Spirit Bound - Christine Feehan [64]
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