had just passed between them, Kavin swallowed hard and reached for the bandage again.
    The cut was deep, the edges puckered and swollen. She didn’t see any signs of pus—which was a good thing—so she recovered it. But her hands were shaking when she pushed to her feet, then pressed the back of her hand against his forehead.
    “Allah…” Urgency shifted to panic. She crossed for the door and pounded her fist against the cold steel.
    “I know you’re out there,” she hollered at the guards. “If you want the sahad to die on your watch, continue to ignore me.”
    Metal scraped metal as the slot in the door was pulled open, and the guard’s grim face filled the hole. “We don’t answer to jarriah .”
    “You’ll answer to this one,” Kavin snapped. Fuck the guards. Fuck what Zayd would think when he heard what she’d done. Fuck them all. “The sahad is sick with fever and infection. I need bandages and medical supplies.”
    “Why should we care?” the other guard sneered, stepping up to the opening in the door. “One less Marid to worry about.”
    “You’ll care because he’s the champion of the arena. And if the highborns find out he died because of your neglect,” she lied, “you’ll be executed. Or better yet, tossed in the arena yourselves.”
    Fear flashed in both their eyes, followed by the brutal rush of resentment. But Kavin barely cared. So long as they bought in to her bluff and were motivated to get what she needed, that was all that mattered.
    The opening in the door snapped closed, and muffled voices echoed from the corridor, followed by the sharp clomp of footsteps quickly moving away. Drawing a deep breath, Kavin turned back for the bed.
    The sahad shivered, so she pulled the blanket up to his chin, tucked it around his shoulders. His eyes were closed, his chest rising and falling with labored breaths. In the dim candlelight, she stared down at his face, which suddenly looked childlike and innocent as he tried to sleep, not harsh and cold as it had before. Her gaze drifted over the dark lashes feathering the soft skin beneath his eyes, to the chiseled cheekbones, the weathered skin, the stubble along his square, strong jaw, then finally to the full, masculine line of his lips.
    Lips, she could now imagine, that had once been used for kissing, not doling out harsh words and threats.
    He stirred, tried to roll to his side, winced in pain but still didn’t open his eyes. To ease him while they waited, she sat on the side of the bed and brushed damp locks back from his heated skin. “Shh…just rest.”
    The muscles around his eyes relaxed as she began humming a song she remembered her mother singing to her when she was little, and he seemed to drift back to sleep. Relief spread through her again as she continued to stroke his hair, then her gaze drifted down his neck to the fire opal at the base of his throat.
    The gem was mesmerizing, catching the candlelight and making it dance as if it had a life of its own. Pulling the cover back, she ran her index finger across the smooth stone edged all in gold. Heat gathered beneath her skin, the sensation so startling it cut off her humming mid-song.
    Where had he gotten it? Why did the guards allow him to keep something of such value? She knew the highborns all wanted it, had heard whispers in the harem that if a highborn’s sahad killed him, the gem would then belong to them. But so far