Stealing Kathryn

by Jacquelyn Frank

  The woman swept into the room farther, gliding down to Kathryn’s level in a cloud of a divine lilac-scented perfume. She took up Kathryn’s limp hands in her own.

  “How are you feeling?” Then she was pressing her palm with gentle, fluttering concern all around Kathryn’s forehead and still-damp face. “You’re still a bit feverish, my dear. You really should not be out of bed!”

  “I…I fell,” Kathryn said dumbly. What on earth was going on? What place was she in this time? Who was this woman?

  “I can see that.” The woman smiled radiantly at her and Kathryn felt a little calmer for it. Whatever was happening, this woman was a marked improvement from the beast she had encountered in that horrid chamber. “Come now, back to bed. You need a bit more rest before you should be getting up. But I must say,” she went on as she helped Kathryn to her feet and back amongst the covers, “it is such a relief to see you conscious and lucid. You gave me and my brother a terrible fright.”

  “Your brother? Is he that awful creature I saw? With the hideous face?”

  The woman laughed, looking down at her as a mother would look down at her fanciful child.

  “I’m not sure my brother would take kindly to that particular description. He’s rather vain, all ego, you see.” Then the woman seemed to notice Kathryn’s fearful and suspicious expression and frowned with sudden worry. She sighed with a look of understanding entering her eyes. “I can see you are still not well.”

  “I don’t understand. What’s happened to me?” Kathryn was very confused.

  “Why, you’ve been ill. My brother was riding the estate when he came across you. You were acting quite out of your head, you poor thing, but it was obvious you were riddled with fever. Adrian scooped you up and rushed you to me as fast as he could. That was well on a week ago. You’ve been in bed with a raging fever ever since.”

  Ill? With fever? That could explain a lot, but…but it had all seemed so real! She looked down at her hands.

  “What happened to my hands?” She held them up defiantly. She wasn’t going to be tricked by a soothing voice, a convenient explanation, and a lovely face.

  “Well, you did that to yourself. You would become quite violent with delusion. You kept throwing yourself against the wall, demanding to be let out. I hated to see you hurting yourself, but there was nothing we could do to stop you. You’ve scratched yourself all over. But the doctor says he’s seen that and worse with the fever you’ve had. It seems to be going ’round the entire county.”

  Kathryn stared in shock at the woman. Was it true? Was she supposed to believe that this had all been nothing but a delusion? But…didn’t that make much more sense than what she had thought she’d seen? Kathryn looked piercingly into the other woman’s eyes, but she saw not even a glimmer of deception.

  “Are you all right? Really, you should lie back and rest.” The stranger put warm hands on her shoulders and pushed her down into soft—not abnormally soft, but just plain soft—pillows. Kathryn let herself relax a little.

  “What is this place?” Then she shot into an upright position again. “My family! How is my family?”

  “Your family? Well, I hardly know who you are, never mind your family. But if you tell me, I’ll send my brother out right away to find out. As for where you are, we call our home the Willows. Perhaps you have heard of it?”

  Kathryn shook her head slowly, her blue eyes wide with confusion.

  “Well, never mind. We’re just an estate and horse ranch. We’ve bred some of the finest thoroughbreds on the continent. I’ll show you some of our special beauties once you’re well enough to walk about. Now, can I get you anything? Something to drink or eat?”

  Kathryn was suddenly famished and, she realized, extremely thirsty. She nodded eagerly, hoping this was a good sign that she was getting better.

  “Yes. I would love something to eat. But I’m sure I can come with you—”

  A sharp staying hand had her sitting back in the bed and pulling covers up against her chest. There was a stern no-nonsense feel to the action that so reminded her of her mother. And even though she had been wife and mother for their household for three years now, she was surprised how readily she wanted to give over that power to someone else. If only for a little while.

  “You’re not to get up unless the doctor says you can. He should be here shortly to check on you. Do you promise me to listen to all that he tells you to do or not do? I am relieved to see you lucid at last and I would hate for us to lose hard-earned ground because we didn’t follow the rules.”

  “I promise to do exactly what he says. Only…can I have a phone? I need to call my dad. I need to make sure they are all right.”

  “I tell you what. I’ll send Adrian out to check on your family. You can call them in a day or two when you’re stronger. I don’t want you getting all upset or excited.”

  “But—”

  “It’s only a day or two more. And Adrian will check on them to make certain all is well. Tell me where they live.”

  Kathryn did so with haste, but she still didn’t see why she couldn’t just call for herself. Would anyone even answer? Were they even alive? She couldn’t simply sit there waiting and resting while she didn’t know if they were safe!

  “You see? Just talking about it has you flushed and your heart racing. Imagine if the news weren’t good, how you would react.” Aerlyn tried to smile kindly at her, knowing very well that there would be no rest for this girl until she had spoken to her family or knew what had become of them. “You must behave yourself if you are to get well.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kathryn said absently.

  But in truth, Kathryn was ecstatic with relief that she was here, in this place, being a trouble to this kind woman, rather than being in trouble in a gilded hell with a monster who wanted to keep her there forever. A monster who wanted to relish the corruption of the beauty he saw in her.

