“Adrian!” she cried out.
And then, like sudden magic, he was there, striding through the dullness of their surroundings, lending it vibrancy and life. Her breath caught as he came closer to her. He looked even more like the dream Adrian than ever. It must be a progressive change, happening more and more every single moment. She could see his handsomeness shining through now, his eyes full of emotion and, quite frankly, a distinctive lust for her. She saw it there before he even reached for her to pull her sharply forward and into his braw body. Kathryn gasped as his grip on her wrist held her almost painfully. She tried not to balk, remembering he had promised not to hurt her.
“Oh, but is that really what you want?” he asked in a rough whisper against her ear.
“Ex-excuse me?”
“Gentleness. To be treated like porcelain.” He bent to smell her hair.
“How did you know—”
“What you were thinking?” he finished for her. “I know everything about you. Including what you really want.” He spun her hard and fast so suddenly that she nearly tripped over her own feet. Then she was being slammed face-first into a solid wall that hadn’t been there a moment ago. Was he manipulating the things on this plane just as he was trying to manipulate her?
She felt his hand splay flat and wide against her spine right between her shoulder blades. That was how he held her prisoner against the wall as he came up close behind her. He moved his hips forward until she felt the thrust of him against her backside. She gasped and tried to move, but he was having none of that.
“No, no,” he whispered in her ear just before he reached out and licked it all along the rim. “Prisoners must please the king or be punished for their wrongdoings.”
“Prisoner? I thought I was a treasure,” she gasped as his free hand suddenly stroked her down her flank, taking a great deal of time to shape the cheek of her ass as he went. She caught a chill and shivered hard. He’d been bold with her in the past, and she’d been bold with him, but something about this didn’t feel right to her. And not just because he was suddenly calling her his prisoner. Of course, that was exactly what she was, but he had never said so before in so many words, content to fool himself that it would sit better for her if he simply called her treasure.
“You are mine to do with as I please,” he growled into her ear as his body pressed flush up against hers. The press of his weight now trapped her, freeing both his hands. They immediately dove for the hem of her dress, jerked it up over her hips.
“No! Wait!” It didn’t feel right! Why didn’t it feel right? Until this moment she’d felt inexplicably drawn to his intense sexuality and even the toying foreplay he had wanted to engage in, but now it was like a stranger had hold of her. She felt nothing of what she’d felt before. It was all wrong!
“Do not tell me to wait!” he barked in her ear. “Didn’t I warn you about that?”
“You said not unless I mean it, and I do mean it!”
“I don’t care!” He rumbled savagely against her ear, shoving himself hard against her, crushing the breath out of her as she was flattened between him and the wall. “You are under my power now, little trinket. Mine to play with. Mine to toy with. There is nothing you can do about that.”
Tears sprang up into her eyes as his cruel words sank into her, the very attitude she’d feared from him and accused him of before. But it wasn’t until that moment that she saw the difference between the way he had tried to treat her with kindnesses versus this cruel disregard for her every need or desire. The Adrian on her back had no interest in her free will. This Adrian would do just as he said—he would take from her and he wouldn’t give a damn what she thought about it.
Adrian picked up the damp towel Kathryn had left behind and sniffed it with a frown growing over his lips. It smelled heavenly, fresh with vanilla and lilacs, one of the many scents he’d had lined up on the inner shower shelf, simply waiting in anticipation of her. Her favorite was there as well. Night jasmine. But she hadn’t used it. He wondered why.
But all of that flitted quickly out of his mind as he wondered where she’d disappeared to. Of course, he’d given her free run of the citadel. She could go anywhere she liked as long as it was within the safety of these walls. But he hadn’t clearly explained to her the dangers of the outdoors. When the humanoid population of this plane had been destroyed, nature had come to take back what should have been hers all along. That included the wild beasts that sometimes trotted through the backyard. Yet another reason why it would not be a great idea to keep horses in this realm. They would be like sitting ducks. A free buffet.
The thought disturbed Adrian deeply and he lifted his nose to the air. He realized immediately that with his change in appearance, some of the keener senses he had were fading. But they didn’t fade too far. His people were naturally born with sharp senses. Certainly sharp enough that he could pick out the scent of lilacs and vanilla drifting through the air. He began to follow the trail, curious at the circuitous route it took through the house. He was unhurried as he tracked her…until he realized she hadn’t stopped descending the stairs at the main floor. She’d continued downward. There was only one thing of interest down in the basements and suddenly Adrian was running. He took the stairs five and six at a time, not realizing he was growling dangerously as he went.
Little fool! Didn’t she have the sense to know that mirror was not to be trifled with? Common sense alone should keep her away! Why would she seek it out?
He didn’t know the answers to his questions, but he would find out soon enough. He burst into the mirror antechamber with a roar, fully expecting to see her there peering at the thing and examining it. But she wasn’t there. She was nowhere in sight. He sniffed the air, confirming to himself that her scent was in the room. He went to the mirror and stared at his own reflection in it. Was it possible she had gone through? The thought filled him with dread and terror. Without a guide she could get severely lost! And not knowing how to control her own thoughts and desires in the nightmare plane could be all too dangerous. Adrian felt horror creeping across his soul. Surely she would have felt the warning electrical charge and backed off.
