He left her slowly, feeling his own reluctance strangely. He didn’t want to leave her any more than she wanted him to leave. On the one hand, he felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction that she saw him as a source of refuge; on the other hand, he hated the idea that she had needed him and he had let her down. He sniffed the air, seeking Cronos’s trail, and he began to climb the stairs out of the antechamber. The only thing he could smell, though, was his sister’s cloying perfume.
That drew him to a sharp halt.
Why would his sister have been in his workroom? She despised coming anywhere near the dark influence of his mirror, claimed it made her ill just to look at the thing. And his sister did not wear her perfume in cloying ways. She used it lightly, enhancing her own scent and not destroying everything around her with it.
Adrian couldn’t change direction fast enough. He bolted down the stairs and ran into his workroom. He skidded to a sudden halt when Cronos suddenly jerked around to face him, his arm locked tightly around Kathryn’s neck and the tip of a wickedly sharp dagger pushed under the point of her chin. She had a look of utter terror painted across her features, her vulnerable gray eyes pleading with him to help her. Adrian felt terror and rage roll through him and forced himself to get the volatile emotions under his control lest he make a mistake that might cost Kathryn dearly.
“Cronos!” He barked the name roughly, making the little man jerk in fear.
“No,” he whined. “I have to get rid of her! Everything was so beautiful and perfect before. Cronos served Master with all his heart and did good at it! If I don’t get rid of her, you’ll send me away!”
“No, Cronos. I’ll send you away if you let her go; I’ll kill you if you hurt a hair on her head.”
This made the underling hesitate, and he seemed to be thinking of the alternatives for a long moment. Then he seemed to make up his mind.
“She is ruining you, Master. Ruined. Remember how things used to be so clear? So pure? Now it’s all confusion and doubt. I can fix that! I will fix it!”
The point of the dagger pierced Kathryn’s skin, and a dark red trail of blood ran down her throat from her tipped-back chin. Adrian saw tears of pain and fear in her eyes and something very feral roared in his head. He could hear his own pulse against his ears, felt his blood running high and hot; every muscle and tendon in his body was straining to jump on his enemy, pounce him into the ground.
And just like that, he snapped. None of his more human thoughts could spare his actions as he leapt across the room with a deafening roar. He landed on Cronos, ripping Kathryn away and shoving her down and away from his enemy. Savagely he bit down on the shoulder of the hand that wielded the dagger. He instantly tasted blood, and all it did was remind him that Cronos had spilled the blood of his mate. Powerful jaws clamped down, he shook his head, sending Cronos flopping and jerking in all kinds of directions, as if he were a rag doll in the mouth of a dog. The claws on his hands sank into Cronos’s hips. He was prepared to rip the man into two pieces.
“No! Adrian, don’t kill him!”
The frantic plea of his mate sank into his head, making him realize that she shouldn’t be exposed to such violent behavior if he ever expected her to warm to him. With an angry growl he dragged his victim to his mirror and leapt through.
The Ampliphi were just gathering when the electrical light show of Adrian’s mirror went off, exposing the monster as he leapt through with the limp form of his Companion in his mouth. Settling on all fours, he spat his victim out so he could speak to their shocked expressions.
“He tried to destroy my mate. Twice.”
That was all he said before he reached to snare Cronos by the back of his neck, taking him between his powerful jaws. Then all it took was a single violent shake before his Companion’s neck snapped cleanly in two. Again, Adrian spat him out. Then he left the body there, like a cat bringing home a prize hunt for its masters, and disappeared into the mirror once more.
The stunned Ampliphi watched the growing pool of blood around the body, the random twitches of nerve impulses that were now going nowhere, with a morbid sense of fascination. They simply couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Then Rennin turned to Julian with satisfaction.
“Still don’t see why he needs to be destroyed?” he asked smugly.
Adrian returned only a minute after leaving her, finding her curled up on the floor. He immediately leapt to her side, his huge hands awkward as he tried to pet her with care and comfort. She laughed, her eyes dry and distant as she looked up into his.
“Whatever did I do to deserve all of this?” she asked of him.
Instantly the forested color of his eyes reflected guilt. As well they should, she thought petulantly. All of this was his doing. His fault. There was no way around that knowledge for either of them. Just the same, she didn’t have the heart to leave him feeling the way he was about it. She reached out and hugged him around his neck, unwittingly smearing her blood all over his clothing, sharpening the scent of it in his nostrils. It only served to make him feel even guiltier, she realized, as he hung his head against her shoulder.
“I’m sorry. Truly sorry. I never wanted to see you hurt. He will never bother you again,” he promised her.
“You didn’t leave him in there, did you?” she asked him, her hands shaking against the back of his neck at just the thought of the voracious mirror swallowing him up.
“No, I delivered him to the Ampliphi. Facing their justice is all the future he has now.”
She didn’t know why, but she relaxed considerably at the information. She should still be stressed out about being taken from her home and her family, but for the first time she realized that she wasn’t. She was satisfied that they were safe and healing and she was even beginning to think that they would find some way to make it on their own without her. Had she been able to go to college as she had dreamed, she would have had to leave them alone. How was this any different from that? Well, except for the part where she wasn’t in college and had actually been kidnapped by a raging beast.
