Enslaved: A Kinky Adult Fairy Tale (Bedding the Bad Girl Book 3) Read Free

let the man fear him and let him share that fear with the rest of the castle guard. Indulgence had won him few allies among the militia. It was time to see what friends terror might win for him.
    As Aaron entered the cell, cool air puffed gently against his face, a sweet breeze that carried none of the stink of the waste bucket. It distracted him as he knelt beside the woman, making him unprepared for the face he revealed as he brushed her hair from her face
    Dear God, she was stunning. Perfect. Heartbreaking. Looking at her, he could scarcely remember how to breathe. It wasn’t simply that she was beautiful—though she was, her delicate features achingly lovely even smeared with dirt—but that she was so…familiar.
    He felt as if he knew her, had always known her, as if the woman of his dreams had suddenly been made flesh and blood.
    But that was ridiculous, of course. He didn’t have a “dream woman.” Johann was the one who fantasized about a beautiful young woman locked away in a tower, asleep until he braved great hardship to rescue her. Aaron preferred more down to earth women, ones that he could dismiss from his bed in the morning with a kiss and a fistful of coins.
    Still, just a few days ago, he had asked one of the contestants of the reality show to come home with him and consider life as his queen. He hadn’t thought she would accept the proposal, but he’d wanted to get to know the fiery redhead more intimately. He’d been intrigued by her in a way he wasn’t by most women.
    But intrigued didn’t begin to describe how he was affected by the woman he gently lifted in his arms. He felt possessed, driven to protect her, care for her, liberate her from something that had tormented her for much longer than a few weeks. He was smitten, and as swept away in a hero fantasy as his younger brother had ever been.
    It was time to consider that he might be losing his perspective where women were concerned, but contemplation would have to wait until he’d righted a few wrongs.
    “Fetch the waste bucket,” Aaron snapped at the guard as he emerged from the cell, his attention fixed on the woman’s face and the small flutter of her eyelids. She was definitely breathing and wasn’t too desperately thin. Hopefully there was nothing wrong with her that a bath, food, and care couldn’t mend.
    Aaron waited until he heard the guard grunt as he bent over to pick up the bucket and then kicked the cell door shut.
    “I trust a few days in there will teach you to take better care of those in your charge.” Aaron shot the guard a cold look before turning to leave, not surprised to hear whimpering coming from behind him.
    The biggest bullies were always the first to break. But the sound made him wonder how long the beauty in his arms had wept before she succumbed to such a hard sleep that her eyes remained closed as he carried her out of the dungeon, up into the light.
    It was a question that had no satisfactory answer.

CHAPTER THREE
    Calliope
    Calliope drifted in and out of a beautiful dream, her mind so far gone that every imagined wonder seemed heartbreakingly real.
    She could feel the soft hands of the women who bathed her, taste the soup they spooned between her lips, and caught glimpses of kind female faces in the moments when a soft breeze touched her face, making her lift heavy eyelids, only to close them once more as she was lured back to sleep by the blissful softness beneath her.
    She’d never felt a bed so soft in all her life. It was hard to believe even her vivid imagination could create something so lovely.
    Once or twice, in the hours or days in which she drifted, she awoke screaming, battling the voices in her mind, but there was always some imaginary friend there to soothe her. And eventually there was a woman with crushed herbs to place beneath her tongue. Calliope opened her mouth to accept the paste, which smelled similar to the mixture she used at home.
    But as she settled back onto the riot of