Stealing Kathryn

by Jacquelyn Frank

  And even in her anger with him she was breathtaking. Gorgeous and good, from top to bottom. And normally, in the past, that thought would have been enough to enrage and frustrate him. She was ever a reflection of what he wasn’t anymore, and it infuriated him no end. And while he still felt that frustration, perhaps even more so now that he wanted so badly to be worthy of the creature he held in his arms, he was able to grit his teeth together and resist the urge to rage at his sister.

  “Adrian! What have you done?” she demanded, her hands clamping onto her hips, her chest rising and falling with the fury of her breaths.

  “I have taken her to the Ampliphi and made claim of kindra,” he said flatly.

  Aerlyn gasped, her hand flying to her mouth in shock and dismay. “But she isn’t your kindra, Adrian! Why would you say that? If you lay false claim to a woman, you will—”

  “Who says she isn’t kindra to me?” he interrupted her sharply. “You? What do you know of what I feel?”

  “I know you are no longer capable of feeling the way you should with a kindra! You wouldn’t know your mate if she came up and bit you on your ass! And I don’t think fate would ever be so cruel to any woman as to saddle her with someone so irreversibly damaged, so deep down to the soul tainted as you are!”

  “Put me down,” Kathryn whispered.

  “No,” he said. “Do not listen to my sister’s ranting. She does not believe I can be better. I will prove to you that I can be.” He turned his head so he could look down into her soft gray eyes. He felt her trembling in fear, the look of doubt in her eyes stinging him. He had given her so much cause to be afraid of him. How was he ever going to fix that if his own sister wouldn’t even believe him capable of it?

  He looked back to Aerlyn and was surprised to see shock written across her expression. “You…you want to be better?” she asked with obvious disbelief. “Adrian, you never want to be better. You haven’t wanted it for years. You gave up long ago….”

  “I am different now,” he said with a low growl of irritation. He pushed past her and continued on up the stairs. Aerlyn was like any dog with a bone, though, and she raced up behind him, keeping to his heels the entire time.

  “How are you different? The wanting isn’t enough, Adrian. You and I both know you will hurt any innocent that crosses your path in the wrong way. You cannot control the rage inside you. After decades of darkness and negative emotion soaking into you, you cannot just say you are going to be different and make it so!”

  “Just watch me,” he said, taking the next flight.

  “Don’t I get any say in any of this?” Kathryn asked with a squeak.

  “You had your say when we faced the Ampliphi. You chose me.”

  “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit here and do everything you want me to do!” She kicked her feet out and tried to get down, but this time he was ready for her wriggling moves and he kept hold of her as he continued to march up the stairs.

  “You see! You’re no different!” Aerlyn accused him at his back. “You won’t even listen to her wishes!”

  “Shut up!” he roared at his sister, dropping Kathryn suddenly on her backside on the landing so he could backhand his annoying sibling. She ducked just in the nick of time and his knuckles punched through the plaster on the near wall with his momentum. He freed himself with a yank and a roar, facing off against his sister and her now-smug expression. Blood and anger were rushing through his head and he could hardly hear, but he had heard Kat gasp at his actions. Realizing what he had done, he whirled around to look at her.

  As his hulking height and hostility flowed in her direction, Kathryn hastily scooted back away from him on her hands and heels until her back bumped into the next set of stairs. He reached out beseechingly for her, wanting to wipe away the expression of utter terror on her face, but he so hated it when she looked at him like that and he couldn’t control the rush of fury that bled through him.

  “Stop looking at me like that!” he roared at her. “Why must you both push me to my limits?”

  “W-why are you always so angry?” Kathryn countered in a shout. “Why can’t you hold your temper together for two seconds at a time here in th-the r-real world!” He could tell by her stumbling speech that she hadn’t reconciled what was real and what was fantasy yet to her own satisfaction, and frankly he didn’t blame her for being confused. They had done that to her. Him and his sister. “You kept your temper in the dream,” she whispered.

