Darkness Captured Read Online Free PDF Page A

surcoat. Then he reached behind his neck, grabbed a handful of the silk and pulled it over his head.
    With his back to her, she could only stare at the black tattoo that covered his skin. Like a modern tribal tattoo, the design portrayed a dragon, its snout pointing toward his neck, furled wings spreading over the backs of his shoulders, and a long sinuous tail trailing beneath his trousers. The body of the black dragon was covered in small scales, each meticulously rendered, yet the wings appeared smooth rather than feathered or scaled.
    She remembered blurring her sight the first time she’d seen him in the mirror, and finding the dark aura of a giant dragon surrounding him. She did the same now, but found no such shadow around him. When his trousers loosened, she couldn’t look away. They pooled around his soft boots, which he toed off one at a time. He stepped into the water.
    When the churning water hid the hewn buttocks, she finally drew a deep breath and glanced away. His allure was a palpable thing, causing her heartbeats to race and her stomach to drop to her toes because she knew she didn’t have a hope in hell of resisting him.
    Already her mind leapt ahead to thoughts of how his dominance would affect her. The dark promise in his gaze had answered the shameful yearning she suppressed except for those times when she sought the “safety” of a human master. Her mind was nearly consumed with lustful images when she ought to be considering her escape.
    There had to be a way out. She’d have to follow their scents to retrace their steps and find the hall with the mirror. If she made a quick dash for the door, would she have a chance to escape him? He was powerful, but was he quick? And did she really want to escape, or did she want to be captured again and forced to submit?
    Without Guntram to watch over her, his presence a reminder of her duty and the honor she ought to protect, could she keep her head in the game, or would she surrender completely to the dark obsession that ruled her?

CHAPTER

3
    F or once, Gabriella wished she owned an ounce of Guntram’s ability to assess an enemy calmly before selecting the correct tactic. Remorse filled her. She’d often teased her personal guard about his lack of spontaneity, prodded him more than once to see if he would lose his tight-fisted control. She’d sensed long ago his attraction to her, but she’d never crossed that line, never invited him to her bed. To surrender to a male of her kind would spell the end of her independence, however much she’d been tempted to taste his fierce, measured passion.
    Instead, her willfulness had landed her in a chamber with a monster. One who didn’t care that she watched as he bathed. And one who apparently didn’t give a damn whether she tried to escape or attack him.
    He’d turned his back on her. Was he so sure of himself because they weren’t really alone? Gabriella studied the room again but found no evidence of any modern technology—wall sconces with fat candles would provide light during the night. There was no television, no phone, which meant hidden cameras and bugs were just as unlikely to exist here.
    Were there more enchanted mirrors for someone to watch her from? Distressingly, the only mirror she saw in the room was one huge gilt-framed mirror on the ceiling above the bed, but it was too high for her to touch or look behind, so her concerns couldn’t be verified.
    The deliberate placement of the mirror made her body quiver anew as her mind filled with images of the demon’s body rutting into hers while she watched him over his shoulder. A mistake, because now that she knew what his backside looked like, the picture was firmly planted. Her body flushed with languid heat.
    The man was made for a woman’s pleasure—as handsome as Alex, as powerfully built as Guntram. If she’d met a human like him in one of the clubs she visited, she’d have begged to give him a week’s service before being