Captive Spirit

by Anna Windsor

  “I won’t.” Duncan didn’t want to hear any more negatives right now. He had other things on his mind. “And I’m feeling fine for now. I want to see Bela.”

  Mother Keara’s braids smoked. “She’s busy. Not hurt at all, don’t go worryin’. The Rakshasa pulled an attack on the townhouse while we were workin’, and she and Dio and Camille drove them off. They saved yer life.”

  Duncan’s jaw tightened.

  While he’d been thrashing around on a basement mat getting his insides burned up and smashed by elemental energy, his angel had been upstairs fighting demons?

  Not okay.

  He stood and faced Mother Keara more directly. “I want to see Bela now, please.”

  She gave him a blow-off frown and shook a knotty finger at his hip—because she didn’t reach any higher. “We’ve been keeping her away, because you’ll be needin’ another day or two to be solid on yer feet.”

  “I try to respect my elders, ma’am, and I’m more grateful to you and the other Mothers than I can say for the extra time you’ve given me. But I’m not asking you, I’m telling you.” Duncan put his hand over the dinar to keep it from swinging down when he leaned toward Mother Keara to be sure she heard him. “I don’t have a lot of time left to me, and I want to see Bela. Now. I want to be with Bela as much as I can. Either you send her to me, or I’m going up to find her.”

  All that came out loud.

  And powerful.

  It had kind of an echo to it.

  The coin tingled beneath Duncan’s fingertips, and he let go of it to stare at his skin.

  From the center of his brain, John said, Interesting, then faded from Duncan’s awareness.

  From somewhere around Duncan’s right elbow, Mother Keara said, “Did yer mother ever make things catch on fire, by any chance?”

  Duncan glanced down at the Mother, wondering if she’d gotten overheated during his healing. “Ah, no. Not unless she used matches.”

  “Hmm.” Mother Keara sounded like she didn’t believe him, but she accepted his word nonetheless. “All right, then. You wait right here, and I’ll let her know you’re awake and asking for her.”

  Duncan watched the Mother totter over to the basement door, tempted to follow her just to be sure she didn’t jack around with him. He didn’t think she would, though. If she hadn’t wanted to go get Bela, she would have just set him on fire for being pushy.

  That’s what he was liking most about Sibyls so far. What you saw was what you got—only better. And he never had to worry about where he stood, because they’d damned sure tell him.

  Duncan touched the dinar around his neck again, and he sensed her.

  Bela.

  She felt like a cool island oasis in a sea full of sharks.

  “Come here, Angel,” he murmured, even though he knew she couldn’t hear him. “We need to talk about no and not yet—and saying yes.”

  According to Riana’s triad, the search for the Rakshasa had turned up nothing. Again. The Sibyls on patrol had tried tracking the demons and the humans who helped them invade the townhouse’s elemental protections, but once more, it was like they vanished from the city’s borders as soon as they ran away. They had to have one hell of an elemental shield in place somewhere—something strong, yet subtle enough that the patrols were missing it completely.

  Bela sat at the townhouse’s kitchen table in her street clothes, because Mother Keara and Jack frigging Blackmore, with his purple eye and sprained knee from falling out of the damned wall on the crest of Andy’s wave, had refused to let her and her quad go on the hunt. They didn’t think it was safe, not until the Mothers had the opportunity to study what Bela, Camille, and Dio had done to stop the Rakshasa’s energy attack during the healing.

  Stupid.

  But not worth the fight.

  If truth be told, Bela didn’t want to get that far away from Duncan anyway.

  “You know we’re not tryin’ to shame you or punish you.” Mother Keara’s crackly voice caught Bela off guard. She hadn’t heard the Mother enter the kitchen or come to stand behind her. Mothers could be like that, damned silent and sneaky. “We’re only holdin’ you back until we know more.”

  Bela kept her hands on the table in front of her and didn’t turn around. “You’re holding us back, period. My quad might have been able to track those monsters while the trail was fresh. We touched their energy shield. I think we could recognize it again. I know we could do it, if we work together.”