  “Don’t worry yourself so much,” the kindly woman urged when she saw the upsetting memories reflecting on Kathryn’s face.

  “It’s okay. I”—she pressed fingers to her forehead—“I am just remembering some of the awful things I was…um…imagining while I was ill. It seemed so real that…all of this now seems like a dream.”

  “Nightmares are quite common with a fever. The memory will pass,” she promised, giving Kathryn’s hand a comforting pat. “Now, for introductions. My name is Aerlyn Winston. My brother, Adrian, and I own this home and the land around it. As you can no doubt tell from my accent, we were not born here. But we like it here well enough. And you are?”

  “Kathryn. Macdonough.”

  “Now then, Kathryn, I’m going to send my brother out to your family while I make you something to eat. You rest,” she reiterated sternly.

  Aerlyn then swept through the door with her perfectly elegant posture and Kathryn doubted she’d ever once seen the inside of a kitchen. She seemed too refined and far too wealthy to waste time and her beautiful skin on tuna fish sandwiches and dish soap.

  But Kathryn did take note of one very important detail.

  She’d left the door open.

  Just a crack, but it was open. Not locked.

  Kathryn couldn’t help herself. She crept out of bed, wincing when her steps made the floor creak. She made it to the door and realized that she was utterly exhausted by the trip. It lent credence to the claims that she had, indeed, been ill. Just the same, though, she peeked out the door and into a hallway. She could see stairs nearby. There was no one about. No toady-looking little men, no huge frightening ones either. She was tempted to find the front door and walk out, just to prove she could, but her legs were beginning to shake. She hurried back to the bed, but before she climbed in she heard loud voices. A woman calling out.

  “Adrian!”

  Kathryn hurried to her window and quickly pulled it open. It was a brisk, cool day, but she didn’t care. What she did care about was the huge amount of land she saw, the enormous paddocks and meadows all boasting
the most beautiful horses with their brilliant gleaming coats. Not too far off there was a dust trail being kicked up, a horse and rider turned to race toward the house.

  They were a magnificent thing to behold. The large man in the saddle leaning close to the horse’s neck and the shining, rippling muscle of a well-made beast. Actually, she thought as he came close enough for her to see him in better detail, he was a well-made beast as well. A very big man, but not as big as the creature she had encountered. She shivered, glad to think it had just been a dream.

  He reached the back of the house and dismounted to speak to his sister, holding the horse with one hand and using his hat to smack dust off himself with the other. He had long, black hair, settled into curls similar to his sister’s, and it was caught in a rather full ponytail at the nape of his strong neck. He was taller than her by almost a full head, and he was roped with thick and powerful muscle. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could hear how deep his voice was. Then, suddenly, he looked up at her window and she gasped and ducked back without even understanding why. In that brief instant, though, she’d seen his handsome face and the very grimly serious expression on it. She had seen the chiseled definition of his features even from this vantage point. He was stunning and remarkably good-looking. Well, in a dark sort of fashion. But very striking just the same.

  After a moment she dared to peek back around through the window. His attention was back on his conversation with his sister. She took advantage of the situation to slowly run her eyes over him. He had fine broad shoulders; his close-fitting clothes enhanced their shape and width as well as the defined curve of his very masculine chest. His waist and hips were quite lean, flowing into the strongest, sturdiest legs she had ever seen on a man. Damn, but he was far too striking for his own good. Or maybe for her own good, she amended her thoughts as she smiled.

  She did notice that never once in the conversation did he smile. It looked as though he was more likely to frown than anything. She wondered why that was. Then, with remarkable speed, he was mounting the horse and reeling away from his sister. But before he went he looked back up at Kathryn. His expression was inscrutable, but it left her with the impression that he was not very happy she was there.

  Of course she was just guessing, she thought as horse and rider raced off away from the house. Her heart went with him, for she knew that he was going to see her family…or at least find out what had become of them.

  Please let it be good news, she thought. It was all she could think. The alternative was unacceptable, and her mind rejected the images that were stirred up by the negative thoughts. No, she thought, it was completely unacceptable.

  Nervous and weary, she abandoned the window and returned to her bed.

  Aerlyn sighed and looked over at her brother. Each had entered Kathryn’s dreaming state from their own mirror portal and together they were orchestrating the world she had “awakened” to. It was difficult for Adrian because he was so tempted by his darker side and more used to conducting people’s innermost nightmares, but at the same time it was giving him a break from all of that and his sister could see it was settling him. When Aerlyn had insisted they would need to return Kathryn to her life, he had been torn between his greed for this beautiful thing he wanted and his fear of it. When Adrian had explained what had happened, she had been just as puzzled as he was by his reactions of agonizing pain. Neither could explain it. Adrian’s sister had often been kind to him—in fact, tried to keep him in balance with her goodness as best she could—and it had never caused Adrian harm.

  “We need to discover what has become of her family,” Aerlyn said to him. “Can you find out?”

  “As soon as they sleep,” Adrian said gruffly. They both knew he could not go out to look for them and ask after them because of his appearance, and Aerlyn didn’t trust him to manage Kathryn’s sleep and dreams for the length of time it would take for her to do the task.

