Spirit Bound - Christine Feehan [1]
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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 © 2012 by Christine Feehan.
Cover handlettering by Ron Zinn.
Cover design by George Long.
All rights reserved.
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ISBN : 978-1-101-51780-2
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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 Christine@christinefeehan.com. 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.