  “You don’t know any such thing. No one, not one person—are you hearin’ me?” Mother Keara stomped around the table where Bela would have to look at her, bringing her fire as she came. Bits of flame danced across Bela’s wrists and fingers. “Not a livin’ soul on this earth knows what might happen, usin’ elemental power like the three of you did. The air Sibyls are crawlin’ Motherhouse Greece’s archives to find what they can to explain it, to help us understand it.”

  Bela got to her feet and gazed down at Mother Keara. “We understand it.”

  “Do you now?” Shadows and flames played across Mother Keara’s wrinkled cheeks as she spoke, and Bela was reminded fiercely of pictures of Rumpelstiltskin and goblins and other tiny, terrible things. “How long can you use it before it drains you down to nothing—or kills you?”

  She’d never come out on top in this argument, but stubbornness and irritation drove Bela to keep going anyway. “It’s an exchange. We have to keep the output less than the input, that’s all.”

  “And what damage might that output do if it got away from you? What if the next time it takes yer life—or Dio’s, or Camille’s?”

  “Don’t you dare use my caring for my quad against me!” Heat poured into Bela’s face. She wanted to say a lot more, but she rubbed her temples instead, pushing back a big headache. “Leave off, old woman. I can’t talk to you anymore until I get to go on patrol and burn some energy.”

  Fire burned a streak across the table separating them, and Mother Keara laughed at her. “You should have been a fire Sibyl.”

  “And you should have been a sneaky-ass leprechaun, so we’re even.” Bela let go of her head and steadied herself with the table again. She was relatively certain her temper wouldn’t drive her to accidentally open a projective hole in the floor and let Mother Keara fall all the way back to Ireland.

  Mother Keara’s paper-thin hand rested over Bela’s on the table, without burning her at all. “Yer detective’s awake,” she said, no doubt feeling the upsurge in Bela’s earth power as she spoke. “I’m thinkin’ he’d like to see you now.”

  Bela’s worries and frustrations fractured and dispersed. She blinked once at Mother Keara and started for the kitchen door, but the irritating little leprechaun snatched hold of the waistband of her slacks. “He looks good now, but don’t be fooled, child. He’s got weeks at best—a month or two, no more, before we’ll have to kill him in demon form, and he knows that.”

  Bela tried to pull herself free, but Mother Keara held tight to her pants. “You’ve got yer issues with being told what to do—but I’m tellin’ you this. Watch yer heart. Duncan Sharp’s damned good at stealing those.”

  When Bela turned to extract Mother Keara’s fingers from her clothing before she burned holes in the fabric, she saw tears in the old woman’s eyes. That nearly made her sob. It was all she could do to get herself loose and keep herself together.

  Weeks.

  Damnit, I don’t accept that.

  But weeks …

  The next few seconds blurred as Bela’s thoughts spun down, down toward Duncan, and what time they could have together, and what they’d never have. She couldn’t really do this, could she? Go down those basement steps and touch a man she knew she was going to lose. The pain of trying to measure minutes and hours before another soul-killing loss would crush her sanity.

  Bela’s body moved without conscious drive. She felt the kitchen door with her fingertips, then the basement door. Her elemental focus propelled her forward, and her awarenes
s dwindled to the single point of bright heat that was Duncan, his life energy pulsing into the earth below her. It drummed a rhythm like a heartbeat, and she knew that sound like she knew the shape of dirt and the taste of rock, the scent of sand, the bone-deep rattle of the world in its turning.

  Pound, pound, pound.

  Death didn’t seem real or even possible, with life speaking so loudly.

  She moved down the townhouse stairs, her feet, her breathing, and her own heart keeping that cadence. Tiny shocks of pain still echoed through her body, remnants of what Duncan had endured, but he had endured. And so had she.

  Mother Keara was wrong, at least about some things. Bela understood that now, because she knew she wasn’t a misguided fire Sibyl after all. She was of the earth and for the earth, born to its service and living by its grace. She didn’t need to move the soil and bend it to her will, because it moved her. It powered her, lifted her, drove her. She spoke to it, and it spoke to her, and she knew it like a twin, from its molten core to its shifting dust that touched every living thing that walked its surface. From now on, instead of finding channels in its depths or trying to force them into existence, she would be the channel, and let the earth rise through her.

