Free Word and Breath by Susannah Noel

served him best, no matter what pulled him in other directions. It had made him successful, and he hadn’t yet found something he was willing to sacrifice his comfortable, successful life for.
     
    Tomorrow, he needed to get Riana to talk about her grandfather and then risk a light connection. Next time, he wouldn’t get wrapped up in the spicy glow of her spirit, or her intelligence, or her humor, or her beauty. Or how much he wanted even more of her.

    He would get the job done and move on.
     
    He was about to walk away, realizing he’d been standing like a dope on the sidewalk for a few minutes now, when the door in front of him flew open.

    Riana burst out, her long brown braids streaming behind her and her cheeks dead white. “Oh, Mikel!” Her voice was almost a sob. “You’re still here.”

    She reached out to grab one of his arms in her urgency.

    Mikel almost lost it when part of one of her hands contacted the bare skin of his wrist.
     
    Against his will, the connection opened again—a rush of feeling and thrill of sensation flooding him as he instinctively started to breathe her in—and it took all the focus and control he possessed to cut the connection off before it went too far.

    She was terrified. He would have been able to tell even if he hadn’t swallowed a dose of her pure panic from the touch of her hand. Plus, there was something deeper tearing her apart, underlying the intense fear.
     
    Even so, he saw her respond to the brief connection. Her pale cheeks flushed and her lips parted slightly, as the jolt of feeling surprised and momentarily distracted her. She jerked back, releasing his arm and staring up at him in stunned bewilderment.

    “What’s the matter?” he asked, pulling himself together quickly and sorting through possibilities in his mind. He’d been sloppy. He hadn’t been prepared for her reappearance or her touch, so he’d lost control like a boy. He was better than this, and he wasn’t going to let one slip-up ruin his chances to succeed at this assignment.

    Riana shook off her instinctive response to the connection, and her purpose and panic returned after just a moment. It was his good fortune that something else had happened that took precedence over her confusion about what she’d just felt. “My sister,” she choked. “My sister’s gone!”

    “She’s not at home? Maybe she just left for a while—”

    “She doesn’t leave on her own, and she wouldn’t go anywhere without letting me know. Something has happened!” Riana’s voice seemed to strangle in her throat. “What if someone has taken her?”

    Mikel put a hand on her shoulder, making sure not to touch the bare skin at her neck. “Riana, calm down for a minute. Why would anyone have taken your sister? Let me go up with you to check things out, and then we can figure out what to do from there.”

    She had refused to invite him up earlier, and she wouldn’t have now had she not been terrified about the disappearance of her sister. Mikel wasn’t about to ignore any advantage he might have, though, and he put a supportive hand on her back as they walked up the dark stairwell to her loft.

    It was a pleasant, comfortable home—tastefully decorated with artistic sensibility if not a lot of resources—but Mikel sensed a whiff of conflict in the air as soon as he stepped in.

    “There’s no note,” Riana said shakily, gesturing toward a recliner in one corner of the main room by the window. “And, look, the glass of water was knocked over. That’s where Jannie would have been sitting.”

    Mikel walked over and looked down, studying the strewn pillow and puddle of water on the floor. It would have looked suspicious, even if he hadn’t had the heightened senses of a Soul-Breather.
     
    The tremor of fear and violence was strongest around the recliner.

    He had no doubt that Riana’s sister had been taken from this loft by force.

    “It does seem odd,” he said slowly, making sure to keep his