War God for Hire- Gladiator by David Burke (books under 200 pages .TXT) 📕

Kyle was captivated. He had seen her spinning in the air to catch arrows but that had only ever been out of the corner of his eye and always on flat ground. The way she moved was almost hypnotic. But if he thought this was amazing, it was even more impressive when it came time for the archers to start firing.

Every two seconds, they fired an arrow at her. Each came from a different direction and yet not only did she manage to never get struck, but she also caught half of them. The first one she even leapfrogged and caught between her legs. It was the very definition of grace under fire.

Then the two-minute mark came and suddenly it wasn’t arrows she was dodging. First, it was a great gust of wind that caught her mid-leap and threw her from one corner of the square to the other. She only barely managed to catch a grip with her claws on the last pole before she would have been flung off.

Under the onslaught of wind, she fought her way back up, but he could see that the claws on her feet were digging into the wood in order to give her enough purchase to hang on. Then whips of fire sprung out from another mage and, despite her best attempts at dodging them, the best Kierra could do was jump about, trying to lessen the impacts.

The magical lash was far more responsive than a normal weapon and the lycan was repeatedly hit. Besides generating a small crackle of burned hair and flesh combined, the sounds only underscored her determination. She took the burns and kept fighting to hang on.

The third magical attack was one she had no defense against. An arc of lightning suddenly appeared. Traveling at the speed of light, it seemed to simultaneously connect with Kierra’s body in the same instant that it appeared at the tip of two outheld fingers, extended from the long sleeve of a powder blue robe.

It wasn’t like the video games or movies where the electricity rapidly traveled from attacker to target. No, it all happened virtually instantaneously.

Kierra’s muscles spasmed as she tried to resist the charge running through her body, but it didn’t matter. She fell from the top of one of the poles an instant later. When it didn’t appear she was conscious, Kyle rushed forward and caught her limp form just before she hit the ground.

As he looked down on her, he realized she wasn’t actually unconscious, just paralyzed. Her muscles were still randomly spasming and the charge in her body gave him a shock ten times worse than any kind of static electricity he had ever felt. He could even smell the coppery tang of blood from where she had bitten her tongue.

Selma and one of her assistants came running over, but by the time they got there, Kierra was already recovering. It seemed to take her a good minute to realize she was in his arms, because at first, she simply stretched and shook out her spasming muscles. She did so without making any attempt to get out of his arms.

He could feel the fur on her back rubbing against his arms and was surprised at how soft it was, not coarse at all. And unlike what he had sorta expected, she didn’t smell like a dog. Instead, she had almost an intoxicating smell—like cinnamon. It was as warm as her skin against his arms.

When she did suddenly realize where she was, she sat up. A look of panic crossed her face, and she was sitting on one of his arms in an instant. Her weight was nothing to him whether with one arm or two, so he just continued to hold his arm out away from his body. Her side was still touching his chest, and as she looked down to where they were in contact, he both saw her face go pink with a flush of embarrassment and felt her tail wagging against him so that it patted his abs repeatedly.

From there, she sprang to the ground. Quickly turning on him, her body language was hard to read. Her face said embarrassed, her tense arms and extended claws said hostile, and her wagging tail said something entirely different.

In that moment, he couldn’t help but tell just how very feminine she was. Not in a soft, squishy way, but a curvy muscular perfection like any of the fitness models he had dated would have killed for. The thought of how much fun she might be was only counterbalanced by the sharp claws held only inches from her face.

Eventually, she sighed and relaxed. Stepping away from him, she lowered her claws and then said, “I’m sorry. I was shocked.”

Kyle laughed and said, “Yeah, we all saw that.”

She looked confused for a moment before laughing briefly and replying, “Oh, I meant shocked that you were holding me. But you must have caught me when I fell. Thank you. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Oh, you look fierce but don’t consider me frightened, not yet. I’m not that easy to scare off. I’m just glad you are safe. I would have been happy to hold you longer. Your fur is very soft,” Kyle replied.

Their banter was cut off as Selma said, “I need to check her out. Thank you for catching her but now you need to go back to the rest of the fighters.”

Kyle nodded and moved back to where the others were standing. He heard a couple of jokes from the human fighters about someone getting a new pet, but chose not to let them get a rise out of him. Saber apparently thought their jokes meant they were ready to go next, because one by one he sent them up the poles.

None of the three humans even made it to the end of the first minute, with Burke having the longest time of forty-three seconds. Kyle tried not