Burning Darkness (18 page)

He nodded again.

“Your mother accidentally set herself on fire. So she had pyrokinesis, too.”

He finally turned to her. It was the first time she’d ever seen vulnerability on his face. It scared her.

“She lost her mind,” he said.

Her hand went to her throat. “Could that happen to you?”

“I don’t know.” He saw her gesture, and his expression darkened further. He put his hand over hers, and the heat penetrated her skin. “I almost killed you just now. I thought you were . . . I don’t even know who I thought you were.”

“It’s okay. I startled you.” She laughed, though it came out hollow. “You couldn’t even kill me when you had a good reason.”

His hand went higher and he stroked her cheek with his thumb. His fingers trailed down the front of her throat to the hollow. “Be careful of me.”

Don’t I know it
. But that’s not what he meant. “What do you mean?”

“Lucas made me promise to kill him if he went crazy. He was scared of it happening like Lachlan said. Even then, he wasn’t willing to take the antidote. And we don’t know if he’s okay yet. It hasn’t been long enough.”

“What are you saying?”

“If you see anything that scares you about me . . . get the hell away. Don’t be afraid to do whatever it takes to protect yourself.”

Her chest tightened. “Are you telling me to kill you?”

“If you need to.”

Now she was really scared.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “Get some sleep.”

Yeah, right. She was supposed to tumble into slumberland after that?

Sayre poked into Fonda’s consciousness first. She was a sexy, sassy little thing, at least as much as he’d seen of her. The fact that Eric had tried to get her to leave during their scuffle in the woods meant he cared about her. That was always a useful thing in the art of torturing people. And oh, he liked torturing people. Love was a funny thing, at least what he had seen of it.

So he drilled through the ether to find her. He hit a fuzzy barrier. She wasn’t asleep, not even at two in the morning. Next he tried Eric, but that barrier was even bigger. He’d yet to slip into Eric’s dreams. Odd.

He walked to the window of the cheap motel room he was renting. Eventually they would sleep. Then he would come in. He wanted Eric out of the picture. Then he would visit Fonda. He liked her, maybe even best of all. He wanted her in person. Then they would have fun.

T
he ants under his skin, the restlessness, was getting worse. Eric tossed and turned, feeling hot and then cold as sweat broke out on him. He got up and walked to the window, checking for predators. Even at five in the morning he saw people outside, probably up to no good. He glanced at Fonda, lying on the bed. To crawl in with her, wrap his arms around her . . .

He wanted her, but in a way he’d never wanted a woman before. The wanting yawned like an enormous beast inside him, threatening to swallow them both. It was no good, not with their history, not with what they had going on. That didn’t stop the wanting one bit.

Her body went rigid, fingers tensing into claws. He dropped down next to her. Sayre? She screamed, her eyes snapping open but not seeing him or the room.

“Put it out! Oh, my God, oh, my God!”

She was dreaming of the fire again. He pulled her into his arms and crushed her against his chest.

“Nooooo!”
she screamed.

“Wake up, Fonda. It’s only a dream.”

He should have tapped her cheeks or gently shaken her. Instead he rained kisses on her face, whispering “Wake up” with each one.

Even in the dim light he saw the moment her eyes focused on reality. The terror remained, even as she looked at him.

She put her hands on either side of his face. “Eric.”

He expected shock and anger at reliving what he’d put her through, not the relief he saw in her expression. She stayed in his arms, not pushing him away.

“It was just a dream,” she said, reveling in that reality.

“The fire. I’m sorry.”

She nodded, her jaw tensing again. “Fire.” Her fingers tightened against his face. “You, Eric. You were on fire. You were burning up with fever, convulsing, and then a flame erupted”—she touched his chest—“right here. Within seconds you were engulfed. I dreamed you set yourself on fire. Like your mother.” In a raw whisper, she said, “I couldn’t put it out. I threw water on you, but the flames kept growing and growing. And you were screaming out my name, over and over.”

The fear on her face, the worry, was for him. He smoothed back her hair, and that gulf inside him opened even wider. “It’s okay. I’m not going to set myself on fire.”

She stared into his eyes. “You don’t know.” Suddenly, she seemed to realize their position, how close they were, and scrambled off the bed, rubbing her hands over her face. “You don’t know what could happen.”

He also got up, standing behind her. Not too close, because he could barely fight the urge to pull her back against him. “If something happens to me, I want you to keep in touch with Magnus and the Rogues.”

“I don’t want to think about that.”

“Right now the Rogues can’t do much to help you, but when they get out, they will.”

