“Are they gone?” Judith asked, her voice trembling.
Stefan’s protective instincts kicked at him hard at that little catch in her voice. He removed his arm so she could see. They were almost out of enemy territory, approaching the last of the trumpet trees. “I believe we’re safe,” he assured.
“I’ve never seen them act that way before. Hummingbirds are aggressive, but they were actually attacking us.”
“Maybe we were too close to a nest,” Stefan suggested.
“I suppose that’s as good an explanation as any.” She sounded a little suspicious and took another careful look around with that little frown he found adorable, before giving him her attention again. “First the bee stings you and now the birds attack. I’m so sorry, Thomas. This was supposed to be a fun afternoon for you.”
His arm tightened around her. “I’m an adventurous man, Judith.”
She smiled up at him. “You’re a good sport, I’ll say that for you.” She glanced at his neck, worry in her eyes. “Your neck really is swelling.”
He could feel it. He’d been shot quite a few times, knifed, tortured and other unpleasant things. It would be irony if he was done in by a small bee his brother had sent after him. Wouldn’t Ivanov get a kick out of that? He did rather like the alarm in her voice for him. She was genuinely worried about him and since it was a brand-new, unfamiliar experience for anyone to actually gave a damn about him, he found he enjoyed it just a little too much. This woman could make him weak so easily.
She held his hand as they moved through the gardens together, the breeze sliding over them, tugging at tendrils of her hair and ruffling hers. He liked the way they moved together, the way silence settled over them both, easy and companionable. Stefan Prakenskii was never truly at ease with another human being. Thomas Vincent would have no difficulties being in the presence of others, as would any of his many personas, but not Stefan, and yet, it was Stefan walking beside Judith, holding her hand and feeling as if she’d handed him a miracle.
He couldn’t turn his head easily with his neck swelling so much. The pain was nothing to him, a small, annoying sting he barely noticed, but it definitely got him Judith’s attention. She rubbed her fingers over his arm continually, looking up at him with little anxious glances from under her long, feathery lashes, making him feel as if he’d been handed the world. It amazed him that one woman could actually change the way a man thought, his actions—more, his entire reason for existing.
She led him up the stairs to her house, a large, two-story structure. The house nestled in the center of the gardens, so looking out any of the many windows, they were surrounded by brilliant color.
“My studios are on the ground floor,” Judith explained as she opened the front door.
Stefan stepped into her entry way and again, as he had at the gates to the farm, felt the subtle shift of energy around him. Judith’s power lived and breathed in this house. The force rushed to surround him, building his joy at discovering Judith into almost euphoria. He was already fighting his physical attraction to her, a first for him, testing his years of discipline, but now, that raging hunger was amplified beyond measure.
He breathed deeply and moved inside. Her fragrance hit him hard, triggering such a need he simply turned, toed the door closed as he bunched her hair into his fist and walked her backward, his mouth coming down hard on hers. Her lips parted, accepting him, welcoming him, opening to his invasion, her arms sliding around his neck as he forced her back against the door.
There was nowhere else he wanted to be than right there, devouring her, tasting all that wonderful passion, a deep well, pouring flames into him, all his. He’d made his claim, branded her with his mark and given her his soul. He had to touch her skin, that bare expanse inviting his exploration. His hand caressed her, finding the intriguing gold chain. He tugged at it.
“You should be wearing this and nothing else, Judith,” he murmured, trailing kisses over her face, down to her chin where he nipped gently with his teeth. “I swore I wouldn’t push this. I want to do it right. I don’t want a flash of heat for a night and then it’s over. I want forever, Judith. Every damn night with you, every single day.”
She clung to him, breathing as heavily as he was. “We can’t have forever. You don’t understand about me. You don’t, Thomas, and I should never have allowed this.”
“Then let’s talk about it. Explain it to me. I know you’re a spirit element. I have my own talents, Judith and of course they can get out of control, any talent can.”
“Exactly.”
She dropped her arms and stepped back.
He felt inexplicitly empty.