  Duncan’s essence was one with the stone beneath his feet, and with the ground beneath the stone. He had been bathed by elemental energy, and he was as purely connected to the earth as anything Bela’s mind had ever touched. His presence pulled her like a primal force, away from her friends, her quad, the Mothers, and everything she knew for certain. By going to him now, she was walking away from her past and committing to an uncertain future.

  Riding the tide of her deepened terrasentience and the direct rush of earth power it gave her, Bela pushed the gym door open, and heavy boards smashed against the stone wall behind it. Bela stared at the splintered wood. With the right focus and concentration, she could have shoved it straight through the rock, all the way to the next block—though she suspected the energy exchange definitely would have laid her out, or even killed her.

  So much to learn now. So much new.

  The basement stretched before her, as quiet as a temple chamber. The elemental healing had left the room smelling like fire and wind and rain, like a mountain forest after a hard, thundering storm. The stone walls and floor gave off a cool, earthy energy, but that did nothing to chill the heat rising through Bela’s body.

  All the exercise equipment was shoved to the walls, leaving the cavernous space empty except for a single blue mat in the center of the floor. Duncan was standing beside the mat in his jeans, bare-chested except for the glittering gold dinar, and he was staring straight at her. Both of his arms looked healed and strong, like the rest of him. No cast. No bandages anywhere. He had the glow and vigor of the recently healed, and she knew he’d still be bursting with the elemental energy he’d received. His slash wounds were closed. The scars curled away from his neck and crossed his shoulder, then swept down to cover the left side of the skin over his heart. Some were pale, some raised, some furrowed. They marked him like the shrapnel from his first war.

  As a warrior.

  As a survivor.

  Bela lost another piece of her heart to him. If she could have bargained with the Goddess to trade some of her own days, months, and years to keep him breathing, she would have done it.

  Duncan studied her, not smiling, not frowning. When he spoke, his voice was low, and close to teasing. “I know what you did to help save me, and I’m grateful—but I told you not to stay here, Angel.”

  Bela almost laughed at that. “You should have realized something by now, Duncan Sharp. I never do what I’m told.”

  Duncan folded his arms across his scarred, muscular chest. His unbelievable eyes sparked, then burned with a warm gray light. “All right. If that’s true, then I’m telling you, don’t come over here.”

  Bela slammed what was left of the basement door behind her, surprised when it thumped into place and didn’t snap off its hinges. She walked toward Duncan, taking her time, wanting to mark each detail about him and appreciate every nuance.

  Her slacks felt like damp weights on her legs, and her blouse clung to her arms and waist like white cotton binding. They were in her way, holding her back, so she took them off. A few buttons, and a toss. A snap and zipper, and a kick.

  She was halfway to the mat.

  If Duncan’s eyes had been warm before, they were flaming now. He kept his arms crossed, but his muscles bulged like he was holding himself in place. Through the chilled stone tickling her toes and soles and heels, the rage of his desire licked across Bela’s senses. The steel of his self-control gripped her mind. He tasted like molten metal to her Sibyl perceptions, unbearably hot and smooth, and completely basic and natural.

  She took off her bra, and the basement’s cool air stung her nipples. The sensitive flesh tightened until it hurt in just the right way, and Duncan’s eyes fixed on the hard tips. Bela let him look, and she kept walking.

  Soon enough, he’d touch her, before she burned up from wanting him to do it.

  Her panties were thin lace, and wet, and they tore in her earth-powerful fingers when she slid them to her hips. The delicate fabric tumbled to the stone floor, leaving her bare. The basement’s chill touched her again, lower and deeper, this time making her gasp—and she let him look, let his breath leave him in a whistle, and she kept walking.

  Earthquakes were nothing but a push and a pull, a change in motion that forever shifted a planet, from its core to its surface. Duncan Sharp was her earthquake. When she put her hands on him this time, her life, from its core to its surface, would never look the same again.