  She was right. He had managed to keep his temper in the dream. Perhaps he had been subdued by the power it had taken to maintain the world they’d created for her, or perhaps it had been his ability to ride hell-bent for leather on the horses he’d conjured for their power and magnificent speed. Adrian didn’t know what the answer was. But he realized he had to find it, whatever it was, and use it to temper himself or he would never keep his sweet little treasure. She would run from him in terror anytime he turned to her and he would never have the chance to enjoy anything about her. That wasn’t what he wanted.

  He took a deep, drawing breath, squaring his beastly shoulders as he drew for composure. Then he exhaled steadily and held out a hand to her. She greeted the hand with an expression that asked him if he thought she was stupid or something and that she’d just as soon swim with sharks.

  “Please,” he said in a gentled, gravelly tone. “I promise I will not hurt you.”

  He heard his sister’s indrawn breath of disbelief but ignored her, instead focusing solely on the wary gray eyes that were running over him in measured calculation. It was as if she was sizing up the level of threat he might pose, deciding if she should reach her hand in through the cage bars to pet the great beast within.

  Slowly she reached out with shaking fingers and settled her palm against his. Adrian stifled a moan at the softly sweet sensation of her touch. He could immediately smell the jasmine scent of her as he carefully pulled her up to her feet, bringing her body up close to his own. She didn’t come into voluntary contact with him and, knowing how he looked outside of the dream, he didn’t blame her. But neither did she step away and yank her hand free of his hold. He would have thought she would immediately do so, expected her to withdraw in revulsion. Why wouldn’t she? He was revolting in every way.

  “Adrian,” she said instead, her beautiful eyes glimmering and soft, “where are we?”

  “We are home,” he began simply. “There are many planes of existence, many worlds residing above and beneath the Earth plane that you come from. The plane we just visited is where my people are from. We call it Beneath. This place”—he lifted his free hand to encompass the fortress he and his sister shared—“is in another plane we call the Barrens. Once, very long ago, a powerful race of beings lived in magnificent cities and homes all throughout this plane. Then, one day, they were eradicated as if they’d never lived at all, and all that was left of them were those cities and homes.”

  “Eradicated? How?”

  “No one from Beneath really knows what happened to them. Most avoid it like humans would avoid a dank graveyard. This is why it has made a good home for us.”

  “You mean because no one is around…you?” she asked carefully.

  “Correct,” he said honestly. “Aerlyn is my sister and also my keeper, but even she cannot contain me on occasion. It is not my choice, but it is the way that it is.”

  “And you expect me to not be afraid of you?” she asked with no little incredulity.

  “No,” he said. “I know what I am. I only hope that I will become better. There is…I need to become better. I feel it. For you.”

  She looked up at him, utterly astounded. “You can’t put that on me,” she protested. “I don’t want to be responsible for that!”

  “Wait.”

  It was Aerlyn who spoke up, her voice careful and thoughtful. She came around his exposed side, walking up onto the landing and behind Kathryn’s back. She gently touched Kathryn’s shoulder in a gesture of support as she raised her
gaze to his face and searched it slowly.

  “Oh my God. Adrian,” she breathed, “you’ve changed.” She had been so furious with him, so wild with emotions that she hadn’t even realized it. But no one knew him the way she did. She had made herself become familiar with every grotesque feature of his face and mangled body because she had felt that she needed to know him and remind herself, every night and every day, of what his sacrifice had been. The change was nothing anyone else might have marked, but the sunken placement of his eyes had smoothed away, making the vibrancy of the green of them stand out with emotional expression that had, for once, nothing to do with rage or venom. He was merely puzzled by her declaration, just as she was baffled by the physical change. And yet, she realized, it went beyond physical. Not two days ago, if Adrian had been confronted by a problem he would have raged his way through it. Like a monstrous child throwing a tantrum, he would have destroyed half the household, but today he was expressing wants and needs in a way she hadn’t heard in ever so long. He desired to do better. Her brother, who couldn’t care less about anything other than his own gratification, cared if this girl was afraid of him or that she might or might not trust him.

