Captive Spirit

by Anna Windsor

  Bela lowered the feather, then tucked it back in its place behind the Spaldeen. “I don’t know. She died in a Legion attack during a patrol the night after we got home.”

  For a moment or two, Duncan didn’t know what to say. Talking about people who’d been killed—he was used to that after the war and from being in law enforcement. But to hear Bela say that in such a matter-of-fact way—well, damn. He rubbed his chin. She’d had it hard since that time when she was a little Bronx brat with a broomstick.

  “How long did the Sibyls fight the Legion?” he asked, to begin to get a grasp of just how hard.

  Bela’s hand lingered on the Disney cup, and she wasn’t looking at him. “A century, give or take. Good thing Sibyls live a long time, if nothing kills them.”

  “A hundred years. Jesus. And I thought the Gulf was bad.” His gaze traveled from Bela to the figurines on the dresser across from where she was standing. Her father had raised her from eight—her father and the old women at Motherhouse Russia.

  Did those Mothers really care about her? Mother Keara seemed to, but she wasn’t from Bela’s group of Sibyls. Duncan had a sudden image of Bela as a little girl, sitting quiet and off to herself as everyone in the Motherhouse came and went at whatever they did. Nobody was beside her, holding her hand or talking to her. She was just sitting. Sitting and watching.

  Why did that feel so true?

  “How many Sibyls did you lose in that war?” Duncan heard the soft crack in his voice when he asked the question.

  Bela’s shrug was anything but casual. It was the same shrug that lonely little girl would have given somebody when they finally noticed her and asked if she was okay. “Motherhouse Greece could give you a count. My mother, my first triad—Dio’s sister included—and Camille’s first triad. So many more.”

  When Duncan took her in his arms this time, he felt way more than heat and desire. Those other emotions, those stronger ones, they had been inside him and growing, but now they were just … everything.

  “What we do isn’t like normal police work with wings and magic and fangs.” Her head rested on his chest, and one of her hands. He covered her fingers with his. “We’re soldiers. We fight wars most of New York City and the rest of the world never even know about, and people die.”

  She pulled back just enough for him to see her face, which darkened until Duncan felt her sadness like a weight in his own gut. “Lots of good people die. Sometimes I think I’m moving on, and sometimes I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  He ran his thumb along her jaw, brushing away a single tear. “I still dream about the desert all the time, and it’s been nearly twenty years.”

  Bela seemed to consider this, then rested her cheek on his chest again. Duncan held her for a long time, but not long enough, because it could never be long enough.

  Time …

  He didn’t want to think about time, but it ticked in his mind anyway, moving forward whether he tracked it or not.

  His world had gone crazy, and Bela was the only sane thing around him. He didn’t want to hurt her or burden her, God, no. Never that. But she didn’t seem like the kind of woman who took on burdens she didn’t want.

  Should he trust that?

  What were the rules when he only had a few weeks to keep breathing?

  To hell with rules, anyway.

  He kissed her hair, her ear, then stroked her shoulders and back. “I got one more question. Has your room always looked like this?”

  She shifted against his chest, and gave a contented sigh when he held her closer. “I didn’t get the last three Knicks posters until a year ago.”

  “Well, that makes it definite, even if I’m an Atlanta Hawks fan.”

  She drew back to meet his gaze. “That makes what definite?”

  Duncan kept her close. He couldn’t have turned her loose, even if ten demons broke down the door. Every detail flared in his mind, from the silk of her hair on his arms to the way her lips tugged into a little smile that seemed happy and right.

  “I love you, Angel.”

  Bela’s mouth came open, and her eyes went wide. She didn’t pull away from him, even though the more noble part of him thought she should.

  He put two fingers against her soft lips. “I know I’m a selfish bastard, to ask if you’re willing to deal with more death after what you’ve been through—but I’ll do whatever it takes to make you mine for the time I’ve got left.”

  Her expression shifted from shock to distance, then seemed to come back to him completely. She slipped his fingers into her mouth, setting him on fire when she ran her warm, soft tongue over his knuckles.

