Captured Soul Read online

  Captured Soul

  Kadence Munroe heals her broken heart by painting, and she’s about to have her first big gallery show. The excitement is dampened by the fact that Sheva, the woman who destroyed her last relationship, is also showing at the gallery. Sheva’s bronze figures are amazing, so lifelike and enthralling, but something about them repels Kadence.

  Gallery director Mallory Tucker is still struggling to win her mother’s approval, and this new show might just be the key. Her rocky relationship with Sheva is the only aggravation. Mallory knows she should just end it, especially as the new artist, Kadence, has sparked her interest.

  Sheva knows she has a gift. It’s undeniable that her bronzes are captivating, imbued with soul. She’s found the perfect way to capture the essence of human emotion, and it’s a secret no one can ever know.

  Table of Contents

  Synopsis

  By the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  About the Author

  Other Laydin Michaels Titles Available via Amazon

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  Captured Soul

  © 2017 By Laydin Michaels. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-62639-879-5

  This Electronic Original is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, NY 12185

  First Edition: October 2017

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editors: Victoria Villasenor and Cindy Cresap

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  By the Author

  Forsaken

  Bitter Root

  Buried Heart

  Captured Soul

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to the great team at Bold Strokes Books for your dedication and hard work. You make this job so much easier. Thank you to Monique Mouton, my abstractionist, for your help with technical details and for your amazing artwork. As always, thanks to my heart, MJ.

  Dedication

  For MJ, forever.

  Prologue

  “I’m so excited about the lecture tonight. I can’t wait to meet Sheva. Her work is surreal,” Carlyle said.

  “Huh?”

  “Come on, Kadence. Her bronze abstracts are amazing. I can’t even imagine how she comes up with her ideas. Just imagine how strong she must be. They say she designed her forge to allow her to work without help. It took three of us in my sculpture class to get one medium sized aluminum sand sculpture done, and her stuff is way bigger than what we created.”

  “Carlyle, you know you didn’t take that class seriously. Tara and I did ours without help. If you weren’t so stuck on fashion design, you’d be more connected to the other disciplines.”

  “You’re probably right. I like making wearable art, nothing wrong with that. Sculpting intimidates me, but I still find it amazing. You’ll come with me tonight, right?”

  “I don’t know. I have to finish my piece for the spring exhibition.”

  “Cop out. You can finish that painting tomorrow. Please? Come with me.”

  “Okay, on one condition.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You come back to my dorm after. We haven’t had a night together in weeks, and Tara went home for the weekend.”

  Carlyle sighed. “Okay, I guess.”

  Kadence’s heart dropped when she heard the resignation in Carlyle’s voice. They’d been seeing each other since March of their second year, but after the summer break, Carlyle hadn’t had much time for her. She’d been fearing that a breakup was looming, and now she was almost certain.

  She didn’t understand why. She still felt as excited and emotionally charged when she thought about Carlyle as she had when they’d met, but she knew Carlyle didn’t feel the same. It was an open circuit. The energy wasn’t coming full circle. What was it about her that Carlyle found lacking? She’d have to be the one to broach the subject and it killed her. Maybe she’d ask her tonight.

  Nahl Hall was jam-packed, not an open seat to be found, but Carlyle stayed positive and worked them around the room to the right. They found some leaning space against the wall just in time. The hall erupted in applause as the year’s official visiting artist took the stage.

  Sheva was dynamic, even from this distance. Her long, flowing black hair hung halfway down her back. She wore a black leather vest and cuffs, worn, baggy jeans rolled above her ankles, and leather slides with turquoise adornments. Her skin was alabaster, much like freshly carved marble, and her smile was a beacon in the crowded space.

  She lifted both hands in a humble wave at her audience and waited as everyone settled back into their seats. She walked to the lectern and Kadence realized how tall she was. At probably five nine or ten, her height added to her over-the-top persona. The podium only went up to her waist, allowing the crowd a full view of her muscled upper body. She’s hot. Damn, she’s hot.

  Kadence slid a sideways glance at Carlyle and noticed the flush of heat on her neck and cheeks. I’m not the only one who thinks so, either.

  The lecture was interesting, all about lost wax casting and why the ancient style of sculpting was what drew Sheva to her craft. It was inspiring. Clearly, Sheva was devoted to the medium, archaic as it was.

  The whole process was exhaustive. The sculptor started with an idea that they then built in clay on a small scale, called a maquette, then they created the same piece on the scale they wanted for the final sculpture using a wire frame. After making a rubber mold from the frame, using alginate, they poured in hot wax and rotated it to get an even shell, usually a quarter of an inch thick. Then the wax model had to be unmolded and wax sprues added so the melted wax had a place to go during firing.