  Aerlyn wanted to reach out and touch his changed face, but Kathryn stood between them. Kathryn. Was this girl the reason for these changes? She had to be. What else could have accounted for it? Was she, perhaps, bringing back small pieces of the brother she loved?

  Tears sprang up along with her hope. She tried to wrestle to control it, fearing she was setting herself up for disappointment, knowing there was so much trouble and danger brewing if she let Adrian take this innocent girl somewhere and let him have his head. Who knew what he might do?

  But he had changed. She couldn’t deny that. The proof was right before her eyes.

  “She’s right.” Kathryn spoke up, reaching a touch up to the corner of Adrian’s eye, exactly where Aerlyn had wanted to touch him herself. “There’s something different in your eyes. Why would that be?” She turned to Aerlyn for an answer, but Adrian’s sister mutely shook her head. She didn’t dare voice her suppositions aloud; wouldn’t dare give it voice, as if saying it would make the magic of it vanish into thin air, leaving her brother without hope once more.

  Instead she reached to stroke a hand of comfort down Kathryn’s hair and said, “I’m sorry we tricked you with the dream. I wasn’t trying to hurt you or toy with you.”

  “Y-you were responsible for my dream?” she asked, bewildered and yet having seen enough things in the past hours to make a believer out of her.

  “It’s what Adrian and I do. Our special gifts. Our mirrors are our portals to the dream planes. Once there we can guide and manipulate the dreams within. I focus on what’s good and energetic, happy dreams and dreams of fulfillment. Adrian—”

  “I focus on the rest. The dark of nightmares or forbidden fantasy, the guilt of things done or the malice of things to come,” Adrian explained, cutting off his sister. He had wanted to explain all of this to Kathryn at a place and time of his choosing, not one his sister had chosen.

  “So…you both made the dream? Every part of it?”

  Adrian saw a flush creep up over her neck and onto her face. He knew exactly what she was thinking of, and his body flashed hot in response to the memory. But he was hasty to add, “We merely shaped the aesthetics of it and guided it. You provided all your own free will to it and all your own…responses.”

  That final word growled out of him like a purr. Kathryn’s blush deepened dramatically and Aerlyn suddenly cleared her throat.

  “Well, I’m just going to go…” She pointed a finger downward. “If you need me for anything, Kathryn, simply call out my name and I will hear you.”

  Adrian watched his sister beat a hasty retreat down the stairs and one side of his mouth perked up in what could almost be considered a smile. Now that they were alone, he turned his full focus back onto Kat. Her little hand was trembling in his big paw, so delicate and nervous. She was so pink with embarrassment that it was a wonder her knuckles weren’t glowing red as well. He decided to put an end to it right there.

  “Do not be ashamed of your responses to me,” he said. “It was what I would have done had I been the man you met in that dream. It was honestly meant and your responses were honestly come by. There is no shame in that.”

  “Shame?” she said through her clenched teeth. “Try anger, you moron!” She lashed out suddenly with her free hand, punching him hard in the chest. Hmm. He really must be changing as his sister and she claimed. He shouldn’t have felt it through the thickness of his hide, and yet he did. Oh, it was rather like a butterfly landing on his nose, certainly nothing painful, but still…“You’re a jerk! A total user and a manipulating…jerk!” She punched him again, but only managed to hurt herself in the process as she pulled her fisted hand back and shook it out as if in pain, muttering “ow” under her breath.

  “As I said, it was honestly meant. That was the man before you now who was in that dream, and I did exactly what I would have done had it been real. The only difference between them was the look of me. You’d have never let this beast touch you like that, and that is what has you so angry.”

  “I—” Her mouth shut closed with a snap. What could she say? That he was wrong? They both knew it would be a lie. That he was right? She didn’t want to admit to herself that she could be so shallow.

  “Come, I will show you to your room.”