He
controlled his world, not a woman. Not his handler. No one else. And yet it was getting harder and harder to breathe, knowing she was a breath away from tossing him out.
He caged her in, both hands resting on the door beside her head. “We’re going to talk about this, Judith. I’m not the kind of man to give up on something so important.”
He took a breath knowing he was going to be absolutely honest with her in this moment. “I’ve
never,
not one time, wanted a woman in the same way I want you. Do I want to throw you down on the floor and show you a million ways I know to give you so much pleasure you’d never look at another man? Damn straight. But it’s so much more and I’ve never felt the more before. Not one time. You don’t throw the more away, not when it’s a fucking miracle and will never happen in your lifetime again. So, no, I’m not leaving until we talk this out.”
Her dark eyes searched his. She should have been afraid. He was an intimidating man with his bulk of muscle and his scars. She didn’t appear afraid
of
him, only
for
him. Her hand slipped to his chest, fingers splayed wide. She drew in her breath, as if she felt that same burning in her lungs.
“Thomas, I’m trying so hard to save you.”
He bent his head and kissed her again, a gentle, coaxing kiss bordering on tenderness. He had no idea where those gentler emotions came from, but she’d tapped into them and, although for him the rest of the world didn’t really exist outside those shadows, she was real to him, and so were those emotions reserved for her alone.
“I need saving, Judith.” He gave her the stark, raw truth. “But sending me away won’t accomplish that. Fight for us. Give us a chance. That’s all I’m asking.”
“We barely know each other. How can I tell you things I’ve never told anyone else?”
“You know me. We both know. You’re not like other people and neither am I. Maybe it’s our gifts, but you know me, Judith. Your body recognized me. Your mind is fighting, but your heart and soul know as well. I’m the one. Give us a chance.”
She sighed and slid her hand up to his wrist. “Let me look at the bee sting.” Before he could make demands, she shook her head. “I need time to think, Thomas. Please don’t push me right now.”
He stayed still, caging her between his body and the wall, wanting her shamelessly, his body’s demands merciless. More than that, he wanted this moment to be right. He needed to handle this the right way and he didn’t have any experience in matters of the heart. He operated outside such parameters.
“You’re giving me all the firsts I should have had over the last thirty years.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means you can take a look at my neck and fuss over me.”
A slow smile curved her mouth as he straightened and held out his hand to her. She threaded her fingers through his without hesitation.
“You’re a good man, Thomas,” Judith said with a small sigh as she led the way to her bathroom.
It was a feminine room. Spacious and filled with colorful things. The room was designed to be both restful and soothing, a place of the sea with splashes of color winding through shades of blue, gray and green. He sat on a low makeup bench, facing away from the mirror while she took tweezers and pushed his head down so she could shine the makeup lights directly on the sting site.
He heard a hitch in her breath and his world stilled to that moment. To Judith. To the sins she was determined to push him away with.
“A few years ago, when I was an art student in Paris, I met a man. He was wealthy and handsome and years above me in experience.”
There was so much self-loathing in her voice he actually winced.
“I was dazzled by him, so dazzled by him that I . . .” Her voice trailed off and he felt the burn as she caught the stinger with the tweezers and pulled, removing the tiny barb from his flesh. “I see auras. And his was muddy and complicated and violent. All the signs were there, but I didn’t want to see them. I wanted to believe the things he said to me, not something no one else could see.”
She dabbed some cream onto the sting. He waited until she put the tube down and caught her wrist gently and pulled her around to stand in front of him, wedged between his thighs. His hands settled on her waist.
“How old were you, Judith?”
She shook her head. “I was twenty-one. Very naive. A young twenty-one in terms of experience with men. I studied so much that I never really was around men, not that I’m giving myself an excuse. Somewhere, deep inside, I knew better. I just refused to heed the warning signs.” She refused to look away from him, her hands resting on his shoulders. “One day I went to see him without calling first. I slipped in the back door to surprise him. The door to his study was barely opened and I heard voices. Screaming cut off. The smell of blood.” She pressed one hand to her mouth.
He could see nightmares in her eyes. “He was torturing someone.”