  The next step involved covering the wax model in a ceramic slurry and fine silica. Once completely dry, it was fired in the kiln to melt the wax and harden the ceramic. Finally, the molten bronze was poured into the negative molds and allowed to cool. When the ceramic was chipped away, the bronze piece was revealed and was ready for chasing—grinding off the sprues and rough spots.

  It was way too complicated for Kadence, but it was a process that had endured since the Bronze Age, making it specialized and highly durable. And the more Sheva talked of her passion for sculpting, the more Kadence could see her words affecting Carlyle. She was charged with emotion. This could be a good thing for their plans later on, or it could be disaster. It all depended on how Carlyle felt about her. She hoped it would lead to a renewal of their own private desires, but she had to prepare for the opposite outcome. She didn’t want to lose Carlyle. It would hurt. She’d had enough losses in her life to know that. But maybe it would make her work deeper. A brooding artist is an expressive artist. Great.

  Suddenly, the hall erupted a second time and everyone flew to their feet. Carlyle was cheering along with the crowd.

  “What did I miss?” Kadence clapped and whistled.

  “Huh? Woo-hoo!”

  “Why are we screaming?”

  “You’re kidding, right? Did you not listen? She’s starting a whole new period with her work, right here at CAA. She’s going to start sculpting figures. I can’t wait to see them. And she’s asking for models. I’m totally going to volunteer.”

  “What? But her abstracts are so amazing, why go to figures at this stage?”

  “Who cares? She’s ready for a change and she’s making it happen while she’s with us. That means we get to benefit from the experience. I’m so flipping jazzed by this.”

  The crowd noise slowly died down, and Sheva went on to talk in depth about her goals for her new pieces. It certainly sounded exciting. The thought of watching her work evolve was a charge. If sculpting were Kadence’s thing she’d be beyond happy, but as it was, it would make for an interesting last year.

  She’d graduate in June and step out into the art world to make her own name. That was daunting to think about, but it was happening. Carlyle would graduate, too, but she already had an apprenticeship in New York at a big design house. Kadence had se
cretly hoped they’d go together and share a place. Now, who knew? Whatever. It is what it is. She’d deal.

  When they got back to Kadence’s room, it was clear the night was going to be a good one. The energy from the lecture had Carlyle all wound up, and she threw herself into Kadence’s arms as soon as the door closed.

  The kiss was deep and full of promise. Kadence considered halting the moment, but it felt too good. She went with her feelings and gave herself fully to it. Maybe she’d been wrong, maybe they were still okay. She devoted the night to pleasing Carlyle in every way she could, to impress upon her, through her lovemaking, how much this relationship meant to her. How much she needed her.

  When the sun rose, she felt satisfied and loved. She was where she was supposed to be and with the person she belonged with. This was right and good. Nothing could change that. She wouldn’t let it. She slipped out of bed and pulled on some sweats and a hoodie to run down to the coffee shop and grab some bagels and coffee. She passed a flower stall on the way and picked up a single red rose.

  She booted the door open and flicked it shut behind her, arms full of breakfast and the rose between her teeth. When she turned to the bed, it was empty. She deposited her goods on the table and went to tap on the bathroom door.

  “Car?”

  Silence answered her, too deep to be good. “Carlyle?”

  She turned the knob and eased the door open. Empty. She was gone. Kadence felt the absence like a blow to her gut. She dropped onto her bed. It was still warm from Carlyle’s body. No note, no nothing. Where had she gone?

  Her phone buzzed on the table, where the bagels had covered it. She slipped it out and saw the text.

  “Thanks for the night. Got a full day today, so I’ll catch you later. Want to be first on Sheva’s volunteer list!”

  She tossed the phone away, not wanting to think about how quickly the day turned sour. She needed to finish her painting. Suck it up, Buttercup. Let Carlyle fawn over Sheva and she’d plod along, channeling her disappointment into her art. Ever since the new term started, things between them had been different. When they parted for the summer, Carlyle had been sweet and kind to a fault. Everything had been easy and they’d been inseparable, but now, there was always some tension. Kadence had put it down to this being their final year. She’d been busy with her portfolio, and Carlyle had been resentful of the time apart. She’d become snappish and irritable. It’s not like it used to be.

  She threw the bagels out, appetite gone, but she drank the coffee, needing its caffeine embrace. She’d think about what to say to Carlyle later. Right now she needed to move on, to produce something uniquely hers. That was something she’d always been able to do.