  Bela stopped, inches away from him. “You don’t need a condom,” she said. Blunt and honest seemed like the best way to talk to him now. “I decide when I get pregnant, and my elemental energy takes care of any other problems.”

  The temperature rising from Duncan’s taut muscles was a tangible thing. Fire Sibyls smoked and burned from less heat than he was throwing off. His eyes traced a path from her face to her neck, from her breasts to her belly, from her dark curls to her toes, then all the way up again.

  She broke out in tiny shivers, delicious and maddening. Her breasts felt heavy and ready for his hands, and she ached for him to take possession of the rest of her curves and secret places. His fingers, his mouth, his passion—she wanted everything. A fine mist of sweat broke all over her exposed skin, doubling the shivers.

  Through the earth connecting them, Bela listened to the rhythm of their hearts. Fast. Steady. Not matching, but synchronized, a beat for each silence and a silence for each beat.

  Duncan lowered his arms and stared at her, all of her, taking his time like she’d taken hers. His consuming gaze showed his gentleness and strength, his desire, but something else, too: a possessiveness she’d never expected. It caught her off guard. It thrilled her. She was glad she was standing naked in front of him, stripped down to nothing on the outside and the inside, too. She wanted him to take her, to own her. She had never felt anything like that before.

  More surprises.

  The ache between her legs was almost more than she could stand.

  “Now I’m telling you this, and you better listen.” He reached out and slid his thumbs over both of her nipples. She shuddered, and the ache to have him inside her doubled. “Don’t kiss me. And whatever you do, don’t make love to me until you scream. Until you can’t move. Until you forget everyone and everything in the world except what I’m doing to you, and how hard, and how deep.”

  His words rumbled, shifting the earth inside Bela like an unstoppable force as he rubbed her nipples again. She moaned, pulling away, then pushing herself right back into his touch. His gorgeous eyes surrendered to her, then claimed her as he pinched where he’d been rubbing.

  She was lost.

  That fast.

  Spiraling into an existence of pure sensation.

  Her palms rested on his chest, and his rough male skin felt like
heaven under her fingertips. His scars were a landscape, private, personal, and each dent and ridge spoke to her. Duncan let her explore every crease and turn, every flaw and every perfection, his eyes locked on hers as he kept up his massage, moving the responsive tips of her breasts in slow circles between his thumb and forefinger. She leaned forward and flicked her tongue across his smaller nipples, and he groaned.

  Bela pushed up on her toes and kissed him as his hands slid to her waist, and oh, yes, he tasted like water, natural and fresh and sweet. His tongue was hot in her mouth, moving with her each time she breathed, each time she pressed herself closer, wishing she could get all the way inside his skin. His dinar buzzed and hummed between her breasts, but it didn’t shock her, not when it was touching him, too. Her bare thighs scrubbed against his jeans, his erection. She moved herself up and down, feeling all of him that she could as he caressed her cheeks, her neck, then gripped her shoulders, keeping her close. He let her catch her breath, but never quite let her pull away. His hands were so big. Barely controlled power. She wanted them on her. She wanted them everywhere, and when they really started moving, she was helpless.

  “Touch me,” she whispered to him over and over, barely aware that she was talking at all.

  Duncan formed her body to his, crushing her sensitive nipples against his chest as his lips kept hers captive. Each brush of his scars sent a shock of a different texture from her toes all the way to her lips. She sighed into his mouth as he rubbed the small of her back. Rough, yet gentle. Strong, but so tender when he cupped her ass and squeezed her tighter.

  “I never dreamed I’d meet a woman like you.” His deep, husky voice made her throb all over. “Now I can’t stop dreaming about you.”

  He kissed her.

  “Every night.”

  He kissed her again.

  “This isn’t casual for me. I don’t have time left for games, and I’m not playing with you.”

  He lowered his head to her neck and bit her, and she moaned.

  “Tell me yes this time.” His teeth scraped across the skin between her neck and shoulder. “I need to hear you say it, Angel.”