Spirit Bound Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Titles by Christine Feehan

  Praise for the Sea Haven novels

  WATER BOUND

  "Awesome as always!"

  --Romantic Times

  Praise for the Drake Sisters novels

  HIDDEN CURRENTS

  "A wrenching and turbulent story."

  --Romantic Times

  TURBULENT SEA

  "This book is hot!"

  --Fresh Fiction

  SAFE HARBOR

  "Don't even think of missing this one."

  --Romance Reviews Today

  DANGEROUS TIDES

  "Rich with enchantment and spiced with danger. Pure magic!"

  --Romantic Times

  OCEANS OF FIRE

  "A rousing romantic thriller and a true classic!"

  --Romantic Times

  THE TWILIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

  "Chilling, suspenseful, passionate and rewarding."

  --Library Journal

  MAGIC IN THE WIND

  "A delightfully fresh and entertaining read. I want more!"

  --The Best Reviews

  Praise for Christine Feehan's

  Dark Carpathian novels . . .

  DARK CURSE

  " A very intense book."

  --The Best Reviews

  DARK POSSESSION

  "Danger, fantasy and wild, uninhibited romance."

  --Publishers Weekly

  DARK CELEBRATION

  "[A] sex-and-magic-filled treat."

  --Publishers Weekly

  DARK DEMON

  "A terrific, action-packed romantic thriller."

  --The Best Reviews

  DARK SECRET

  "The erotic heat . . . turns scorching."

  --Booklist

  DARK DESTINY

  "Deeply sensuous."

  --Booklist

  DARK MELODY

  " A richly evocative fantasy world . . . [the] love scenes sizzle."

  --Publishers Weekly

  DARK SYMPHONY

  "Feehan's followers will be well sated."

  --Publishers Weekly

  DARK GUARDIAN

  "A skillful blend of supernatural thrills and romance."

  --Publishers Weekly

  DARK LEGEND

  "Vampire romance at its best!"

  --Romantic Times

  DARK FIRE

  "Fun and different . . . pick up a copy of this book."

  --All About Romance

  DARK CHALLENGE

  "[An] exciting and multifaceted world."

  --Romantic Times

  DARK MAGIC

  "Feehan builds a complex society that makes for mesmerizing reading."

  --Romantic Times

  DARK GOLD

  "Wish I had written it!"

  --Amanda Ashley

  DARK DESIRE

  "Terrific."

  --Romantic Times

  DARK PRINCE

  "For lovers of vampire novels, this one is a keeper."

  --New-Age Bookshelf

  Titles by Christine Feehan

  RUTHLESS GAME

  STREET GAME

  MURDER GAME

  PREDATORY GAME

  DEADLY GAME

  CONSPIRACY GAME

  NIGHT GAME

  MIND GAME

  SHADOW GAME

  HIDDEN CURRENTS

  TURBULENT SEA

  SAFE HARBOR

  DANGEROUS TIDES

  OCEANS OF FIRE

  SAVAGE NATURE

  WILD FIRE

  BURNING WILD

  WILD RAIN

  SPIRIT BOUND

  WATER BOUND

  DARK PREDATOR

  DARK PERIL

  DARK SLAYER

  DARK CURSE

  DARK HUNGER

  DARK POSSESSION

  DARK CELEBRATION

  DARK DEMON

  DARK SECRET

  DARK DESTINY

  DARK MELODY

  DARK SYMPHONY

  DARK GUARDIAN

  DARK LEGEND

  DARK FIRE

  DARK CHALLENGE

  DARK MAGIC

  DARK GOLD

  DARK DESIRE

  DARK PRINCE

  Anthologies

  DARKEST AT DAWN

  (includes Dark Hunger and Dark Secret)

  SEA STORM

  (includes Magic in the Wind and Oceans of Fire)

  FEVER

  (includes The Awakening and Wild Rain)

  FANTASY

  (with Emma Holly, Sabrina Jeffries, and Elda Minger)

  LOVER BEWARE

  (with Fiona Brand, Katherine Sutcliffe, and Eileen Wilks)

  HOT BLOODED

  (with Maggie Shayne, Emma Holly, and Angela Knight)

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi--110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  SPIRIT BOUND

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove mass-market edition / January 2012

  Copyright (c) 2012 by Christine Feehan.

