Stealing Kathryn (18 page)

“Do you want to make me come?” he growled into her face, his mouth feinting for hers and then catching her in a kiss. Without thinking, he opened his mouth and thrust his tongue in search of hers. She made a little surrendering sound as she opened wider and took the sudden, heated onslaught. It wasn’t until their teeth accidentally clashed that he remembered this was reality, not a dream where he could change himself into a real man. But to his surprise, she didn’t balk from thrusting her tongue into a mouth full of sharpened fangs. That she was kissing him at all should have baffled him completely, but he was too afraid of ruining it with thoughts and stuck to only actions. The taste of her was utter divinity, and he couldn’t keep from plastering a hand to the small of her back and jerking her up tight and close to his body. The feel of her breasts against him was amazing and he began to feel a little light-headed from all the conflicting and harmonious sensations buffeting through him.

He broke from her mouth, panting hard for breath and awash with more pleasure than he had ever known. But there was a sour note to it that had nothing to do with the shock of discomfort that accompanied her touch.

“Kat,” he breathed harshly, “in a week, when I cannot prove you are my kindra, they will take you away from me and send you to live Beneath. Because I have lied and claimed you as kindra, as my soul mate, I will be put to death when I cannot prove it true. Because of their rarity, it is a high crime among my people to falsely claim a woman in this way.”

“Why are you telling me this now?” she asked.

“Because I don’t want you to do anything you feel forced to do. I want you to touch me because that’s what you want, not because I blackmailed you into it. You can leave now and not look back, and I would understand. I wouldn’t blame you at all. It was wrong of me to force you here.”

“Why? Adrian, why would you make that kind of claim knowing it was a lie? And just how are they going to know one way or another?”

“Because when kind come together, kindra and kindri, an explosive force of energy is released, one that all the Ampliphi would feel.”

“C-come together? You mean…make love?”

“Yes. And I think they know I’ve lied. They know I am too monstrous for any woman to take. I am baffled as to why they did not try to take you from me immediately. Perhaps it was your eagerness to stay.” He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe because they felt you deserved a chance,” she said softly, both her hands coming up to brush his wet hair back from his face.

“Or maybe because when I fail it will finally give them the right to demolish a monster they have been afraid of for years now.”

“Adrian, why would you do that? Why would you lie like that knowing what would happen?”

“Because Aerlyn was going to send you away from me, and I couldn’t bear the idea of it. I had to do something to keep you as long as I could. And anyway,” he looked hard into her ash-colored eyes, “I am done living like this. I wasn’t always this thing that reviles. I was once a better man. That’s gone from me now. All I do now is thrive on the pain and struggle of others, manipulating it to my ends at any and all costs. Maybe once I did it to feed my people, to do something good, but now I do it purely for the pleasure it gives me to watch others suffer or help them indulge in their unspoken and inhuman fantasies. I don’t deserve life any more than I deserve you.”

“Adrian, that’s not true!” she insisted heatedly. “If you have regret for what you’ve done, then there is hope for you!”

“I felt no regret. No shame. Not until—” He looked at her with no little surprise. “Not until you were brought here. Ever since you first touched me, I’ve been changing.”

He abruptly stepped out of the shower and walked up to the large mirror over the sink. He had ignored it earlier, like he always ignored his reflection in all glass save his special mirror. He couldn’t stand the sight of himself most of the time. But now he set his large palm against the foggy wetness and with huge swipes cleared the way to his reflection.

This morning you are different. Much different.

Adrian stared at himself in the glass, not believing what he was seeing. It had to be some kind of trick, either of his own mind or of the universe. It had been years—decades—since he had seen any hint of the man he could now see in the mirror. It was the smooth curve of his shoulders that especially fascinated him as he turned to see the huge deformity that had been there was now nearly gone. He still scowled too easily, was nearly twice the thickness of a normal male in mass and muscle, and still sported the claws and fangs that marked him for the beast he was. But there were definite hints of the Adrian of old in his features and in his eyes. Yes. He was different.

