Captive Souls Read Online Anne Malcom

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Crime, Dark, Suspense Tags Authors: Anne Malcom Advertisement1

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I suddenly felt shabby in my jeans and hot-pink sweater with the glaring shiner that I’d poorly covered with makeup.

She didn’t look at me as if I was beneath her, though. Instead, she’d taken a glimpse at my eye, smiled warmly then invited me in for tea.

“I’m Elizabeth,” she said as we entered a grand foyer with fresh flowers and a whole wall of … birds. Birds in frames.

Dead birds. With colorful, exquisite feathers and interesting shapes. An odd décor choice for an otherwise traditionally decorated home. The sight and the presentation of such glorious creatures trapped in a frame in their death, never decaying, was eerie, sending an unpleasant chill down my spine.

I was instantly curious to hear the story behind those birds, to hear the story behind Lukyan and Elizabeth. I knew it must’ve been interesting. Though Knox and I were embroiled in our own story at the moment.

I’d never seen Knox tenser than he was while in that house. Which was saying something. He was not pleased to be there, that much was clear. I wondered why he’d brought us there. I kicked myself for not asking more questions and for once again being on the back foot, scrambling to make assumptions on a scant amount of details.

This man, Lukyan, was obviously an acquaintance of Knox’s. Presumably another member of the underworld yet pledging no allegiance to Stone since he didn’t kill Knox on sight. They weren’t friends. Cordial enemies was the vibe I got. My molars ground together in irritation at Knox not preparing me better.

I hid that well, though, since sulking would do no good.

Plus, it felt nice to be in what passed for a normal situation for once. Engaging in pleasant, friendly conversation and being offered tea. Even if it was a thin veneer of normalcy covering whatever was happening there. It was a sojourn from what awaited us, so I needed to enjoy every second of it.

“Knox,” Lukyan’s voice punctured the conversation Elizabeth and I were having, and if possible, Knox grew even more tense at my side.

“Let’s let the ladies have their tea while we have a cigar,” Lukyan suggested without warmth. “For old times’ sake.”

Though I didn’t know the dynamics between the two of them, I could discern that it would not be a friendly cigar. There was an underlying animosity between the two men that went beyond the fact that they were both apex predators. History, not good history, lingered between them.

Yet there we were.

Knox’s hand, which had been resting at the small of my back, moved to grasp my hip. Tightly.

He paused for a second, the tension in the room reaching a crescendo, my heartbeat roaring in warning that something was on the edge of happening.

Would they get out guns and just start shooting? Surely not. Yet I noted the way Knox’s body angled slightly in front of mine, as if he was waiting for that exact thing.

But then Knox let me go.

“Yes, let’s.” He nodded.

Then he dropped his hand and walked away from me, not looking at me.

Knox

Lukyan closed the door, but not before I heard Piper’s laughter carry through the house. Only she would be laughing with a stranger married to one of the most dangerous men in the world. A woman who I knew had become dangerous in her own right. I might not have had friends to drink and share idle gossip with, but word of Elizabeth and Lukyan had reached even my ears. The piranha brought down by his prey.

“Drink?” Lukyan offered once we entered the office, decorated in dark browns, a wall of books behind the large mahogany desk.

I hesitated. I didn’t want Piper to taste it on me afterward, but fuck, I needed something to take the edge off.

“I’m not going to poison you,” Lukyan said over his shoulder, misinterpreting my silence. “If I planned on killing you, you’d already be dead.”

“Consider yourself that talented, do you?” I asked, not moving, not blinking.

“You’re on my property,” he reminded me. “Where my wife sleeps.”

That said everything. His wife was his greatest treasure. And when it came to her, he was indomitable.

I understood that.

I took the drink he offered, sitting at the other side of his desk in the chair he nodded at. I was being deferential through gritted teeth. Lukyan saw that, and I knew it surprised and delighted him.

We weren’t exactly adversaries, but we both waded in the underworld with reputations for our vacant souls, our kill counts. We had always operated under the assumption that one day we might be ordered to take out the other.

It had been a foregone conclusion. Until Lukyan went rogue and decimated everyone who had previously employed him, unraveling the entire Russian mob.

For his wife.

Which was why I was there. He’d managed to do the unthinkable with no allies.


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