  Once. Twice. Again.

  Damn, that was tearing him up.

  And she knew it.

  He could tell by the spark in her dark, beautiful eyes. She let his fingers slide across her lips, making sure her teeth caught the tips as he pulled them free.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” she whispered. “I’m already yours.”

  Duncan drew her even tighter against him, and her deep, giving kiss sealed her in his heart forever. She lifted her arms for him to pull her shirt and bra over her head, then took his T-shirt off, and his jeans. Her slacks and underwear slipped past her hips when he pushed them down.

  Holding her, bare skin to bare skin, had to be the closest thing to heaven he’d ever reach. Duncan was somewhere past hard and aroused, past needing her, even past wanting her. He’d reached craving and starving, but he refused to rush through a single second of making love to her. His woman. His for as long as he could stay alive to please her.

  “You’re beautiful, Angel. I never want to stop touching you.”

  She answered him with a soft purr, and her hands started moving. “I think you’re beautiful, too.”

  His scars, the old ones and the new ones, didn’t seem to put her off at all. She touched them without any hesitation, like she was trying to memorize every rip, tear, and jagged line on his body. Her breasts pushed upward between her moving arms, and the dinar hummed as her nipples rubbed across the metal.

  When he kissed her, she wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, giving herself to him completely.

  Duncan eased back until he felt the bed touch the back of his legs, then sat on the edge with his angel in his lap, her legs pressed against his hips, kissing her head, leaning lower to taste her neck. She pushed up her breasts for him to sample, then moaned and ran her nails across his shoulders. There was so much he wanted to say to her, but words wouldn’t be enough.

  He showed her with his tongue on her nipples. He showed her with his mouth on her breasts, her chest, her shoulders, kissing everywhere he went. He showed her with his fingers sliding into her warm juices, then slipping inside her, making her writhe and cry out and grip the sides of his head as she leaned back against the arm he had around her waist.

  Bela’s dark hair tumbled around her cheeks, and her eyes squeezed tight as she pushed herself against his hand, her ass rubbing across his erection with each thrust. Duncan waited for her breathing to get short and fast, then eased his fingers out, grasped her hips, and lifted her.

  Her eyes came open, nothing but dark fire as she pressed her hands against his face. “Yes.” She kissed him as she moved in his grip until he felt her warm center over his sensitive lower head. His heart thumped in time with each word she said.

  “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

  He brought her down hard, and she took him deep, with a low, screaming moan that drove him crazy. He lifted her and brought her down again and again, driving himself inside her hot, tight depths. Her hips ground against his. She leaned toward him, hard nipples ready for biting, and he caught them both with his teeth.

  The floor rattled, shaking the bed and making her squeeze him tighter.

  God. Almost there. This woman pushed his control.

  Bela shoved his shoulders, urging him backward, until his shoulders hit the bed’s cotton spread.

  Duncan lay back, t
hrusting even harder, groaning with the sweet perfection of seeing her on top of him. She touched herself everywhere as he moved her up and down, pushing into her, pushing her toward climax.

  She rode him like she’d been waiting for him all day, all year, her whole life.

  “Nothing sweeter than you, Angel.” His voice was just a growl. “Nothing better.”

  Her nails tracked past the coin, digging across his chest.

  Her head tipped back, thrusting her breasts high as her walls clenched. Her whole body pulsed and shook as she screamed, and he was done, he was gone, groaning and spilling himself inside her until there was nothing left at all.

  Bela draped herself forward, and he wrapped his arms tight around her.

  “Unbelievable,” he whispered into her ear, and she shivered, sending shocks through his spent muscles.

  Duncan started to pull out, but she whispered, “Stay. Stay forever.”

  New, sweet heat filled him, and he found her lips, kissing her as the room started shaking all over again, answering the slow, cool flow of her earth energy.

  Then the walls really shook as something down the hall exploded.

  Bela’s mouth froze on Duncan’s, and she got very still.

  From upstairs came Andy’s sleepy, irritated, “What the fuck was that?”