She must have. She must have doubled back onto her own scent and he had missed it in his haste. She had to be somewhere else in the house.
But even as he moved to leave the room, he couldn’t help but look at the mirror one last time.
Fingers tipped with much smaller claws reached around her front and grabbed hold of her breast. By this point, Kathryn had tears running down her cheeks. She didn’t want this! She didn’t want him to do this to her. What was wrong with him? He ground against her again, sweeping up the dress where it settled over her hips and baring her backside to the chill air. She felt exposed and helpless and, for the first time, a bone-deep victimization at his hands that made her stomach lurch. She thought that if she’d eaten she surely would have hurled all over herself.
“Stop,” she whimpered as she felt him stripping off his shirt. “Please, stop.”
“Kat!”
The shout of his voice was distant and savage, but for some reason she found it perfect and beautiful. Her heart leapt in beat, her entire spirit lifting, her soul reaching out to that call with everything in her.
“Adrian!” she screamed.
Adrian thundered onto the scene in a rush of violence and muscle, slamming into his doppelganger as he ringed an arm around his neck. Adrian peeled the beastly version of himself off her and she immediately collapsed to the floor, her weak, shaking knees unable to hold her upright. The massive men began to wrestle with each other, and for a moment she couldn’t tell which was which. But in the end it was the savagery with which he fought that marked her Adrian. He fought to protect her, while the other fought for the right to own her. She could tell the difference so very clearly, and now she wondered how she could have ever mistaken one for the other.
But Adrian was fighting himself, his equal in power and strength. Only his passion g
ave him the upper hand, allowing him to pin the beastly image of himself to the smoky ground.
“Kat! You created him, you must destroy him!” he shouted at her.
She didn’t know how. She didn’t understand. Her traumatized mind wouldn’t absorb anything, so the fight went on. She numbly watched as Adrian began to batter his doppelganger with brutalizing punches and openhanded swipes of his claws. It was when the antithesis managed to rake vicious claws down Adrian’s chest that Kathryn was jolted out of her shocky state.
“How?” she cried. “How do I get rid of him?”
“Change your desire. You called him to you, now shed him from you.”
“But I already don’t want him here. I already want him gone!”
“Change your desire,” he gritted out as he grappled with his fiendish self. “Change what brought him to you in the first place.”
What had brought him to her in the first place?
Of course! She had wanted Adrian to find her. She had wanted him there whatever it took, to save her from her rocky situation. The nightmarish world around them was what had corrupted him into this hateful version, this true beast. Well, she didn’t need him any longer; didn’t want him to come to her rescue. She was going to rescue herself.
The minute she thought the independent thought, the doppelganger faded away. She sobbed hard, almost like a laugh of relief, as she tried to get her feet under herself. But before she could move she saw Adrian charging toward her, looking as mad as a bull with a bee in his butt. He reached down and scooped her off the floor in a single effortless motion, dragging her to his chest and squeezing her so hard she almost popped.
“You stupid little fool!” he hissed in her ear, the words gritting out through his clenched teeth. “Why would you do such a thing? The dangers you could have faced in here!”
“I know! I know!” she said in harsh exhales against him as she wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed him back. “It was awful. It was you…but it wasn’t you. It felt all wrong. And he almost…he was trying to…to…”
Adrian didn’t need her to finish. He shuddered with repressed rage as he tried not to rip her head off for being so blatantly stupid. He had thought her much smarter than this. To at least have some common sense!
“Why did you do this?” he demanded of her. “Why would you do something so foolhardy and dangerous? Didn’t it once occur to you that this wasn’t safe?”
“Of course it did!” She jerked back to look into his face. The same face she had woken up to this morning, only it was full of anger…and something else. Fear. He had been terrified for her. “Do you think I would have come in here on my own? You were supposed to be waiting here for me. This was your idea!”
“My idea? To bring you into this brackish hell? I want you pure and good, just the way I found you. This place will corrupt and destroy you. Stay here long enough and even your beauty would turn monstrous. I wouldn’t wish that for you in a million years!”
“Then why would you tell Cronos to bring me downstairs to the mirror? Why did he seem to think you were waiting inside for me?”
“Cronos?” The word started out normal enough, but by the time it reached the second syllable it was a radiating roar of rage. She felt Adrian shuddering with his anger, the quickness and the power of it no doubt exacerbated by the mirror they were in. “Cronos did this to you? He sent you in here?”
She could only nod.
He grabbed hold of her hand and dragged her to his side, marching through the thickened smoke. It was almost like a physical thing now, with weight and substance, as though Adrian’s presence gave it power. It wasn’t long before he stopped, waved a hand to clear the heavy smoke, and revealed the back side of the mirror. Standing there she could see the torchlit room beyond. Who could have thought that such a dank little place could suddenly feel so much like home? Adrian tightened his grip on her hand and drew her up hard against his body. Then with a single broad step, he took them through.
