Lifebound by Leigh Daley Read Free Book Online

dark-haired man held her firmly. He was wearing gloves.
    “Adriana, stop fighting me!” the man yelled at her. “I can’t hold you much longer.” He called back over his shoulder to Cemil, “Is he alive?”
    “Barely,” Cemil said.
    Adriana’s knees gave as she collapsed to the floor. “No, no, no,” she repeated desperately. “Josh!” She tried to crawl to him, but the other man held her tightly in his gloved hands.
    Josh lay on the floor, completely still, so pale. What had she done?
    Someone—one of the other guests—stuck his head inside her open door. “What’s all the commotion in here?”
    Cemil looked up from where he knelt next to Josh. “Get Sarka,” he said. “Go to the lobby and pound on the office door until she answers. Get her now.”
    Hysterical tears poured down Adriana’s face.
    “Josh! Josh! Can you hear me?” Cemil called to the unconscious man.
    “What do you think?” the dark haired man asked.
    Cemil pulled up Josh’s eyelids and peered into each eye. “Cyrus, I have no idea. Maybe if he lives through the night.”
    The doubt in Cemil’s voice pierced Adriana’s soul like a dagger.

    “He wanted to see me.”
    Through the fog of semi-consciousness, Josh heard Adriana speaking. He heard her crying.
    “I promise you I was trying to stay away from him.”
    Josh tried to answer, to explain that it was all his fault, but he couldn’t move. What was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he wake up? Why couldn’t he open his eyes?
    A deep voice asked, “Why didn’t you send him away?”
    “I tried. He wouldn’t—I just wanted—It’s not fair, Cyrus!” Adriana sobbed.
    He wanted to console her but his lips were frozen. His fingers refused to reach for hers.
    “Go downstairs, Adriana,” a woman’s voice said.
    “No! I’m staying with him.”
    “Are you sure that is a wise idea?”
    “I swear to you I won’t touch him. I won’t come within five feet of him. But I won’t leave him, Sarka!”
    He began to drift away again. The voices continued, but he couldn’t understand them anymore.
    She wasn’t going to leave him. That was good. He’d be fine in the morning.
    Soon the fog of unconsciousness enveloped him completely and he no longer heard them.

    When the morning light finally rose over the island, Adriana sat curled up in a chair beneath a light blanket. Her eyes were open but felt rusty from crying. Josh lay in the bed, still so quiet, so pale. He hadn’t moved all night.
    There came a light knock at the door, and Sage eased into the room. She balanced a tray of candles and herb posies against her hip. “Cyrus, go on back to bed.”
    “Adriana, do I need to stay?” he asked, a note of censure in his voice.
    “No. I won’t come near him.”
    Cyrus nodded and went to the door, still wearing his gloves, gloves she’d learned he almost never took off. During the night, she’d asked about them. Normally clothing provided very little barrier between her and her victim.
    Victim. She’d always used the polite euphemism of “host.” But considering how she’d killed Tom Bridges and very nearly killed Josh, perhaps she should face reality. These men were her victims.
    Cyrus’s gloves, he’d explained, had an extra layer of protective enchantment laid on them by his older sister Sarka. Cyrus was a retrocog, able to hold an object in his hand and tell its history and the histories of those who’d touched it.
    Too many years of holding murder weapons and reliving heinous crimes had taken their toll on him, leading him to wear the gloves as an insulator between him and the rest of the physical world. They also gave him an added layer of protection from the draining effects of her abilities, not enough to completely stop her, but enough to break her free of that awful whirlpool of energy that had nearly claimed Josh’s life.
    The difference between their situations held such sad irony. She could touch any inanimate object she wanted with no ill effect at all. But