  From down the hall in the lab, Camille yelled, “Damnit, Bela, all that banging around blew up my hydrazoic acid. It stinks like hell in here now.”

  Bela pushed herself away from Duncan’s mouth long enough to yell, “Later, Camille!”

  “Hydrazoic acid.” He gazed at his angel as she frowned, rubbing the tight muscles in the small of her back. “Hydrazoic acid?”

  Bela glared down at him and gave his hair a yank. “You’re the one who wanted to leave a fire Sibyl alone in a laboratory.”

  Duncan turned his head enough to glance at the tools in the corner. “You could throw that leather belt on and go help her clean the mess. I’d like to see you wearing that thing, all naked and hot—”

  She kissed him.

  Duncan kissed her back. He tucked her against his chest and cradled her there, adoring every inch of her, and every second she gave him.

  “I love you,” she whispered, biting his ear hard enough that he felt it in his slowly waking cock. “But you’d look better naked in that tool belt. I’m sure of it.”

  (24)

  The last person Bela wanted to see after three delicious days and nights of making love to Duncan was Jack Blackmore.

  What a buzzkill.

  Good thing she’d left Andy back at the townhouse to supervise Camille, who was still blowing shit up in the lab every few hours, trying to simulate the projective metal in Duncan’s dinar. Bela smoothed her white tunic over her jeans, wondering what would be left of the brownstone when she and Dio and Duncan got back.

  Duncan pulled a chair out for her, and she seated herself at a wooden table in an interrogation room on West Thirtieth, in the old Fourteenth Precinct station house the OCU still used to interface with the public. He pulled out a chair for Dio on the opposite side of the table, and Dio sat as Duncan headed out to get Merin Alsace for his interview.

  Dio was wearing a dress, short-sleeved and knee-length, with bold camel and burgundy patterns that made her blond hair and gray eyes seem almost electric in the big pane of one-way glass that took up the end of the room. Jack Blackmore glanced at Dio but didn’t leer, so Bela decided not to rattle a hole in the floor and stuff him in it. For now.

  He dropped a stack of files on the table, then eased his tall, muscular frame into the chair at the head. He was favoring the knee he’d hurt when Andy washed him out of the townhouse, and his right eye was still purple with an interesting green tinge. “Creed and Nick already gave you copies of what we have in these files, and there’s nothing new so far.”

  “We’ve been all through it,” Dio said. “Pretty thorough information. We don’t have anything to add yet, either.”

  “They know you’re not with the NYPD, but we weren’t specific beyond calling you special liaisons.” Blackmore arranged a digital tape recorder the size of a cell phone next to the folders he’d brought. “You can ask questions, but back off if his lawyer objects. We don’t need him wondering too much about your official title and capacity.”

  “Got it.” Bela glanced away from Blackmore’s bruised face, remembering this place from back before the townhouse had become the center of Sibyl-OCU operations. She’d always thought the refurbished building looked like a castle, with its stone façade and turrets. The Traffic Task Force had its headquarters here, and the OCU used it, too, knowing that nobody paid much attention to the top floor.

  The stenciled letters on the double doors leading into the handful of rooms said Police Annex. It was nothing but a holding cell, a few desks, an office, a storeroom converted into this interrogation room, and a couple of all-purpose areas crammed with old files and gear. The whole place smelled like dust and old typewriter ink, but the OCU could interview people here without having to reveal Sibyls and demons and whatever else might be slithering through the halls at Headcase Quarters. Officially, the annex was listed as an overflow for Midtown South, and that was enough to answer most questions.

  Duncan came in with Reese Patterson, who had on a lightweight gray summer suit tailored to fit his broad proportions. The tall, awkward young man who came in after him had on jeans, and a green T-shirt that read GLOBAL WARMING—NOW THAT’S HOT, printed over a picture of the earth on fire. Bela thought he looked about eighteen instead of twenty-seven, just a few years younger than her, like the OCU profile had indicated. He had big brown eyes and a wannabe beard, and standing in between Duncan’s muscles and Patterson’s bulk, Merin Alsace looked like a kid in serious need of a few protein shakes.