“Not Jean-Claude. He just stood there watching. His men. He was always surrounded by very scary men. He told me it was because of his money and his work, that people wanted him dead. I ran.” She moistened her lips. “I slipped out before anyone saw me. I was so scared that I called my brother, Paul. He was older than me and had raised me after my parents had died in a car accident. Of course he came to help me, dropped everything and rushed over to France with money and a way to disappear.”
8
STEFAN
waited, needing Judith to trust him enough to confide in him. Her pain was all-consuming. Heartbreaking. He could feel it pressing down on him so heavily his chest hurt. The walls around him throbbed with pain—breathed in and out with it—although she either was used to the phenomenon or didn’t notice. He expected the house to weep, and maybe it was. Judith was lost in that moment, as real as if it were happening all over again and he suspected, for her, it was. She probably had nightmarish recurrences night after night.
Judith’s voice trembled, although he doubted she knew. She was looking directly into his eyes, but she was no longer with him, far away in another country over the sea reliving the horror.
“They caught up with us in Greece. Paul sent me on ahead of him but when he didn’t join me, I went back. They were torturing him, trying to find out my location. I . . .” She trailed off again, took another big breath.
Stefan tightened his grip on her hands to give her courage. “Tell me.”
“I—I lost it completely. My emotions were so intense. Fear. Rage. Sorrow. Guilt. I
loathed
myself and all of them. I wanted them dead. I wanted Jean-Claude dead. I lost complete control, and someone like me can’t do that. It’s dangerous.”
He could feel those fierce emotions swirling around him, pulling at him, the house fighting to contain the force of energy coming off her in swamping waves. He felt battered, like great cliffs during a stormy, turbulent sea. Stefan adjusted his breathing and accepted the assault of emotions, absorbing the hammering intensity, grateful he’d learned to push emotions aside. He had no idea, given his ability to kill in so many ways, just what the continual pounding at him would have done, had he not been so disciplined. There was no doubt he felt that same rage, loathing, fury and terrible, endless sorrow swamping him.
“What happened?” His voice was a thin thread of sound directing her, barely infiltrating the memory she was locked so tightly in.
“They all turned on each other. It was a horrible bloodbath, the sound of guns so loud, reverberating off the walls. Men were screaming and shouting.” She gulped air, her eyes wild now, her body shaking. Judith lifted her palms up and looked down at them, as if her hands and arms were covered in her brother’s blood.
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “The police arrived.”
Her eyes went nearly opaque, reflecting back at him the horror of that moment. He could see blood running down the walls to pool on the floor. Blood splattered over her face and clothes where she knelt beside her lifeless brother, his body torn, nearly unrecognizable as human.
“I was in shock, I think. I can’t remember thinking anything at all. I just
felt.
So much anger. So much darkness. I
hated
Jean-Claude. I still hate him. But worse, the pain of losing Paul that way, it was so vivid and stark and raw, I couldn’t contain it.”
She obviously wasn’t aware tears were running down her face as she blinked to clear her vision, to see him. She shook her head, confusion on her face. “I don’t remember what I was doing. I try, but I can only hear the sound of the policemen yelling at one another. I tried CPR on my brother, but his chest and head were covered in blood and it kept splashing over my arms and hands. The sound was so awful.” She clapped both palms over her ears, nearly hyperventilating.
Stefan rose, his movement quiet and very slow. She was locked deep into the memory of that moment and her emotions were, like then, out of control. The wind rushed through the house. Drapes went wild. He knew she didn’t see, didn’t see the fierce battering at him as she relived her brother’s murder. Very gently he caught her wrists and tugged to bring her hands to his chest, stepping close to her. Her body was cold, hands like ice.
“The police have arrived, Judith.”
She let out a small gasp, looking up at him with dazed eyes. “One of them came close to me, to try to help me, I guess.” She frowned, looking as if she were more confused than ever. “There was so much blood. So much pain. I felt so much sorrow. I wanted to take his place, to be where he was. I was so sorry for what I’d done, so guilty that . . .”