Stealing Kathryn (8 page)

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 landscape 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.”

“Easy, Kathryn,” Aerlyn soothed, coming to her and giving her a hug.

“Why is she disturbed?”

The booming sternness of the male voice startled Kathryn. She looked past Aerlyn to see Adrian standing there, drawing hard for breath and looking like he’d rolled in a dustbin.

“She wants to know about her family. That’s all, Adrian,” Aerlyn said with a careful sort of firmness, almost as if she were scolding him. “I was about to tell her that they were both taken to the hospital, but beyond that we don’t know.”

“But help came for them,” Kathryn said with relief. “They weren’t left alone to die.”

Adrian shifted, as if in discomfort, and he frowned. Up close he was like a wild storm, Kathryn thought. Cranky and thunderous, as if something inside him was driving him to belch lightning down on the earth.

“They would have lived or died whether you were there or not,” he said gruffly.

“I could have helped them,” she bit back at him suddenly. “If they had died, imagine how I would have felt for abandoning them. As sick as they were, they couldn’t even lift a glass of water!”

Her flare of temper was met with soothing pats from Aerlyn to calm her, but Adrian took a deep, satisfied breath and for a moment she thought he might smile.

“You are right, of course,” he said, carefully choosing his words when Aerlyn shot him a warning look. “I only meant to say you had become too ill to care for them yourself. That you could not lift a glass of water to save yourself, never mind for them. I only wished you were not so hard on yourself for things you couldn’t control. Now, excuse me.”

Adrian backed out of the room and with heavy strides he walked down the hall to the stairs. The wood creaked loudly beneath his every step and Kathryn wondered why she hadn’t heard him approach before. Now she felt bad for her reprimanding tone. He and his sister had done nothing but help her. She shouldn’t be so quick to judge his meaning.

“I think I’ll get dressed,” she told Aerlyn, pushing away from her to seek what was in the closet.

“Very well. I’ll see you downstairs.”

Aerlyn left the room and headed quickly into Adrian’s wake. She caught up with him at the stairwell.

“Adrian,” she scolded, “you must be careful.”

“I am not a careful man,” he snapped at her, his ferocity making her pull back in surprise. The moment he saw the reaction, though, he took off his hat and ran an agitated hand through his hair. It was so strange to him, to feel himself in his former face and body. It had been gone from him for so long; it was like putting on a lightweight mask. It was still the same man beneath it, but the mask made all the difference in fooling the eyes of others. Did he miss this shape and form, he wondered. Did he wish for what was now gone from him?

Unwilling to examine himself to find the answers to those fruitless questions, he turned his attention back to his sister. “I will try. But I cannot bear to feel her troubled emotions. I wish to take the feelings away and make her feel some kind of joy instead.” He fidgeted with his hat. “So strange for me to want that, but it is the compulsion inside me and it is hard to deny.”

Aerlyn couldn’t help but be pleased to hear his confession. It was a positive thing. It was a good desire. Something so rarely seen in him any longer. For a moment she found herself wishing the other woman could stay with them a little while longer, especially if this was the influence she had on Adrian. But it was almost certainly a fluke, and it would be madness to delay her return to her normal world. The longer she stayed, the more chance the Ampliphi would find out.

“You must control yourself,” she scolded Adrian. “For just a little while longer.”

He nodded, and then went down the stairs in hard, heavy footfalls. He had just made it to the bottom when Kathryn appeared at the top. She caught his eye because she was wearing a brilliant robin’s-egg blue, and he came to a halt so he could look at her. She was self-conscious in the pretty dress, as if she weren’t used to wearing one. She picked up her skirt in both hands, nervously tugging the fabric taut as if she were going to give a curtsy. The soft fabric clung cleanly to her every last curve, especially the generousness of her breasts. Adrian’s immediate impulse was to turn around and launch himself back up the stairs, where he could touch her and play with his beautiful toy, but he knew that was not the right thing to do. He wanted very badly to do the right things for a change. Besides, Aerlyn was standing between them, well in the way of his wishes.

But perhaps later, he thought, a wicked smile creasing his handsome face. Maybe later he would find her alone.

Kathryn was so preoccupied by the fact that she was wearing a dress for just about the first time she could remember that she almost missed seeing that devilish grin that suddenly came over Aerlyn’s brother. When she did see it, she felt her entire body flush hot with unexpected feeling. At first she thought it was embarrassment, but quickly realized it was something very different. It was the first time she’d seen him smile, and to say it changed his whole face was truly understating things. There was mischief of some kind in that grin; you could see it in his sparkling dark green eyes.

She immediately decided to take it as a compliment.

It certainly felt like one.

He turned back to the stairs and quickly slung an arm around the banister, looking as though he were waiting for something special to happen. That smile stayed hooked into the corner of his lips all the while, his eyes watching her carefully as she started to come down the stairs one slow step at a time. The closer she got to the bottom, the harder her heart was racing. As soon as she was within reach, he put out a hand and cupped her elbow, helping her down the rest of the way.