  The three men took the table’s remaining seats, with Duncan closest to Bela, Patterson at the end, and Alsace next to Dio. Not a typical bare-bones interrogation setup, where a suspect got crammed in the corner farthest from the door, isolated from the light switches and thermostat and exit, just to add to the freak-out. But still probably intimidating, with Blackmore and Duncan looking so police-professional in their black slacks, white shirts, and black ties.

  Alsace gave Dio and Bela the once-over but didn’t seem too interested in either of them. Patterson, of course, gave Dio a flourish and nod. “Glad to see you again, pretty lady.”

  Dio smiled at him, and the expression seemed genuine. Bela thought she liked the guy, though not the way Patterson would have preferred.

  Merin Alsace wasn’t smiling at all. He eyed Reese Patterson like the lawyer was a traitor to the realm, and kept doing it the whole time Blackmore and Patterson discussed the digital recorder. Bela catalogued everything in her mind, from the way Alsace’s mouth twitched as he got more annoyed to where his eyes focused when Patterson argued a point with Blackmore on Alsace’s behalf. She was no police detective, but all Sibyls learned the basics of questioning subjects, like getting a good fix on their behavioral patterns before the tough questions start.

  A few minutes later, Blackjack switched on the digital recorder.

  Alsace seemed to be familiar with the routine, because the minute Blackmore pressed the recorder’s on button, he faced Blackmore and spoke directly toward the microphone area of the machine. “I’ve already talked to the police twice, so I’m not sure how this is going to help.”

  Blackmore’s expression remained stern but kind, and Bela realized he was adopting a good-father style designed to put Alsace at ease. “We’ve read the interviews, Merin, and we appreciate your cooperation so far.”

  Alsace’s irritated posture relaxed a fraction, and Bela awarded a few points to Blackmore in her mind.

  “Uh, thanks,” Alsace said. “So, is this a follow-up?”

  Blackmore nodded toward Patterson at the other end of the table. “I’m sure your attorney explained that we’re a special division of the NYPD, and we check into crimes that have unusual elements
. What he might have left out is that we investigate illegal activity that appears to involve aspects of the occult.”

  Bela let her earth senses ease forward toward Alsace, and she felt a whisper of Dio’s wind moving, too. He didn’t react to Blackmore’s mention of the occult, at least not on an elemental level.

  Alsace’s eyes widened, and he shook his head. “Katrina didn’t have anything to do with the supernatural. She was heavy into church.”

  “Religion doesn’t rule out interest in paranormal phenomena.” Dio’s voice sounded as soft as a breeze, but Alsace’s answer came fast and firm.

  “It did for my sister. Katrina thought anything outside of strict Christian interpretations was evil.”

  Okay, that had a lot of emotion. Bela could taste Alsace’s forceful feelings, even if she couldn’t identify them. Still no elemental energy, though. She made eye contact with Duncan, and gave him a slight shake of her head to let him know.

  He acknowledged her communication with a tap of his fingers on the table. His gray eyes shifted colors, back and forth, but whatever John Cole was telling him, Duncan didn’t bring it into the interrogation.

  “What about you, Merin?” Blackmore picked up the ball again and ran with it. “Do you have any interest in the supernatural?”

  Alsace shifted his weight in his chair, and his tone grew more defensive. “I believe in it, if that’s what you mean. I’m Wiccan.”

  Blackmore’s face remained completely neutral, and his tone reflected no judgment when he asked, “How did Katrina feel about that?”

  “She hated it.” Alsace focused on Blackmore, more or less ignoring everyone else at the table, including his attorney. “Katrina gave me a lot of shit about it when we were younger, but we put that to rest after our parents died.”

  “Because she was their sole heir?” Duncan’s turn now. He was playing hard-ass to Blackmore’s nice daddy. The shifting eye color definitely added to the effect. “If it weren’t for your sister, you wouldn’t even have a trust fund, would you?”