Page 2 of Shadow Spirit

Adriana had been raised among the female elders of her coven, groomed to become their leader and live her life without the touch of a man. They had indoctrinated her to believe that to remain pure was to embrace the power of the sisters who had come before her.

Those from her former coven had always been associated with the banshees; Adriana could trace her bloodline back for more than a thousand years to them. It was said those of her bloodline who died young were often doomed to become one of them. When Eoghan had first claimed her, she had wanted to be one of them—not so much because she wanted to die, but she wanted to be able to curse him and cast his soul into the darkness for all eternity.

Troubled that the feeling of peace and oneness with the elements was being edged out by dark thoughts, Adriana chased the moon’s dying light up onto the edge of the wide stone barrier. She wanted nothing standing between her, the sea, and sky. Once again, she held her arms out from her body, palms up to embrace the sky and the moon. Leaning her head back, she closed her eyes and spoke silently to her ancestors.

Just as a benevolent light and peace began to fall all around her like the stars in the sky, a pair of strong arms closed around her, jerking her backward. She and her captor tumbled to the stone floor, rolling together until she was beneath him, looking up into the furious gaze of Decker Rhys-Davis, the captain of the guard.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, you daft female?” he growled.

She started to push at him and then suddenly realized he’d thought she meant to either fall forward or jump to her death. Had ending her life ever been a part of her plan, she would have done it either when Eoghan had raped and turned her or when she’d been in Abraham Strode’s clutches. Adriana burst out laughing.

Rhys-Davis jumped to his feet and looked down at her. “Have you lost your wits, woman?”

Adriana tried to call up some anger but couldn’t. The more she thought about it and the captain’s reaction, the harder she laughed. It felt good to laugh. She hadn’t laughed like this in a very long time. The more she laughed, the easier it seemed to spill out.

“A lot of people put their lives on the line to get you back from that bastard Strode. You find it amusing to think suicide could heal whatever ails you?”

Again, she wanted to disabuse him of his assumption and even to take him down a peg or two, but she couldn’t find the words—only more laughter.

“You ungrateful brat…”

“Don’t you mean bitch?” she chortled, managing to scramble to her feet before devolving into another round of laughter.

The captain seemed at a loss—not only for words but for how to deal with her. Adriana rather imagined that was not something to which he was accustomed.

“I do not,” he snarled, advancing toward her.

First, he thought she wanted to kill herself and now he wanted to threaten her. Well, maybe threaten her wasn’t what he wanted; perhaps it was more intimidation he was wanting. The thought of a witch of the Caoineadh Coven being afraid of a wolf-shifter was rather amusing and Adriana began to laugh again.

Rhys-Davis grabbed her by her upper arms and gave her a little shake. “Enough.”

“Enough? Enough of what? You being an overbearing idiot?”

The captain shook his head as he set her back from him. “You need a keeper.”

“You volunteering for the job?” she jested.

“You wouldn’t want me for a keeper.”

“Why not? You afraid you couldn’t get the job done?”

“There’s no fear of that. You might not ever sit down again but trust me, I’d put you in your place and keep you there.”

Suddenly, the captain wasn’t nearly as amusing as he had been, as she knew many wolf packs kept their she-wolves in line by the liberal use of corporal punishment. Adriana shook her hair back and stepped into his personal space.

“Have a care with how you speak to me, Captain Rhys-Davis. I am no mere she-wolf to be threatened. You are speaking not only to a member of the Shadow Sisters, but a fully trained witch with the blood of the banshees flowing through her veins. You might find it difficult or impossible to do most of the things you enjoy if I turned you into a toad.”

Instead of backing away as she’d expected him to do, the captain stepped forward, reducing the space between them to almost nothing. With one hand fisting her hair and tugging her head back as the other wrapped around her waist, he hauled her close, his head descending so that his mouth could claim hers in a fiery kiss. He didn’t wait for her to acquiesce or trace the seam of her lips with his tongue. Instead, his tongue thrust into her mouth, tangling with and dominating hers.

Adriana heard herself moan and almost sagged into him, clutching at his arms to steady her, but there was something in the way his confidence seemed more like arrogance that snapped her back to reality. She may not have yet mastered all her combat skills, but there was one with which she had proven to be particularly adept. She brought her knee up into his balls with enough force to send them back into his body cavity.

The captain released his hold and dropped to a knee as one hand cupped his balls. The one thing Brie had taught her from the beginning was that when faced with a superior enemy, the instant you were free, you ran like hell. Adriana was nothing if not a good student.

Spinning on her heel, she bolted.

CHAPTER 2

DECKER

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