Captive Soul Read Online Free PDF Page A

Rakshasa. She pulled deep inside her own power, to her own well of elemental energy, and willed her awareness of fire to bring itself forward .
    Pyrosentience was all about channeling the fire energy, drawing it through her instead of into her. Simple. Different from fire making. Infinitely more powerful—and infinitely more dangerous. Her whole quad had a touch of sentient gifts with their elements, and the Mothers had all but forbidden them to use these powers, because nobody really knew what could happen .
    “I’m saving Duncan’s life,” she muttered to herself as she opened her senses and tiny lasers of firelight broke across her fingers. Fire energy, pulled through her, escaping to the world again in controlled bursts through her skin .
    She pushed at the demon, but his energy turned hers away .
    Strada tightened his grip on Duncan, who lost consciousness .
    Not strong enough!
    More screaming from her quad—but Camille couldn’t listen to them or Duncan was a dead man and this demon bastard would have them all for dinner. Focusing every bit of her fire awareness into her hands, she grabbed the coin on the end of the chain Strada was using to choke Duncan .
    The dinar, she knew, had projective properties—it could take in energy and feed it out again in big, concentrated blasts. The coin would magnify her pyrosentience hundreds of times over .
    The second she made contact with the metal, it seemed like every stray ounce of fire energy in the universe channeled itself through her .
    Hit by lightning .
    Blown apart .
    Camille screamed as the force of it seemed to tear her apart .
    A roar like a thousand volcanoes erupting crushed against her ears. Her skin—was it coming off?
    All she could do was scream and try to shove back against the onslaught. Barely there. Barely able to focus on anything. She couldn’t possibly be in one piece, but somehow she knew she was, still screaming but making no sound now, eyes open but seeing nothing but a huge swirl of golden, pulsing fire energy going to war with the dark power pouring off the bellowing tiger-demon .
    This time when she hit Strada, she made contact. Enough to get her free hand on the chain. To take control of it and ease the pressure on Duncan’s neck .
    A stench—hot desert winds and fresh blood—
    The connection, Duncan Sharp to her to Strada .
    The golden storm around them—
    Duncan coughing himself back to awareness—
    And then the ghost in Duncan’s head, the ghost of his dead best friend, starting to move, to set itself free and finally fling itself off this mortal coil—
    Camille sat in Central Park, breathing slowly and steadily so that she wouldn’t cry, not wanting to think about what had happened next on that terrible night, but she couldn’t help herself.
    The ghost that was inhabiting Duncan Sharp’s head, a man named John Cole, a man she’d never met before in her life, had suddenly been in that alley beside her. He was there, and then he was gone.
    Only he wasn’t gone .
    Many, many times in Camille’s life, she’d been convinced she was losing her mind, but all of those times paled in comparison to that night, and now this one.
    In that alley, John Cole had been there, with his green eyes and dark hair. She’d touched him inside and out for that one moment. She had seen him, heard him, and smelled that enticing, spicy aftershave she wouldn’t ever forget, and then he was gone.
    He. Wasn’t. Gone .
    “Yes, he was.” Camille scrubbed her palms against her cheeks to keep herself in the now, in today, in the reality of middle-of-the-night and dangerous-as-hell Central Park.
    John Cole was gone.
    She’d told herself this every time she allowed herself to remember what she’d done that night, how she’d saved Duncan and set free the spirit of John Cole. Then how she’d gotten confused and let the demon Strada convince her that somehow the wandering spirit of John Cole had ended up in his body. That’s why she had let Strada