But maybe, one day when he trusted her, she would be allowed to somehow contact her family and let them know that she was alive and well; that she hadn’t just abandoned them recklessly at the worst possible moment. She didn’t want her family thinking the worst of her. But as far as reasons for leaving them were concerned, this one definitely had to take the cake. In fact, she had to bet that if she told them the truth of the matter, they would think she was cracked. Surely she could make up something plausible. Adrian could help her.
Oh, but would he? Would he ever let her out of his sight long enough to do anything? He was still treating her like a prized possession. Although, in the instance of Cronos, that had been a very good thing. He hadn’t given a single damn about the peril to himself, only that he wanted to get her out of danger. It had been reckless and ridiculously brave. She would bet precious money she wouldn’t have ever found a man like that on the Earth plane. Certainly none who would have gone through the trouble for her.
She pulled back to look at him, seeing how changed he was in her eyes as well as in the actuality of physicality. She was beginning to care about what happened to him. Even to the point of fretting about his false claim on her and what that would mean at the end of a week’s time. Less than a week, she realized. Six days, provided they counted a week the same way Earth did.
Wow. That thought was almost surreal. She wanted to indulge in the utter weirdness of it, but felt she didn’t have the time or circumstance for such a luxury.
“Are you all right?” she asked him, looking him over for any obvious signs of wounds. She was well aware of just how sharp that dagger had been. She didn’t need to guess how badly it could have potentially hurt Adrian if Cronos had gotten half a chance. Once she was satisfied he was all in one piece, she sat back with a sigh.
“This whole situation is like being in the wildest dream. Like something the mind dreams up after you’ve had a spicy dinner or taken c
old medicine.”
“You mean it’s like a nightmare,” he said tightly.
“No. I mean dream,” she returned firmly. “Yes, some parts have nightmare qualities, but they speed by and are quickly forgotten. Just as it should be in any dream. This will be forgotten as well.”
“How can you ever forget or forgive me for endangering you like that? For letting him trick me? He doused himself in my sister’s perfume so I wouldn’t catch his scent. He did it to trick me and it worked.”
“Lo and behold, the mighty Adrian fell for a trick that was intended to deceive him,” she said grandly. Then she drew herself in. “Stop worrying about what you can’t control, Adrian. I don’t blame you for this, I blame Cronos.”
And as soon as she said it she realized it was true. She really was becoming less inclined to blame Adrian for every little thing that happened to her. The truth was, life had never been so exciting, so daring and adventurous. Every hour that ticked by held something else new and unexpected for her. It was something she had always wanted, granted to her by a most unexpected source. She wouldn’t go so far as to say she was grateful to him for turning her life upside down, but she would say she was feeling differently toward him about it.
“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up,” she urged.
“You as well,” he said, touching her under her chin. “Would you like Aerlyn to look at that? She has an amazing ability to heal.”
“No, this is fine. It’s a nick.” She played it down when she saw the concern and anger warring in his eyes. She saw him struggling so hard to keep his more volatile emotions under wraps for her sake, and she didn’t want him to fail.
“You’re lying,” he said, regarding her carefully. He studied her, as if trying to posit the reasons why she would do that. It only took a moment for his eyes to light with pleasure. “You’re lying for my sake. So I won’t be upset about it.”
She flushed under the direct confrontation and swatted the air in front of his face with her hand, trying to push him off topic. “Whatever,” she said. “Let’s just get out of this room.”
Aerlyn found her brother later that night just before she was going to begin work for the evening. To her surprise, his little prize was nowhere in sight. She thought for certain he would keep her on a very short leash after what had happened with Cronos. Their laws were very clear about what happened to a man who tried to kill a woman. Cronos would be sentenced to death. Because women were such precious commodities on their plane, it was absolutely intolerable to let anyone consider harming the only thing standing between them and utter extinction. This entire barren plane was an example of what happened to a people when they didn’t execute stringent enough laws to protect themselves. The Ampliphi passed laws that were harsh and perhaps unfair in some instances, but it was enabling their people to recover from the terrible plagues that had decimated their female population not once, but twice. Now women were the most precious thing they owned, the key to creating powerful emotions needed to feed their starving young and elderly; needed to keep their men strong so they could protect them from the natural dangers to their world as well as the unnatural ones.
One day Aerlyn would have to do her part to increase their population, but for the moment it was her gift for dwelling in dreams and retrieving strong positive emotions from them that made her most valuable. Every night she gleaned a tremendous amount of energy to bring to the Ampliphi. Every night she fed hundreds of people, and that was worth far more than giving them one baby at a time.
“Where is Kathryn?” she asked, coming up behind him so she could enjoy the privilege of touching her brother once more. This time she ran a hand through his hair, as if he were a little boy in need of tidying up. He was a bit unkempt, after all. He had grown out of practice with keeping himself perfectly groomed, seeing no point in grooming a monster, as he had put it.
