Pyromancist (15 page)

He took a step away and leaned toward her,
placing both his hands on her knees. He brought his face down to
hers, and under his brutal stare, she felt as if he could see right
through her taut skin, her tensed muscles, and down into the place
where the heat was gathering for him.

She licked her dry lips and said quickly,
“What is the verdict?”

“It’s not you.” The passion in his expression
dissolved and his gaze turned serious. “Like I said, pure, angelic,
goodness.”

Clelia frowned. “Are you sure? There’s
nothing?”

He lifted his hand and stroked her hair.
“Nothing. Satisfied?”

Clelia bit her lip. She wasn’t sure why she
was so disappointed.

“Can we go to bed now?” He pulled his hand
through his long hair. “It’s been a hell of a day, and we can both
do with some rest.”

Her eyes went back to his pants, wondering if
he was maybe suggesting...

“I won’t touch you,” he said, shattering her
hopes.

Flushing for her thoughts, she lay down. “Are
you going to handcuff me?”

“No. I’m a light sleeper, so don’t try
anything.”

He got next to her onto the bed and turned on
his side, pulling her back to his chest. His arm locked around her,
heavy and secure. She could feel his erection pressing into her
buttocks and realized that sleeping with Josselin wasn’t going to
be as easy as she imagined. No, sleep would come hard.

Despite her fear that Josselin’s body was too
great a distraction, Clelia fell asleep almost immediately. Her
dreams were filled with erotic images of her and Josselin. The
pictures tortured her, making her breasts impossibly hard and her
clit pulse in need. She woke up trembling, her back still pressed
against Josselin’s chest. Her body ached from staying in the same
position for too long, and trying to move as gently as possible
under the heavy weight of Josselin’s arm, she turned onto her
back.

Instantly, Josselin’s strong hand clamped
around her neck. His fingers pressed on her windpipe. Clelia’s arms
flew up as her oxygen was cut. Her body lifted off the mattress
with the effort to draw air into her lungs, but Josselin rolled on
top of her, pressing whatever air she had left from her too. She
dug her nails into his bare shoulders. The scream she tried to
utter came out as nothing more than a choke.

As she started seeing stars, Josselin’s eyes
seemed to focus. In the blue light of the digital alarm clock, she
saw his pupils contract as shock registered on his face. He
withdrew his hand as if from a fire, giving her access to much
needed air. Clelia gulped. Her throat burned. Josselin sat back and
stared at her with wide eyes while she tried to steady her noisy
respiration.

He grimaced. “God, no!” He grabbed her to him
and pressed her to his chest.

She coughed from the violent movement.
Josselin kept her up with his arm around her back while he tilted
her head and wiped the hair from her face.

His fingers brushed over her throat. “I’m so
sorry.”

His hands slipped under her arms, but she was
like a ragdoll, her body with no strength of its own. Clelia was
too busy filling her lungs with air to care that Josselin was
kissing her throat. All that mattered was oxygen. Slowly, as her
breathing returned to normal, Josselin lowered her onto the
mattress. He lay on top of her, but kept his weight on his elbows.
He kissed her neck and her shoulders with soft, gentle caresses as
he mumbled his apology over and over.

All she wanted was some space. She pushed
meekly at his chest. Finally regaining his composure, he rolled
from her and switched on the bedside table lamp. When he looked
back at her in the light, he froze.

He pulled his hands through his hair. “Fuck.”
He swung his legs from the bed, turning his back on her. “I almost
killed you.”

There was silence as she tried to find her
equilibrium.

“I bruised your skin.” He shook his head.
“I’ve only had you for a fucking day and you’re bruised
everywhere.”

Something in his voice reached out to her.
Pushing her own anguish aside, she laid her hand on his shoulder.
When he didn’t jump or move, she gave him a light squeeze to let
him know that it was all right. His left hand cupped hers, holding
it in place, while he rested his head in his other hand. Clelia
felt him tremble under her palm. She remembered him, as he was when
he left Larmor-Baden for the first time, just a boy pretending to
be a man, so strong, and so vulnerable. Clelia wrapped her arms
around him and leaned her head on his back. She ached to take away
his pain, his agony. At her touch, Josselin hung his head. She
wiped his hair away from the side of his face and planted a soft
kiss on his cheek.