Once through, Kathryn felt as though an astounding weight had been lifted off her, as though she could breathe again after being held down underwater. She hadn’t been aware of it before, but there had been an allover sensation like pins and needles pricking against her skin. Also, the numbness that had persisted from her electrical shock immediately disappeared. Maybe it hadn’t been from the electrical shock at all. Maybe it had been from that awful place.
Whatever the reason, it was all over now. But there was something she didn’t understand.
“Why did I see you? When it wasn’t you? You came and were rough, and mean, but it wasn’t like before. The touch of your hands was all wrong. I knew it wasn’t right.”
That seemed to bring him up very short. He frowned as he stared down at her for a long moment, but as the seconds ticked by his frown smoothed out and then she could swear he was trying not to smile.
“You created a phantom,” he explained. “You wanted and expected to see me, so you made me appear with just the power of your thoughts. The phantom usually behaves how you expect it to behave. It feeds on your deep-seated desires and thoughts. If not controlled, it preys on your deepest fears. It takes much practice and much strength of the mind to be able to control a phantom.”
“So what’s so funny, then?” she asked defensively.
“Not funny,” he corrected her. “I am just pleased.”
“About what?”
“That you weren’t excited by the actions of the phantom.”
“Well, he was pawing me like a beast!”
“And don’t you like to be pawed?” he asked her, his voice dropping several octaves and his eyes firing with deep intent. He snared her around the waist and yanked her into the bend of his body. “Seeing you wearing a dress like that makes me want to do some pawing of my own.”
And there was the difference. Instantly it came. That rush of instant excitement and overwhelming heat. Despite what had just happened to her, she suddenly wanted him to do some pawing as well. He must have read that in her eyes because he growled low in his throat and she could feel him growing hard against her.
“I saw the dress and I didn’t think you’d mind,” she said lamely. Why was it she always turned into a blithering idiot when he got like this with her?
“You can try on any dress you like. They’re yours. And believe me when I say I don’t mind in the least.” He reached out with one hand to shape the swell of her backside very suggestively and she felt the caress all the way down to her toes. It was as if he had magic in his hands. Nothing about the way he touched her felt bad or wrong. Shouldn’t it, though? she asked herself. Shouldn’t she be just as repulsed by him as she had been by the phantom? After all, look at all he had done to her!
But despite that reminder, she couldn’t make herself turn away from his compelling touches and adamant attentions. When he reached out to flick a playful claw against her nipple through the fabric of her dress, she gasped and almost shot off the floor like a rocket. But just when she was going to tell him to do his best to her, he drew back and away, leaving her standing there aching and feeling more than a little lost. Oh! She had to be out of her mind! Nothing could ever come of all this toying and teasing. All she was doing was tormenting him and torturing herself. And still she yearned for him when he put distance between them. It was so stupid. So utterly insane.
“As much as I would love to continue this, there is something that must be done first,” he said roughly, the sound of his voice telling her he was just as affected as she was by this wild, unreasonable chemistry between them.
“You mean Cronos?” she guessed, clearing her throat when she thought she sounded like Demi Moore.
“Yes. He tried to hurt you. Again. For that there is no forgiveness. I will not allow another hour to pass by with him in reach of you. I protect what is mine.”
“But why would he do something like this?” she wondered.
“Why does not matter. He is a vile little man in need of correction,
and I am going to see that he gets it.”
“Adrian, be careful,” she said, snagging his arm when he went to leave her. “Don’t underestimate him. Whatever is motivating him is making him desperate. He had to know if he got caught he’d risk your wrath. He didn’t intend to get caught. He didn’t intend for me to ever be found again.”
And he’d almost succeeded, she thought with a shiver.
“If you had moved any farther from the portal,” Adrian rasped, “he would have succeeded. It was pure luck that you hadn’t moved out of shouting range. Even so, the nightmare plane could have toyed with my shouts, keeping them away from you.” She heard his teeth grind together as his anger at the possibilities grew. Then Adrian went to leave once more, and yet again she pulled him back.
“Don’t leave me alone here,” she begged him.
He seemed to stop and think about it for a moment. He sniffed the air carefully. He could smell Cronos’s recent travels through the room and scented Aerlyn’s perfume, but there was nothing to indicate Cronos was anywhere close by.
“This is the one place I can be assured Cronos is not present,” he told her. “That makes it the safest place for you to be.”
Kathryn glanced over her shoulder at the dark and ominously deadly mirror, and a flood of willies skipped down her spine.
“Are you sure?” she asked. It sounded good in theory, but she’d much rather be with him.
“I’m sure. I’ll work my way out from here until I find him and then he will be gone for good.”
“Okay then. I’ll stay.” She tried to sound firm but knew she didn’t as she backed up against a wall where she could see anything coming at her. She wasn’t particularly strong, so she didn’t know what she could possibly do against Cronos if he came, but at least it would give her time for some hearty screaming for help.
Chapter 10
Adrian could see she didn’t trust him to be right about leaving her alone, but that was to be expected. He hadn’t protected her well enough and that was the price he had to pay. He would find a way to regain her trust later. Right now it was more important to remove this threat once and for all.
Stealing Kathryn Page 16
