Captive Spirit Read Free Page A

But that’s exactly what she was doing. If Mother Keara’s energy hadn’t been battling Bela’s earth power, Bela really would be tearing a hole the size of New York in the ground beneath them.
    “You’re weak.” Mother Keara’s eyes gleamed like green fire as her words knifed through the radiating elemental energy. “Draw yer sword. Give me the pleasure of riddin’ the world of an unworthy Sibyl.”
    Bela kept a wall of earth power plastered against the orange sheet of flames spilling off Mother Keara. Her hand moved outside her own bidding, ripping her serrated blade free of its leather guard and raising the blade so close to Mother Keara’s nose she might have drawn blood.
    Control.
    What was that?
    Who cared anyway?
    Motherhouse Ireland started to shake with the earth beneath it.
    Three years of trying to move on from her losses, and not a day of it mattered. She’d never get over them. Mother Keara was right. To hell with this. She had no chance of beating a Mother in a sword fight—especially not this Mother—but Bela really, really didn’t give a shit.
    “For Nori, then,” Bela said through her teeth, hearing her Bronx accent surge over the neutral inflection her mother had taught her. “She never liked your scrawny ass anyway.”
    Mother Keara stepped back, drew her hand-and-a-half sword in a fluid movement so fast Bela wondered if she imagined it—and the old woman started to laugh.
    At the same second, a blazing wall of heat slammed into Bela, singed off a half inch of her hair, and smashed her against the chamber’s rock wall. Her sword went clattering across the stone floor. Pain exploded through her shoulders and back. She tried to swear but only wheezed as the blow bashed all the air out of her lungs. The communications chamber faded from view, and bright lights flashed in the corners of her eyes.
    She couldn’t hear a thing but laughter.
    She couldn’t do a thing but wait for Mother Keara’s sword to take her head or the old woman’s fire to burn her into nothingness.
    A moment of agony, and all the hurting would be over.
    Heat bore down on her. Her leathers had to be melting. Any second her skin would dissolve.
    “You want to kill me.” Mother Keara’s words slid into Bela’s ear as if she were standing over her, bending down, whispering into her very consciousness. The tip of a sword pressed into Bela’s chest through a hole in her jumpsuit, hot metal branding the skin between her ribs. “But you didn’t even shield against my fire, because you’d rather die than live another minute without yer triad.”
    “Yes!” Tears streamed down Bela’s cheeks. She struck out blindly with her fist, hitting nothing but air. “So kill me, you hateful old bitch!”
    The heat torturing her entire body evaporated like steam on a griddle. Gone. Along with the fiery kiss of metal on her flesh. Cold air rushed over Bela, jarring her back to full awareness.
    In the next instant, Mother Keara had sheathed her sword, grabbed the front of Bela’s leather bodysuit—which was intact despite a few smoldering holes—and lifted her to her feet like she weighed nothing at all.
    “You underestimate yer own heart, child.” Mother Keara’s green eyes remained bright, but now Bela saw nothing but kindness and approval in the stern gaze. “Did yer own Mothers never teach you how strong you are?”
    When Bela just stood there mute and trembling from the force of her remnant fury and despair, Mother Keara sighed. “They get distracted. As do we all, I suppose. You weren’t Motherhouse-born, were you?”
    Bela shook her head. “My mother was Russian, born and raised in the Motherhouse, but my father was from New York City. We were living in the Bronx when my talent manifested.”
    “So you boarded during the week, yes?”
    Bela nodded. “Then I worked with my triad in the Bronx until—”
    Until I lost everything .
    Mother Keara seemed to ignore the catch in Bela’s voice. “We have our share of