She turned to him. “Why would they help me? I worked for the man who was trying to kill them. I
helped
him.” Her recrimination was clear.

He touched her cheek. “You didn’t know. I do know my people, though, and they help their own.”

“I’m not one of them. They’re not my people.”

“You are one of them. You’re an Offspring. They’ll help you.”

He could see she wasn’t convinced. He would talk to Lucas later.

She moved away from his touch. “I’m going for a walk. I don’t want to go back to sleep and chance having that dream again.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“I’ve walked alone in this neighborhood at night before. I’ve walked alone in worse places than this. You don’t have to come.”

“I know I don’t ‘have’ to come.” He hated the thought of her walking out there, tempting a dark fate. He sensed the kindred craving for recklessness. “But you’re not walking alone now.”

He felt her tension vibrate the air around them. “You . . . you . . .”

“I’m bossy, arrogant, a Neanderthal, whatever. Get over it.”

“You so do not understand!” She turned and dug in her duffel bag for some clothes.

“Enlighten me.” He pulled out jeans and one of the shirts he’d gotten at her shop.

“Forget it.” She started to lift up her shirt. “Turn around.”

He turned, dropping his pants and sliding on the jeans. As he bent to pick up his shirt, he glimpsed a flash of her ass, because she was wearing one of those thongs that barely covered anything. Above her right cheek was a tattoo, but he couldn’t make out the details.

She glanced his way, both irritation and embarrassment coloring her expression. “Peeking!”

“You were, too.”

“Was not. I sensed you looking.” She pulled up her black leggings. “You have no honor.”

He shrugged. “I’m a man. ’Nuff said.”

She turned, pulling on a purple top that was long enough to be a miniskirt. It had long sleeves with ruffles at the end. She bent over and slid on black boots with rivets on them and thick heels.

With an annoyed glint in her eyes, she walked past him. She was being ornery. He followed her. He loved ornery.

They walked into the cool predawn morning. The sky was gray, barely thinking of waking. Fonda paused by the truck. “I’ll leave the bag of discards on the girl’s porch. I met her during one of my walks. She’s married, got a baby, and she’s barely twenty. The dad’s around, at least, but they’re struggling.” She gestured to the area. “Obviously.”

He reached out to take the bag from her, but she hefted it over her shoulder and walked on. Her hips swayed the way a cat might twitch its tail when it’s aggravated. Even in those clunky boots, she moved with fluid grace.

They walked in silence. Usually, he would have been antagonizing her. He craved conflict, the fight. But she’d been through a lot with the nightmare, so now he decided to leave her to her thoughts, try not to get caught up in her fear of him dying, ironic that it was.

Fonda stayed a foot ahead of him. He’d let her have that space but not an inch more. At the end of the block, she walked down a sidewalk and set the bag out of sight on a front porch. Even with all the crap going on in her life, she cared about others. He waited on the sidewalk, watching her as she came back toward him. He saw the wounded look in her big brown eyes, the tough facade, and the tenderness beneath it, all plain on her face. Her gaze was locked on his, her pace slowing, her mouth opening.

In that moment he knew why Lucas and Nicholas and Rand were willing to die for their women. Why Lucas had wanted him to kill him to protect Amy. Not out of loyalty or duty or even because they were a sort-of family. It went much deeper, cut into places he didn’t even know were inside him, and what bled out took his breath away. He wanted Fonda in a way he had never wanted anyone, not only body, but soul and heart and everything that went with it.

As though she sensed the miasma going on inside him, scarier than anything he’d ever faced, she stopped a couple of feet away. Her eyes were wide and he saw her chest rising and falling.

“You have honor,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear in a quick, involuntary gesture.

Those words, and the apology in her voice, broke his tenuous thread of control He closed the gap between them, pulling her against him, tipping her chin up and kissing her. She was heaven, the taste of her, the feel of her tongue against his, her body moving closer to his. Her hands went around his back. His fingers braced her face, slid into her silky hair, wanting to feel her everywhere. A wave of dizziness swept over him, and he kissed her right through it. She made him dizzy, and she made him things he’d never been, like wanting to take away everything bad in her life, like . . . in love.

Yeah. In love.

Holy crap,
as Fonda liked to say.

He’d been hit by a truck, blown away by a tornado. How had this happened? At the moment he didn’t care. He slid his hand down her back, stopping himself from squeezing her ass because he had honor, standing there in the open for everyone to see. He rubbed the indent of her spine, that sweet spot where her back curved in. She sighed and pressed closer.