She was different.

Now that he wasn’t so overwhelmed by her presence and touch, he realized that wasn’t all that was different. His size had altered in other ways. Taking his straining penis in hand, he saw everything was different about it. Normally he’d have been three times as thick as he was just then. Last night that was exactly what he had been. Still, he was too big to think any differently about having sex, but it made him question where these changes were going to go. Where would they stop? Was this temporary? Or was it all that pain he was suffering every time she pressed her good intentions onto him?

Now he knew he could never let her go. Not just now, but a week from now. It was the only explanation for this.

She really was his kindra.

Chapter 9

How was he ever going to prove it to anyone else? He couldn’t subject Kat to the normal methods of proof. God, how could he subject her to him at all? He had no idea how she had survived him this far. He was far from rehabilitated, still losing his temper savagely and doing things to her like making her bathe him. He was a nightmare…a real-life nightmare.

And still he couldn’t bear to let her go. The struggle inside himself was massive, pulling him in two opposing directions. He grunted in pain, bending forward and grabbing on to the marble vanity for balance.

“Adrian!” she cried out from the shower. She moved as if she would help him, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to bear her touch on him just then, so he threw out a halting hand.

“Finish your shower,” he instructed her through his teeth.

Then he stumbled out of the bath and headed for his clothes.

The door slammed open without warning, Adrian’s usual style of entrance, but this time it startled Aerlyn terribly because she hadn’t sensed him coming as she usually did. Such a raging wall of negativity was hard to miss. As she turned to face her brother, she wondered why she had missed it this time.

Aerlyn gasped and dropped her teacup from nerveless fingers, the crash punctuating her reaction.

“Adrian!” She walked through shattered shards without care and raced to take her brother’s face in her hands in a way she had not done for years. But then again, it had been years since she had seen her beloved brother. And it wasn’t because his normal face was suddenly so easy to see in the bloated features of the monster he’d been for so long now, but because she could see conscience in his eyes. Worry and guilt and all the things he had abandoned long ago as the poisonous mirror he’d used had taken him over. He had become less her brother and more a scion of that cursed thing in the basement. “Adrian, how can this be?” she asked as she ran shaking fingers over his straightened shoulders.

“Kathryn,” was all he said, and really all he needed to say. She should have realized it herself.

“Oh my God,” she breathed as she stared into his eyes. “The pain you’ve been feeling. She’s been undoing all the damage that’s been done! Oh, it must be agony!”

“Never mind that,” he said gruffly, brushing her concerns aside. “You have to tell me…do you think it’s possible this is happening because…because she is my kindra?”

Immediate doubt and disbelief crowded Aerlyn’s mind, but she realized then that doing so left her without any rational explanation for what was happening. But who had ever thought that a kindra could effect a change like this? True, one’s mate lent balance and emotional stability, but to such a degree? Was this plausible or was this wishful thinking? Would Adrian continue to change or would good and evil level out before he reached the goal of becoming who he had once been?

And looks were only the surface of it. In other ways her brother as she had once known him was forever lost. These years of suffering would make him a changed and unpredictable man. His softness and innocence were long since traded away, all for the need of energy.

“Adrian, only you can say for certain if she is your kindra,” she answered him at last, taking care to move out of his reach lest he lose his temper when she didn’t say exactly what he wanted to hear. The movement made him frown at her as he recognized it for what it was. “It’s something a mate feels…something he knows from deep inside himself.”

“What I feel is need. Bone-deep need for her, Aerlyn. Is that what you mean? This out-of-control craving? It must be,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “Otherwise why would I look like this? Why would this be happening to me now if it wasn’t that?”

Aerlyn could only shake her head. “I don’t know. It’s said that the moment you see your mate for the first time you’ll know without a doubt. I have no idea what that really means. But…Julian would know. He has recently been through this.”

“No! I can’t go up to one of the Ampliphi and tell him that I’m not sure about this—that I lied to them about it. The moment I admit to that I’ll be as good as dead!”

