Free Carlotta and the Krius Scepter (Carlotta Series Book 1) by John Booth

craved, but after three battles I would walk away and she would have to deal with the consequences. Her pride had been hurt and her daughters raped. It had made her act foolishly, but then, most humans do.
    We can move almost faster than the eye can see when the sun is shining on us and I had a sword that cut through flesh and sinew almost without the need for force. The Romans equip their soldiers well. Those that cannot afford metal used thick hardened leather that can withstand a dozen sword cuts though there would be bruising underneath. They protected their vitals but they had to be able to move and that was where their weakness lay.
    I slipped in among their whores on the night before the battle, dressed in rags. Then I stripped as the morning rays of the sun warmed me. My sword glinted in the sunlight. I looked along the flat of the blade and saw a reflection showing the eagerness in my eyes. This was going to be fun.
    Running behind the lines of troops, I sliced into the vulnerable flesh below their knees. These were not death blows in themselves, but they would render these men unable to fight. Their screams and the need to deal with them meant that for every man I wounded, another would be taken out of the battle dealing with him.
    The Iceni and their supporting tribes came in to kill the injured men and the few remaining battle-fit soldiers. In a time so short a candle could not have burned out, I had wounded nearly a thousand men. I listened to their screams as the tribesmen showed them no mercy. It would be the city of Londinium next and I doubted that it would be any more difficult. That would be my third and last battle and I would leave before the burning and looting stopped.
     
    -
     
    I woke with a smile on my face. That had been a truly stupid dream, but Caer Lotha was a much better name than Carlotta.

11.                Preparations
     
    As soon as the sun dropped below the level of the sun-deck I became fully awake. I was bursting with energy and the desire to see off the hoods guarding us almost overwhelmed me. It would take less than a moment to kill them both. Only the pressure of the plastic band around my throat stopped me. That and what it could do.
    Someone had replaced our clothes while we slept. The lounger, a few feet away from me, had neatly folded piles of clothes with ankle high leather boots placed on top of each of them. Apparently Brian and I were to be color coordinated in black. I approved of that and wondered if they had included a pair of sunglasses in the piles. That would be cool. Well, a girl can hope can’t she?
    “I bet you look good in black,” Brian said. He was sitting up on his lounger. My first thought was that he was looking good. My second was that he’d have to change out of his boxers and there was nowhere to hide. I was developing a curiosity about certain parts of his body, which I was sure he was unfairly hiding from me.
    “I look good in anything or nothing at all,” I replied and made sure he got an eyeful of my intimate parts as I got up from the chair and stretched my legs.
    Brian blushed and looked away, which I thought was sweet. I took the boots off my clothes and started to dress. He crouched as he came over to the clothes and grabbed the black boxers from the pile. I took the crouching to mean that my display had had the desired effect on him. Annoyingly, he turned his back as he stripped naked, but the ass on the kid almost made up for it. Tight as a drum and rippling with muscles. I stopped to watch and heard a chuckle from behind me.
    “You ain’t got time for that, girl.”
    I turned to Mike as I slipped on my bra. “There are some things a gal should always make time for.”
    He looked at his watch. “We got to be in the den in ten minutes so get a move on.”
    “What for?” Brian asked. I turned to find he was fully dressed and strapping a black diver’s watch to his wrist. I hoped there was one of those in my pile. If there