Read Online Captive Spirit by Anna Windsor - Free Book Online Page A

coming. And kind. And she really wanted to scream now.
    She went back to bathing Duncan Sharp’s face and neck.
    It had been a long day and night on the heels of a damned endless month. She had spent the last four weeks trying to bind together a fighting group that just wouldn’t—or couldn’t—mesh yet. They had taken on extra patrols to build experience with each other, but so far the best they could muster was a few semi-competent battles. The rest of the time, they jumped and banged and rattled against each other like popcorn in a hot pan. At least down here on the brownstone’s basement floor, with her bedroom, the long, dark, and cool hallway to the lab, the big lab space itself, and the little treatment room contained in the corner, Bela could feel settled and calm, and a little bit at home. Even if she was downtown.
    Bela had never thought she’d live in the city. Way too prissy for a Bronx girl. But hey, when your best frenemy gifts you the most killer brownstone in Manhattan, you don’t say, Ew, no, thanks, that’s too poof-ass for my blood .
    “You have a temporary breakdown and paint the walls a heinous yellow,” she muttered to the sleeping detective as she forced herself to stand up and lower the washrag. “Then you load the place up with an injured detective and a full complement of Sibyl Mothers. Welcome to my house, Duncan Sharp.”
    As if to answer her, the detective opened his eyes.
    Oh .
    Bela’s breath stilled in her throat.
    Her quad’s growing pains, the Mothers, and even the insane yellow walls faded into distant regions of her mind.
    Oh, my .
    Gray-blue was all she could see now, as clear and startling as a winter sky at dawn.
    Those eyes were … beautiful. A little wild. Definitely different. Bela tried to jumpstart her breathing but couldn’t pull off even a gasp.
    It wasn’t just the color. It was the depth—a dark, flickering intensity like shadows on crystal. He had a tired, haunted sadness about him that went beyond battles and wounds. How far would a man have to travel, and how much trouble would he have to know, to get power like that in his gaze?
    Duncan Sharp’s stare brushed her cheek like fingertips, moving slowly down to her chin, and lower, to her neck. Shock mingled with wonder and other emotions she couldn’t begin to identify as he focused on her, seemed to take her in—and grinned.
    Bela managed to get a little air, but not much.
    Boyish, just like she’d thought. Charming and endearing would be good words, too. Heat crept across her shoulders and up her neck as she smiled back at him.
    “You saved my life,” he whispered, so low and deep she felt it all over her body. Even in those four words, she got a taste of raw Southern male.
    It took a lot of effort to make her mouth work, but Bela stammered, “We—we’re trying, Detective Sharp.”
    “It’s Duncan.” The grin faded. He closed his amazing eyes for a second, then opened them long enough to add, “You’re so damned gorgeous I’m gonna touch you to make sure you’re real.”
    The padded cuffs holding his good wrist clinked as he reached toward her and ran out of chain. His attention shifted to the cuffs, and he jerked against them again before trying to move his casted arm.
    “Careful.” Bela rested her palm on the warm skin of his wrist, still feeling the heat of his half-delirious compliment. He had no idea where he was, who she was—he wasn’t even asking why he wasn’t in a hospital, if he realized he wasn’t. He probably wouldn’t remember a word of this tomorrow—but she would. “We’ve got you restrained as a precaution.”
    There was that grin again, and a devilish sparkle in his winter-gray eyes. “Angel, you can tie me up anytime.”
    The cuffs clinked again.
    Angel .
    Yeah. He was delirious, for sure, but that accent was sweet enough to eat, and those eyes had to be the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
    They pinned her, held her totally still as he grabbed the metal