“Well, you should have thought about that before you recklessly went behind my back and claimed her as your kindra! And truth won’t matter if you don’t bed her and prove it to be true. How are you supposed to do that?” Then it struck Aerlyn. “Oh my God, that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? You walked right into it because you wanted a death sentence! You want them to kill you!”

“Obviously not any longer,” he said tightly, his hands clenching and unclenching. “Not if this is a permanent change. If it continues, if I continue to get better in form and temperament, Aerlyn, then life might just be willing to have me, and I it.”

“But none of that will matter if you don’t claim her one way or the other, and frankly I’ll be shocked if she lets you anywhere near her after the way you’ve been treating her.”

He looked belligerent, as though he wanted to argue the point with her, but to her continuing amazement, he kept his temper under wraps.

“She likes me,” he said softly. “Despite her own common sense and despite what I’ve done to her. I-I don’t think she even minds how I look that much.”

That surprised Aerlyn a great deal. Had she been in Kathryn’s position, she didn’t think she’d ever come close to liking her captor. But then again, wasn’t there a syndrome that humans suffered from when they were taken captive? Maybe that was what was happening to her brother’s prisoner. Regardless, if Kathryn was disposed to give her brother any latitude, then Aerlyn would help to nurture that in her. She would do anything to save her brother’s life, both from the Ampliphi, and from himself. And if all she ever got was this moment, this moment where she was looking into her brother’s beautiful, aware eyes once more, that would all be worth it.

“Adrian,” she said softly, leaning in to kiss his cheek because she knew, at long last, that he would let her do so. As she did so, he reached up and engulfed the back of her head in his hand. Not to hurt her or hurl her away from himself, but to express return affection. Aerlyn’s eyes filled with unexpected tears, but she was all smiles when she moved back away from him. “Tell me what you need from me to help. Shall I give her sweet dreams about you? I can—”

“No!” He shot the word out hard and fast. “I’ll not have her manipulated any more than we’ve already done. If I am going to come by this, I want to come by it honestly. No deceptions or tricks and no more hurting her. I’ll do this myself and with full truth between us.”

“Does that include telling her everything about the dreams you’ve caused over the years? All the potential violence you may have been a party to in the waking world because of your influence in the sleeping minds of others?”

“No. Or yes.” He shook his head and ran his claws through his hair. “She already knows what I am capable of. She’s thought the worst of me from the outset. Now it’s time for me to show her I can be more than what I was. Better. If you want to help me, then help me with that.”

“All right. Then I think your first step should be to get rid of that nasty little man you call your Companion.”

“You’re right,” Adrian agreed. “He frightens Kat and has a hunger for the vileness in what I do…er…did. Being close to me and the mirror over the years has only made him worse. I’ll find him now and send him back to the Ampliphi.”

“Good. I will see about getting us some proper servants. Then you can focus purely on Kathryn.”

“Thank you. Have you seen Cronos?”

“He just served me tea, so he should be around here somewhere. He might be avoiding you after your temper of last night.”

“I’ll find him. And thanks, sis.”

As he left Aerlyn fanned her face. She wasn’t about to start crying just because he’d called her sis.

She wasn’t!

Cronos breathed harshly as he hobbled and ran from the dining hall breezeway. Oh! This was terrible! Everything was terrible! They wished to banish Cronos from the house! Bad treasure! Bad treasure! He knew it was all her fault. That meant if he got rid of the bad treasure, then everything would return to what it had once been. She was responsible for the changes in the Master. She was responsible for getting Cronos into trouble! She was responsible for everything bad that was happening!

He had no time. He had to get to her fast. He had to do it before the Master found him!

He had to hurry!

Kathryn had showered and then, because she didn’t want to wear her same dirty clothes from yesterday, she started to poke around in some of those magical little drawers Adrian seemed to have things stored in. She had already gone through the rest of the sideboard, finding other nightgowns even finer than what she’d seen and worn so far. She could swear one of them was made with actual gold rings to support the straps and golden thread in the weave of the lace.