“In bed,” he informed her, thumbing over the next page in the book he was reading. Adrian had once been a great reader, but over time the beast had robbed him of the patience for it. She was so delighted with him it was all she could do not to fall on him with hugs and kisses. Old or new temperament, that would fluster her brother no end, so she restrained herself. “She had an exhausting day and I thought I would leave her to some time by herself.”
That couldn’t be an easy trick, Aerlyn mused. Keeping kindri away from kindra before he had staked his proper claim on her was painfully hard on both parties. More so, she imagined, on her brother, who was genetically predisposed to do everything in his power to claim his mate as soon as possible after finding her. Being human, Kathryn might not feel as strong a drive. Aerlyn hoped the little Earth girl could appreciate the sacrifices her brother was making on her behalf. Especially as she watched time tick away and the week grow shorter, along with his life span. She had just gotten large pieces of her beloved brother back. She was not inclined to lose him again after they’d been through so much together.
“Shouldn’t you be wooing her instead of reading?” Aerlyn suggested, reaching over to flip some pages over, making him lose his place. She giggled when he gave her a dirty look. Oh, how she enjoyed teasing with him again!
“I cannot think to woo her,” he said darkly, a frown marring his handsome lips.
She straightened in surprise, all the fun bleeding out of her. “What do you mean?” she asked him.
“I mean I am not suitable for her as I am.”
“You are more than suitable,” she argued. “You are my brother. A good man at heart. Why do you say these things?”
“I mean physically,” he said roughly. “Look at my hands. Look at my teeth.” He flashed her his claws and fangs. “Would you make love to one such as me? And do not say yes, because you are speaking as a sister who loves me if you do. And that consideration aside, I…I cannot touch her, for fear of scratching her badly. I cannot put my mouth to her, for fear of puncturing her or biting her by accident. And that’s to say nothing of the rest of me. My weight, my size. She might be of good size by human standards, but to me she is small and fragile and I will break her if I’m not careful!”
“Oh, Adrian, I’m so sorry,” she crooned softly to him as she leaned forward and hugged his head to her breast. “I know these changes are only half measures in your eyes, but I see much more than you do. I think you might be surprised what you can do, and what she can take, if you both had a mind to.”
“And that’s the other thing,” he grumbled. “She doesn’t have a mind to sleep with a beast, and I don’t blame her.”
“Adrian, stop it,” she scolded him. “With that kind of thinking you’ll never claim your kindra, and if you think I’m going to let you die at the end of a week’s time you are sorely mistaken. I’ll have a talk with her and—”
“You will not!” He surged to his feet, the book dropping forgotten to the floor as he whirled to face her. “I will handle this on my own or not at all, Aerlyn. I will not have her coerced into my arms or talked into it or bartered or anything like it! She will come to me because it is what she wants. No other reason!”
“Well, I wasn’t going to bribe her! I was just going to talk to her. Girl to girl. See what she’s thinking. She’s been through a lot, and sometimes talking to someone can help you process better. But if you want to do this all by yourself and not accept my help, then that’s your prerogative!”
She turned away with a significant flounce, marched away from her brother and toward the stairs. He caught up to her just as she took hold of the railing.
“Aerlyn,” he said.
She hesitated, frowned, and turned to face him, crossing her arms tightly beneath her breasts. “Yes?”
“I am sorry. Your help is always welcome, of course. Just know its limitations. Know…know how I would feel if I didn’t win her on my own merit.”
“I understand,” she said, immediately softening toward him. “Adrian, I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. Do you know that? Do you remember what our relationship once was
?”
“Yes, I remember. Now I do. We were born twins, born with this cursed power to be able to manipulate the dreams of others. We are rare creatures in our world.”
“We were more than that, my love,” she whispered gently to him, wrapping him up in a strong hug. “We were inseparable. We loved each other in the way twins do. It’s why I stayed devoted to you even when you were at your worst. Because you were, and will be again, a wonderful man.” Tears came to her eyes and she blinked them away. She had endured so much at his hands, but it was instantly forgiven. And it was possible all because of one human girl who had begun to change him back to what he once had been. All they needed now was for that human girl to save his life.
Kathryn woke slowly the next morning, finding herself a prisoner of powerful, almost desperate arms. He had both his arms wrapped round her midriff, pinning her back to his chest in a very adamant spooning. She was wearing another of the outstandingly unique and delicate nightgowns he seemed to have in such abundance, this one a fiery red threaded through with silver filament to shape the bodice around her breasts and trails of hand-painted silver stars to play over all of her curves. She had been afraid to wear it at first, afraid her overpopulated bosom would damage the silver. She eventually gave in and tried it on, once again amazed that everything seemed to fit her so very well. She wasn’t exactly a mainstream figure, so she wondered about it. Eventually exhaustion had won out above curiosity and she had crawled into the huge, beautiful bed that no longer seemed so awful. The next day, she had thought, she would take the time to explore some of these treasures of his.
She had fallen asleep before he had come into the bed and hadn’t stirred an inch when he had. He had pulled her this tight and close and apparently all she had done was snuggle against him as if she had done so for all of her life. She supposed that should disturb her on some level. After all, she was still essentially his captive.
Stealing Kathryn Page 17