  He stepped forward but she yanked back against his hand. “You’re not going to put me back in that—that cage, are you?”

  He looked back at her, puzzled. “You’ll be free to come and go as you like now. Before, I was trying to keep you secret from Aerlyn. Now she clearly knows you’re here and it no longer matters.”

  “Please,” she implored him, her big gray eyes going wide, “don’t put me back in there!”

  “But…that room holds the most exquisite treasures any of the planes have to offer. Why would you not want to sleep among them?”

  “Because I don’t want to be one of those treasures!”

  “Well, that is unfortunate,” he hissed through his teeth, “because you already are one of those treasures. That is my bed and my room and you will sleep by my side, where I can enjoy you!”

  “Enjoy me?” Her already wide eyes were huge. “Do you m-mean…you expect me to…”

  “No, damn you! I am no fool! I know what I am! I don’t need your looks of horror to know what a monster I am. I would never force you to take me. I may be a brute, but I am not a total fiend. You would never survive me by even the largest stretch of the imagination, and I take much better care of my treasures than that!”

  He turned to the next flight of stairs, yanking her up behind him.

  Chapter 7

  Kathryn stumbled in his wake as she was pulled cruelly along, but she didn’t make the smallest sound of complaint. She was too busy being relieved that he didn’t expect her to have sex with him. Just with her imagination alone she couldn’t even grasp the concept of how something like that would work. She was so relieved that she didn’t even complain when he dragged her into that hateful room and flung her onto the bed. Everything was kept in such supreme order, she found it hard to believe someone so big and so full of volatile emotions had managed to never go off on any of these priceless trinkets. As she looked around at some of the fragile sculptures and fine-worked glass touched in hand-painted gold, she again wondered at how he had managed to avoid doing any damage. How was it that in some part of himself he could exercise enough control to spare his precious ornaments, and yet just now he’d nearly yanked her arm out of her socket?

  She got to her hands and knees and crawled up to the head of the bed. There were a dozen plush pillows up against the headboard, each one unique in fabric or stitching or some kind of design. Kathryn had to admit that they were each lovely on their own, but as a collection it seemed a shame to even touch them, never mind sleep on them. But now she climbed on top of them,
clinging to the finely etched stone of the bed, the coldness of it seeping into her fingers as she watched with wary eyes the beast who had captured her.

  She couldn’t believe she was there again. What had she been thinking, asking to stay with him? Oh. Right. The other choice was to stay with a bunch of ghosts. The Ampliphi, he’d called them. Creatures from another plane. Perhaps even another dimension. Alternate realities that were similar to one another in some ways and vastly differing in others. For instance, this fortress Adrian and his sister lived in. It reminded her of one of those old castles in Europe. Everything lined in marble and elegant plaster, vast spaces and curving staircases, all of a grand design. Yet nowhere in this room was there a window. The basements had been lit by torches like something out of old Dracula’s castle, but here there were gas lamps smoking softly from every wall, sending flickering but steady light against every precious surface in the room.

  And Adrian. A man yet not a man. Clearly he was a being with all the lustful desires of a man, but it was obvious to anyone who saw him that there was no human woman alive who could bear the brunt of his desires. They would most likely be very dark, almost, if not completely, violent. If he couldn’t contain his rage from one moment to the next, how did he expect to control something as volatile as passion?

  He didn’t expect to. He’d said it himself. He could not and would not touch her, for fear of breaking her. Kathryn shivered, tucking her knees up tighter to her chest as she watched him prowl and pace at the foot of the bed. He ran darkly clawed hands through his hair as he chuffed and growled in short, punctuated bursts. He turned suddenly, making her gasp as those vivid green eyes pinned her in place. After a moment he went to a small lacquered sideboard, inserted a single claw in a polished ring, and pulled open the drawer in the center. He reached in and pulled out a long sheaf of liquid fabric, the length of it snaking and fluttering in his wake as he rounded the bed and came up to her.