  Cover handlettering by Ron Zinn.

  Cover design by George Long.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN : 978-1-101-51780-2

  JOVE(r)

  Jove Books are published by The Berkley
Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  JOVE(r) is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The "J" design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  https://us.penguingroup.com

  For Judith Paul

  and Thomas Durden, with love

  FOR MY READERS

  Be sure to go to www.christinefeehan.com/members/ to sign up for my PRIVATE book announcement list and download the FREE eBook of Dark Desserts, a collection of yummy recipes sent by readers from all over the world. Join my community and get firsthand news, enter the book discussions, ask your questions and chat with me. Please feel free to e-mail me at [email protected]. I would love to hear from you. Join me for a fun-filled time at my FAN convention. Visit www.fanconvention.net for more information. I hope to see you there!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Of course this book couldn't have been written without the amazing help of the very talented award-winning artist Judith Paul of Images Kaleidoscopes, with whom I consulted over the making of kaleidoscopes, art conservatory and just about everything else having to do with being an artist who sees the world in colors. Special thanks to Brian Feehan, who spent hours doing the virtual run over rooftops, hand-to-hand combat and making traps for authenticity. Last but not least, Clint Wyant, a member of the sheriff's department, graciously spent time with me hammering out the details of law enforcement on the Northern California coast where the Sea Haven novels take place. I greatly appreciate his time when he's coming off those long shifts at four A.M.

  1

  STEFAN Prakenskii paced up and down the small cell. He knew exactly how many steps he could take before he leapt to catch the bars and do pull-ups--a dozen more before pacing to the end of the cell and dropping down for push-ups. There was no getting used to the smell of the prison, or the slime on the walls or the way the showers didn't work and the need for constant vigilance to stay alive, but he didn't mind any of that. He could tolerate anything; he had endured much worse.

  He was a patient man, but once he had determined it was useless for him to remain in the cell, that his mission was a complete bust, he wanted out. It was a waste of time for him to stay, yet his handler hadn't agreed a month earlier to pull him out. Every day was increasingly dangerous and irritating, his mind becoming consumed with the only thing decent in the prison.

  Swearing under his breath, Stefan took from the wall the latest photograph of the woman his cell mate obsessed over. She stood on a beach, the ocean waves rising behind her, a little turbulent and obviously windy, but there were no landmarks Stefan had a chance of identifying. She was undoubtedly beautiful with her long black hair blowing in the wind. Dressed in jeans and a tee she still managed to look elegant and sexy at the same time. If he were a man who was interested in relationships, no doubt he would understand his cell mate's fixation with her. And the idiot was totally obsessed with her. There were hundreds of photographs taken over a period of years of just this one woman pinned all over the walls.

  It didn't seem to matter how intelligent a man was, or what he did for a living, in the end it seemed a woman often brought even the greatest of criminals tumbling down. And this particular woman was no exception. Stefan planned to use her to take down Jean-Claude La Roux's international empire if that was what it took.

  He glanced down at the picture in his hand. She looked pensive--no, sad. What had put that look on her face? Surely a woman like her was not pining away for a man like Jean-Claude. A small band of inviting skin peeked out between her tee and her jeans temptingly. His thumb slid over that little strip as if he might feel just how warm and soft she truly was.

  No doubt Jean-Claude was a man of untold wealth. Stefan supposed a woman might find his good looks attractive, if you liked oozing charm. His charm covered a multitude of sins, but then women might find that edge of danger exciting as well. Women could be just as easily swayed by the wrong things as men could be by beauty.

  "What the hell are you doing with that?" Glaring at Stefan, trying to intimidate someone impossible to intimidate, Jean-Claude La Roux snatched the small photograph from the hands of his cell mate. "You have no idea who I am."

  Deliberately Stefan showed his teeth and then spit on the floor of the cell. "That refrain is getting old, Rolex." He infused total contempt into his tone, calling the man the hated name he'd given him.

  A man like Jean-Claude, the head of a vast crime empire, would detest a common criminal taunting him. It was an affront the man couldn't accept. In the two months Stefan had been undercover, trying to collect information, he'd had to defend his life on several occasions--a tribute to La Roux's authority even there in the prison. Jean-Claude hated Stefan, and one word from him had sent several prisoners trying to curry favor by attempting to get rid of Stefan, the thorn in his side.