Her hands were on his back, holding onto him so hard he could feel the tips of her nails through his shirt.

“Eric . . .” She breathed his name, not a hint of
stop
anywhere in the word.

A catcall whistle from across the street broke him out of the spell. A guy pumped his fist, his white smile stark against his dark skin.

She stood there, her fingers lightly on her lips, a dazed look on her face. She let her hand drop. “Eric—”

He put his finger where hers had been. “Don’t say anything.” He didn’t want to hear her tell him not to do that again, and he didn’t think he could handle hearing her tell him to do it again. He was walking a fine edge.

She spoke anyway. “Are we going to forget this happened, like the thing in the closet?”

His mouth twisted in a smile. “Yeah, ’cause that worked well.” He looked across the street where the guy was watching them. “Let’s walk.” He took her hand and led her back to her father’s house.

They reached the small front porch and she sat down on the steps. Streaks of pink lit the sky, giving her skin a warm glow. They sat in silence for a few minutes. That was okay with him. He didn’t know what to say, what to think.

Fonda braced her hands on the edge of the step and looked at him. “The first time I cut myself, it was an accident. When the guy tried to rape me, there was a razor on the coffee table. I slashed his arm with it. He called me filthy names and tried to grab me, but I ran into my room and locked the door. Later, when I stopped shaking and I knew he’d left, I took the razor and cut my hair really short. I made a decision to get tough. To work out, be strong. And I accidentally cut myself. It bled and hurt but somehow . . . it felt good. It was weird, I knew it was weird, but I realized why I liked it. My mind and body—I had numbed them. I stuffed everything inside me. Feeling physical pain was a safe way to feel. A way I could control.”

He knelt down in front of her, taking her hand, turning it so he could see the underside of her wrist. “You never tried to kill yourself?”

“No, it was never about that. Cutting was therapy, that’s what I told myself. My teacher started asking about the cuts, so I cut in places no one could see. I knew on some level it wasn’t healthy, but it felt good, and I started doing it more often. Then it hit me: cutting was a kind of drug, and the thought of doing any kind of drug was bad.”

He pushed up her sleeve and ran his fingers along those faint scars. “You don’t do it anymore?”

“Haven’t for years. Sometimes, though, when I accidentally hurt myself, I sink into that feeling.”

Again he was swamped by the desire to fix her past. If only he could travel back in time like Lachlan and Wallace could . . .

No, none of them could be fixed. They could only move on. Something else tugged at him, like a lost memory.

The front door opened and her father stepped out. “I thought you’d left.” His relief at seeing them was plain on his gaunt face. “I’m making breakfast, bacon and eggs.” He went back in the house.

Eric reached out, and she allowed him to pull her to her feet, which left them only a few inches apart. She was taller in those boots, only about eight inches shorter than him instead of a foot.

“Thank you for telling me,” he said.

“I’ve never told anyone. When people ask—the few who have seen the scars—I tell them my parents raised Doberman pinschers and the puppies scratched me. Most people wouldn’t understand.” She tilted her head. “Do you? Or do you think I’m some kind of freak?”

She’d trusted him. She’d opened up to him. All he could do was kiss her, a soft kiss that took all of his restraint not to deepen. He pressed his forehead against hers, breathing her in. Finally he stepped back. She smiled, and those dimples punched him in the gut.

“We’d better go in,” he said.

He watched the tentative connection between her and her father as they put the bacon and eggs on three plates. It gave him a pang of desire to know his real father. He’d peppered Amy with questions, but she didn’t remember a lot about him.

He thought about Rick Aruda, too, the man who had raised him knowing he wasn’t his biological son. Rick had harbored resentment over the betrayal, no doubt, and that’s what he’d sensed while growing up. Now he could see that Rick had done his best, given the circumstances. Once this was all over, he would pay the man a visit, make peace.

He watched Fonda. His chest tightened. Now that he’d let himself slip into that abyss, what was he going to do about it?

Nothing. Remember how getting involved is a bad idea when people are gunning for you. Keep your heads straight.

The news was on in the living room, and the reporters kept going back to a breaking story: a cult community in northern Maryland had committed mass homicide. Not coerced suicide, like the Jim Jones massacre. No, these people had apparently killed each other in a frenzy. The camera focused on a group of buildings surrounded by yellow crime-scene tape and swarming with people. A procession of stretchers were being carried, the forms on top covered in black tarps. A woman with long scraggly hair stood several yards away from the scene, her arms wrapped around her scrawny body.