  “Then I’ll leave you to it. Only take care not to frighten them, Adrian. They are ill enough without you adding to the stress of it,” she warned him sternly.

  “Do not fear, sister,” he ground out darkly. “Despite what you think of me, I am not all evil yet.”

  He pulled away from her and went in search of Kathryn’s family, walking through the dream walls of the large ranch house they had created for the benefit of their recovering guest. It was going to take constant work and surveillance to keep the deception going, but all they had to do was hold on to it until she went through her “healing” process in a normal manner and then they would deliver her back to her home and her bed. She would hopefully be none the wiser for it. She would put her experiences with Adrian down to the most vivid nightmare of her life and that would be the end of it. Aerlyn and Adrian’s presence on the dream and nightmare planes would continue on uninterrupted and unexposed. The Ampliphi need never know how badly Adrian had behaved. Then, as soon as was possible, they would go before the Ampliphi and remove Adrian from his duties as a Guardian. The strain was too much and Aerlyn feared there would be nothing left of her brother if he continued on.

  She feared that he might already be too far gone and that she had somehow let that crucial point pass right in front of her. They had been placed in the Barrens together, given the job of gathering much-needed energy, but she and Cronos were supposed to watch Adrian carefully. One being could not constantly take in the kind of dark emotions that Adrian must manage and remain sane or stable. They were supposed to have provided him with balance. A touchstone. But now she could see that Cronos had only been playing into Adrian’s descent into darkness. The Companion had reveled in it. He had been too close to Adrian’s side all of this time and been exposed to the same negativity he had. Cronos must be dealt with as well, but it would be a touchy matter because the Companion could blackmail Aerlyn and Adrian at any given moment by exposing what Adrian had done to the human woman. If this did not go well, if she wasn’t safely returned to her life, Adrian would stand trial for his crime. Regardless of his service to his people and the extenuating circumstances, the court of the Ampliphi would be harsh. They had little tolerance for behaviors that might expose the presence of those who were sent to gather the energies they needed so badly, and even less for those behaviors that were, in general, reprehensible. Aerlyn might have stopped Adrian from doing something truly evil to Kathryn, but the intention had been there.

  Aerlyn dreaded to think of what might have happened had she not recognized the trouble he was in. Would he have simply kept Kathryn like a pretty thing, leaving her untouched and precious to himself, or would he have taken her into a dark place, using her to sate the wicked desires his corrupted soul now craved?

  Aerlyn shuddered to think of it. She wanted to believe that, at his very core, Adrian was still the good man he had once been. That some sense or sanity would have come through at the last minute and he would have controlled his urges. But her doubts were much too strong. Her fears too well founded.

  She reached out through the miasma of the dream state she held innocent Kathryn in and gently touched the other woman’s face. “You have to forgive him,” she murmured softly. “He doesn’t mean to be this way.”

  More importantly, though, she had to forget him. Forget what she had seen and done. All they had to do was get through two days. That would make it believable enough for her. Then she would be back on the Earth plane, back home with the loved ones she cared about and for.

  “Just two days. Please, let him hold on for just two days,” she prayed.

  Chapter 5

  After twenty-four hours confined to her room and her bed, Kathryn was beginning to feel like a prisoner again. Part of her frustration was that she had seen Adrian Winston return, yet no one came with news of her family. That did not bode well. She was afraid they were keeping the truth from her because it would upset her so much. So now she paced the floor until she grew tired or leaned out of the window looking out on the vast property. Very often the landsca
pe was disrupted by the presence of the man of the house, he and his brutish stallion riding together. And it was always a seemingly violent ride, as if the man were being chased by demons that he would forever be only a hoofbeat ahead of. She might have frowned on his treatment of his animal but for the fact the wickedly powerful creature seemed to enjoy and thrill in every minute of its rampant flight.

  Surely the man had a death wish. Even though there was no doubt he was by far the most accomplished horseman she had ever seen, no one’s luck could run as well as his had for too much longer. Just yesterday she had seen him jump the stallion over a hedge that, by any reasonable standard, should have been too high to clear. But in a flex and coiling of powerful muscle, horse and rider had sprung over the obstacle as if it were merely any other low fence.

  It had been an impressive sight, regardless of the fact that it took an hour to get her frightened heart out of her throat and back to its calm home within her breast.

  “Daydreaming?” a gentle voice at her back asked her.

  She smiled and turned to face her hostess. Today Aerlyn was wearing a pretty violet-colored dress that made her silvery eyes leap out in relief. Kathryn felt a moment of true envy, wishing for a moment that she was an Amazon goddess like Aerlyn.

  “I have a bit of cabin fever,” she said with a sigh. “And I’d like to get dressed.”

  “I think that can be arranged.” Aerlyn walked over to the wardrobe across from the foot of the bed and opened the doors. Inside there were clothes hanging at the ready. Not many, just a couple of dresses and some jeans. “I guessed at your size and had Adrian get them while he was seeking news of your family. You were asleep when we brought them up.”

  “My family. What have you found out? Please,” she begged her, “I’ve been waiting so patiently and I just can’t take not knowing.”