  There was no doubt that La Roux was every bit as powerful in prison as he was out of it. On the surface, sentencing him for his international crimes in France seemed good. The French prison system wasn't considered a place to coddle prisoners, but even with mold on the walls and water-stained slime trailing from the ceiling, Jean-Claude managed to appear wealthy and powerful. Every other prisoner gave him a wide berth until Stefan had come along. He goaded La Roux at every opportunity, and not one of the men paid to teach Stefan a lesson, or kill him, had succeeded.

  There was no doubt in Stefan's mind that given an hour alone with Jean-Claude, if he was free to interrogate him in his own way, he would have all the information the government needed, but here, in this French prison, with guards watching day and night and the government all too aware of their prisoner, he didn't have a chance to extract what he needed from the man. That left only one possibility. Jean-Claude La Roux had to escape. He sighed. He'd told his handler that same thing many times over the last two months.

  Stefan gestured toward the photograph-covered walls. "You have a lot of pictures, Rolex, but you sure don't have any letters. I think your woman is on that beach with another man laughing her ass off."

  Jean-Claude replaced the photograph, his hand smoothing over the glossy paper. Stefan noticed, with some satisfaction, that the crime lord's fingers trembled when he touched the woman's face.

  "You do not see a man in any of these photographs, do you?" Jean-Claude looked him over with obvious contempt.

  Stefan knew he wasn't much to look at. He was tall, with wide, ax-handle shoulders, a thick muscular chest and large arms with bulging muscles. He didn't look suave or wealthy, or charming. He looked a brute, not very smart, with longish hair and lots of scruff. Scars webbed his skin and his knuckles were callused and shiny. He had a square jaw and dark blue-green eyes that looked straight into other men's souls and found them guilty. Stefan exuded raw power through sheer physical strength, and men like Jean-Claude automatically dismissed them as muscle and brawn--never looking beneath that surface to see if there was any intelligence behind the mask of a brute.

  In his mind he used his real name, Stefan Prakenskii, as often as possible because, truthfully, he used aliases so often, he was afraid of forgetting who he was. And maybe he had already, long ago, lost his identity. What was he? Who was he? And who really gave a damn anyway? There wasn't a beautiful woman standing on a beach looking sad, pining away for him--and there never would be. He was successful at his job because he refused to let women, like the one Jean-Claude obsessed over, into his realm of consciousness.

  He glanced again at the pictures covering the stained wall. There were hundreds of them. Jean-Claude had the woman under surveillance for a long time. She had changed little over the years the man had spent in prison, but he was right, there was no man ever photographed with her. Stefan cursed under his breath and turned away from the pictures.

  The woman would get under anyone's skin if you stared at her long enough. Really, what else was there to do in a tiny prison cell but notice her lips and e
yes and all that long glossy hair? Jean-Claude was feeding his own addiction, growing it into a monster, and Stefan had uncovered that weakness immediately and used it against the man, making him ripe for an escape. He didn't see other men with her in the photographs, but who could stand thinking about another man touching all that soft skin?

  "I will say this for you, Rolex, she's beautiful. Where the hell did you ever meet a woman like that?" It was time to change tactics.

  For the first time, Stefan allowed a little admiration to creep into his voice. Just as he suspected Jean-Claude couldn't resist the need to talk about his woman or respond to the first sign that a man such as Stefan who only seemed to admire obvious strength, might respect the crime lord at least for his ability to attract a beautiful woman.

  "She was an art student, studying in Paris," Jean-Claude said. "She stood outside the Louvre--all that long hair flying around her face--and she paused to scrape it back away from her face and for just a moment . . ." He trailed off.

  Stefan didn't need him to say it. The crime lord had probably lost his breath just as Stefan had the first time he'd looked at her photograph. She could easily have been a model on the cover of a magazine--yet more. There was something undefined, a quality he couldn't put his finger on, something innocent and sensual at the same time--mysterious, remote, just out of reach. Something terribly elusive and yet made a man want to reach out and grab her, to hold her for himself alone.