“I almost killed you.”

“I’m all right. You had a fright.”

His arms went around hers, hugging her to
him. His voice was harsh when he said, “It won’t happen again. I
can’t stay with you. I’ll sleep in the hall.”

He tried to pull away, but she held onto him.
Even if she couldn’t hold him by force, she held him by compassion.
“It’s all right. I didn’t mean to startle you so.”

He turned abruptly to face her. “And getting
strangled is the normal reaction you would expect from startling
someone?” he said bitterly.

“Josselin, please, it can’t be easy for you
being back here after all these years.”

His look was one of pure agony and it sliced
her heart in two.

“It was the dream,” he said.

She took his hand and stroked his palm in
slow, soothing movements. “The same dream as earlier?”

“Always the same,” he said tightly.

“Your family?”

He nodded, his face pulling into a mask of
pain. “I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t help them.”

Clelia suppressed the sob that threatened to
escape from her throat. “You can’t stay here, Josselin. It’s too
much. We have to leave. You have to leave.”

“Don’t you see? There’s nowhere else to
go.”

“We can go to your safe house. I’ll go
anywhere you tell me to. Please just don’t torture yourself any
longer.”

He laughed. It was a cold and bitter sound.
“You won’t even be safe at the safe house, Clelia.”

The full impact of his words hit her like a
blow in the face. Suddenly, she understood. She wasn’t safe with
his people. Josselin kept her here to protect her as much from his
own people as from the people who attacked them yesterday. Chills
ran over her body.

“Come here,” he said, reaching for her, but
she backed away.

She covered her face with her hands.

“Clelia,” he said, “I’ll never hurt you
intentionally. Do you understand?”

She didn’t understand anything. Not anymore.
All she wanted was to get away, to curl into a ball and to hide in
a hole until all of this was over, until she could pretend it never
happened.

“I shouldn’t have come back,” he said. “It
was a mistake.”

His words were a knife in her heart, even if
she understood his reasoning.

“I can’t beat these ghosts,” he said. “You
said you’ve seen them. You know they’re invincible.”

“No, Josselin, not invincible, just undealt
with.”

He glanced at her, his eyes filled with
regret. Slowly he reached out to touch her neck. “My fingers are
imprinted on your skin,” he said. “I would have easily killed
someone else for doing this to you. This is the monster my past has
made me.”

“You have to let it go,” she said softly.

He laughed. “How can I let it go if it won’t
let me go?”

“Tell me,” she said.

He shook his head. “I’ve done enough damage.
I don’t need to bruise your soul too.”

“Nothing you can say can bruise me.” She
stroked her palm over his back. “Did it happen here? Is this why
we’re sleeping in your room? Is this where you lock up your
ghosts?”

“Do you think I’m totally fucking nuts? Do
you believe that I’d ever be so twisted?”

“I don’t know, Josselin,” she said softly.
“Are you?”

He groaned. He was quiet for a long time.
Finally, he shook his head and said, “No. It should have started
here, would have, if I hadn’t slipped out that night. At least
that’s what the police said afterwards. They said he ... my father
... first broke down my locked bedroom door.”

Clelia’s heart started galloping. Pain for
the man facing her infused her. He was quiet again and she didn’t
say anything, waiting for him to continue.

“I was rebellious. It was a difficult time.
He was violent and my mother wouldn’t tell anyone because of the
shame. It had always been like that. Since I could remember. We
lived in fear. Never knew how he’d come home. If he’d be drunk or
sober. He’d tie me up in the basement and whip me with his belt,
making sure the buckle caught my skin.”

Clelia flinched at the picture Josselin was
painting. She remembered his haunted eyes, his wildness, and the
pain she more often than not saw in his defiant ways. She wanted to
put her arms around him, but she stayed dead still for the fear of
splintering the fragile moment.

“I knew the day would come that I’d be
stronger than him and I counted the hours, biding my time so I
could kill him.” He laughed his voice cold. “That’s when I knew I’d
be a killer one day. I knew I could do it. Was capable of taking a
human neck in my hands and squeezing until I could hear bones
crush. Just like I had your delicate neck in my fist tonight,
little witch. That’s how I felt the day I saw Iwig with his hands
on your body. If you hadn’t been standing there, watching, I would
have ripped him to pieces.”