  When her father left them when she was six, her grandma had given her a box of watercolors and a sketch pad. “Paint yourself happy,” she’d said. Kadence had done just that. She’d spent hours painting that book. Color filled the empty spaces in her heart. She could ignore her mom’s crying while she painted. Later, she could ignore the drinking, the yelling. She started using brown grocery bags as canvases as she ignored the men who filtered in and out of their lives. She painted. When her grandma died and things got really tight, she ignored her hunger by painting. When the bullying started at school, she painted. She could always paint.

  Today’s twelve-by-six canvas had a blue-toned field. She’d used gesso and watercolors to achieve a balance of tone and texture that sung to her. She slipped her earbuds in and hit play. The hard edge of the music meshed perfectly with the sharp planes of her heart. She let the music guide her strokes as she described her pain to the canvas and plied it with her disappointment.

  Soon her fear of losing Carlyle washed into the canvas and out of her head. She was one with the work and it flowed effortlessly. She worked until her shoulders ached and her stomach demanded attention. She fought through it, feeling the burning sensation slip to the back of her mind. When she finally stopped, it was finished. Complete. She named it Moonlight, and walked away wiping the paint from her hands. As was her custom, she didn’t look back at the canvas until she was as far from it as the room allowed. She turned and slid down the wall to take it in.

  Washed in shades of cerulean and cobalt, the hint of blue white peeked out in an off-balanced circle in the upper right quadrant. The cobalt fell into phthalo blue in increasingly large wheels of color, highlighting the starkness of the center. It was powerful. She could feel the emotions she’d imbued the painting with wash over her. Yes. This one was good.

  Satisfied, Kadence washed her brushes and cleaned her station. She felt the comfortable numbness that was as much a part of her as her painting, surround her. It didn’t matter. Whatever happened, she’d be okay.

  As the weeks went by, things became more unstable. Carlyle was selected as a model for Sheva and scheduled to begin sitting in mid-November. Kadence was busy with her senior exhibition work, creating more pieces than she had in the past three years.

  The night of Carlyle’s first sitting Kadence was working on her final piece for the show. It was a four-by-four canvas coated in layers of the palest magenta, fading to a cool white in the center. The upper left quadrant held a cross-hatching of black and cobalt lines set in angles. She called this one Confusion. It was how she felt about the whole situation with Carlyle. Confused.

  Her heart ached with the weight of turmoil. She couldn’t help the anger that flared inside. Carlyle had to know how this was affecting her. If she wasn’t such a wimp she’d break things off herself, but the rejected child that lived in her heart couldn’t do it. Damn. She grabbed the tub of gel medium and threw it against the wall. The plastic cracked and a splotch of gel splattered the wall. She watched as it slowly dripped toward the floor.

  She spun on her stool and stood, heaviness falling around her like a dark wash of paint. Tremors started in her legs and worked their way through her body as flashes of her childhood came back. Things battering the walls, thrown near or at her…the yelling, rushing to her paint box to avoid an angry hand. She had to get a grip. Her mother had always resorted to violence, and she wasn’t going to let that happen to her. Her phone buzzed on the table. She bent to wipe her hands on her cloth and picked it up. Carlyle.

  Meet me at Sprout now. We need to talk.

  Sprout? Kadence liked the juice bar, but they’d made plans to have dinner at Armstrong’s Pub with some friends. Why did Carlyle want to meet at Sprout?

  She texted back that she’d need a shower first, but could be there in forty.

  Not okay. I’ll come to your studio.

  What was this about? Not okay that she needed half an hour to clean up? Really? Kadence pushed away the thoughts of her mother and made herself go on with cleaning her brushes and ordering the place. At least she’d be ready to leave when Carlyle got there.

  She’d just finished when Carlyle pushed through the door.

  “Hey, sorry I couldn’t head straight over. I’m kind of a mess.”

  “I see. No problem. I wanted to do this in a public place, but this will have to do.”

  Kadence watched Carlyle’s body for clues. She was tense, her posture defensive. “Do what in a public place?”

  “I don’t know how else to say it, but this…thing between us? It’s done.”

  Kadence reacted as if she’d been struck. She wrapped her arms around her middle, and tried to keep the fragments of their eighteen-month relationship from exploding outward. “What? Carlyle, what are you talking about?”

  “You, Kadence. You and me. We’re quits, get it? I thought you were going to be some big artist, you know? Someone who could balance my love of design with their flare of creativity. But you’re not. These”—she gestured to the paintings lining the studio—“aren’t special. They don’t live. They’re pictures of nothing. You know what I mean? You can’t really expect to make it big with this kind of empty work. I’m going to be big. Mark my words, my name is going to be in the closets of the most fashionable people around the world, and I can’t be tied to a might-have-been painter of rectangles. I’m sorry. I know that’s harsh, but it’s true.”