He took a deep breath. “I wasn’t always
around to protect my younger brother. God knows, I tried. That
night ... there was another fight. It was the first time I felt
strong enough to lift my fist to my own father. He was dragging my
mother by the hair up the stairs, to their bedroom, and I knew what
would follow. I grabbed him by his collar. Threw him down the
stairs. When he landed at the bottom, I kicked him. Over and over.
I hit him, so many times. My mother’s screams finally stopped me.
He was watching–my brother. I thought my father was unconscious. I
would have beaten him to a pulp from that day on every time he
lifted his hand to one of us. It was the turning point. He knew it.
The scales had tipped. At last, I was bigger, and stronger.

“That night I left him on the floor. I told
my mother to leave him there, that I wasn’t sorry, and that I loved
her. I hugged my brother and told him to go to bed, that everything
was going to be all right.”

Josselin’s voice broke. He hung his head,
seemingly hunting for composure in the sadness of his memory. “I
said it would be all right. I had to get away from it all. I hated
myself despite believing that I had done the right thing. I knew
I’d do it again, and again, that I’d break my father’s fingers
every time he lifted his hand after that night. I took off to the
beach. Drank a lot. I didn’t think my father would come to his
senses in a crazy rage, a rage so enormous that he would go hunting
for me in the house, and when he found my room ... this room ...
empty, he took his shotgun...”

Clelia laid back on the bed as he spoke. She
tried to hold her tears, but they dripped onto her pillow. She
prayed for Josselin, and the souls of his mother and brother. She
cried for him and his lost youth, and all that could have been and
was lost to the cruel nature of a father. More than anything, she
longed to give Josselin back his innocence and his faith in
humanity, but all she could do was listen to him tell his
story.

“He shot him first,” he said, “in his sleep.
My mother must have woken from the noise. She came down the
hallway, on her way to my brother’s room, when he shot her. Then he
put the gun in his mouth and blew his brains to hell. All three of
them, on the first floor. That’s where I found them when I came
home in a drunken state, wrecked and careless.”

His eyes lifted slowly to hers. “I caused
their deaths. Now, tell me again I’m not a murderer deserving of
the nightmares that haunt my sleep, and the regret that punishes my
waking hours. Do you see the monster who sits in front of you? This
is who I am. Damaged. Beyond salvation.”

“It wasn’t your fault. Your father inflicted
a terrible suffering on you. The only heritage he left you with is
guilt, but the guilt is his. You were just a boy, and I so longed
to make it better for you. Didn’t you ever see? I would have gladly
given my soul to take your pain away.”

He blinked at her, his eyes pools of
confusion, and yet, of hope. Hope. Yes, hope was good.

“Please, Josselin, let me make it
better.”

He didn’t have to ask how. He seemed to know
her intentions instinctively, as if they were two voices, one a
soprano, the other a base, singing in perfect harmony. He shifted
until he lay next to her on the narrow bed that was once his, a bed
that knew his aches, his hopes, and his dreams.

Clelia wanted to own the knowledge of that
bed. She wanted to make his torment, joy, and ecstasy her own.
Unspoken words captured her soul, invaded her heart and made
promises to her body as he moved to stretch out on top of her, the
gray fire of his eyes scorching her with its intensity. Arching
into him, she sought out the hardness of his body, reveling in his
maleness and power, as she sought out the soft parts of his soul,
and found neither lacking. She felt his sorrow, and his need, as
her body heated under his. With her movement, his look shifted. His
eyes turned wilder, filled with hunger, as they moved over her face
and her body. Slowly, he lowered his head and softly kissed each of
her eyelids, then the tip of her nose and both cheeks.

When he claimed her lips, it didn’t come as a
shock. The touch of his mouth to hers was familiar. He kissed her
softly, easily, as he had in the cemetery, but this time there was
an undertone of worship in his caress. His hands moved over her
hair and her face to the back of her head, lifting and tilting her
for him, drinking as if savoring an elixir, but giving everything
in return. He was gentle with his kisses, even when Clelia’s body
begged him for more. Only his erection gave away the extent of his
need. He crushed his body against hers, the rhythm of his hips
stirring a need in her that had her groaning into the kiss, panting
and speaking his name, knowing that where she wanted him to take
her was fate.