Stealing Kathryn Read online

  The Master’s blood churned with awakened intensity, his nostrils flaring as he drew in the true scent of her with greed and unmitigated delight. She smelled of sweetness and salt, a combination of artifice and naturalness. She used some sort of perfume, a combination of differing scents in different areas of her body. In her hair, under her arms, and between her breasts. There he lingered, smelling how sultry sweet she was and feeling the warmth of her radiating against him. He hulked over his treasure as dark, bestial things stirred to wicked life within him.

  He suddenly backed off, throwing himself in violent retreat from the temptation of her. A low, animal-like sound, somewhere between a purr, a growl, and a bark, rolled from him as he tried to regain control over the dark urges and twisting images feeding through his mind. His powers had allowed him to taste the desires of hundreds of thousands of women, but with her it had been different. With her there had been so little control. He was afraid that he might lose control and harm her.

  He had to remove himself from her now, or he might spoil his new treasure.

  It bothered him that he had slipped in his self-control. It was an event that must never be allowed to happen. He was a creature made up of hellish, unruly internal demons. He must always retain perfect order of himself or risk chaos; risk disapproval and censure, perhaps a violent punishment. Or worse, he would cause himself to suffer. When chaos reigned, he was his own worst enemy and it was his treasures that were the first to suffer. It was all things of beauty he would methodically begin to destroy.

  Above all else, these treasures—this particular treasure most of all—must be kept safe.

  Especially from himself.

  Chapter 2

  “Adrian?”

  Adrian’s malachite eyes darted up to meet his sister’s troubled gaze across the expanse of the table. Candlelight flickered across her exquisite features, licking at her in contrary shadow and light.

  “Adrian, why will you not let me see this latest treasure of yours?”

  She was suspicious and more than a little upset, he could tell.

  “It is not ready,” he said with quiet simplicity.

  “But why will you not even tell me what it is? You have always delighted in giving me the histories that make each of your acquisitions so unique.”

  Adrian narrowed his eyes on his twin sister. Aerlyn. Known the worlds over as Maya, Epona, Mari, and more, but ever to him she was Aerlyn, his steady, his guide back from the night. It was her wisdom and goodness that tempered his evil and carefully cultured chaos. She was also the frustrating force that held him ever in check, forced him to keep from giving in to the desire to run amok through the minds of the worlds.

  For he was Adrian. Angus, Sandman, Morpheus, Bogeyman, all these, but ever Adrian to her. Hers was the mirror of light and healing and dreams. His was of dark fantasies, oppressive guilt, and nightmares.

  She, the only one ever destined to love him…and she the only one he might once have felt that alien emotion for. That is, if he could stop hating her for her interference with his desires.

  “Aerlyn, the treasure is mine.” His tone brooked no argument. It was his way of warning her to back off.

  “Brother.” She quieted a moment to remove the reprimand from her tone. She must tread carefully with him. His was a delicate balance of control, one so easily set asunder. “Adrian. You have never known me to interfere with any of your baubles in the past. I am concerned that you are concerned I might. You have not done something of which I might be forced to disapprove, have you?”

  “Your approval is irrelevant.” His voice dropped an octave with a threatening hint of patience being lost.

  But he was on the defensive for a reason, Aerlyn mused. She narrowed silver eyes on him, her soft countenance drawing into an image of piercing discernment as she tried to measure her sibling’s motives.

  “There are rules, Adrian. Rules we both must obey. And rules we must both guard each other from breaking. You know very well my approval is unavoidably relevant.” She leaned a little closer, trying to probe his thoughts, but he was shoving up a black, guarding wall against her. “That little toad you keep to assist you, the one you call Companion, has been mooning about the fortress in perpetual orgasm for the entire day now. Whatever it is you have brought has obviously made a singular impression on him.”

  “Cronos is but a fool, and too easily impressed.” Adrian’s dark lips thinned and parted to reveal a gleaming row of ivory teeth, two of which were long, sleek fangs.

  It was Adrian’s version of a smile.

  Aerlyn was not so easily swayed.

  “That is true.” She nodded curtly. “But I am not. Something is amiss in this house. Did you think I would not be able to feel it? There is a new energy here. A peculiar one.” She leaned forward, candlelight enhancing the silver starlike patterns in the ebony curtain of her hair. “What have you done, Adrian?”

  Adrian lurched suddenly from his chair, the last vestiges of his tenuous control of himself gone in an instant. He roared in outrage as his fists crashed violently upon the table. Aerlyn sat back calmly as he shoved the table clear across the room with one powerfully enraged sweep of his arm.

  Dishes, candles, and splintered wood struck the distant wall and floor in a din of discordant crashes. Adrian loomed threateningly over his sister, casting ominous shadows over her cream white skin and gown.

  “Do not presume to censure me this time, Aerlyn!” he spat, his eyes like maddened emerald fire and his features mottling and twisting in anger.

  “And if I do not, who will?” She cocked a silver-black brow. “The Ampliphi put me in charge of keeping you under control, Adrian, and I will not fail them. It is one thing that I must allow you to torment the dreams of innocents without rhyme or reason, but it is you who presume too much if you think I will let you take your spoils in manic measure!” She rose up slowly, her personal energy giving him pause as it enveloped his, making him flinch angrily. “You will show me what you have pilfered, my brother. If it is an acceptable bit of fluff, you are certainly welcome to keep it with the rest of your silly baubles. I even encourage it. You know it pleases me to see you take such avid interest in things of beauty. It makes me feel you may yet prove to have a heart in that monstrously black chest of yours.” She paused for a breath. “But there is some beauty to which you know full well you do not have rights!”

  “I have taken nothing not within my rights!” Adrian’s menacing eyes bored down into her stubborn ones. “And you have no rights in judging my collection!”

  Aerlyn sighed softly at her brother’s stubborn nature. She could not, of course, allow him to have his way. The strange energy he had brought to their house did not belong there. She already suspected what the source might be. She was filled with suspicious dread at the idea that her brother might have done the inconceivable.

  That he might have brought an intelligent, living creature there.

  Such folly could mean their very destruction. She could not allow this madness to continue.

  “We shall see about that.”

  She turned, the gossamer train of her dress flaring out behind her as she drifted swiftly from the room.

  “Aerlyn!”

  Adrian was consumed with raging, defiling blackness. It spilled from his heart, feeding the vile, chaotic monster that always dwelled just within reach of him.

  He caught up to his sister in three massive strides and drew back an enormous arm. There was a brief flash of clarity that warned him he was flirting with unknown disaster, but his madness went on unimpeded. Malevolent energy gleamed briefly off the claws growing from his thickened fingertips.

  His eyes glared blackly as they fixed on a target at the back of her vulnerable neck. For that brief, tremulous moment, he could see right through her flesh to the delicate structure of her spine.

  It took but one blow to strike his hatefully beloved sister down.

  Kathryn bolted upright in bed, a terrified scream ripping from
her throat. But although she was wide awake now, the terrible nightmare was still with her.

  A vicious dark beast with terrible claws rending my body in two.

  Her throbbing heart ached with its rapid flight within her breast, her neck and back cramped with tortuous pain. A quick hand flew to her throat, her fingers nervously feeling her jugular as if to seek damage.

  The touch made her recall with an almost avid fascination the eerie feeling of cool, deathly fingers fondling her pulse.

  She shuddered and tried to shake the feeling off. It was all just a series of memories from an endlessly twisting nightmare, she told herself. But she had to admit to herself that she had never had such a dream in all her life, and it was hard to fight her feelings of hysteria. “Easy,” she spoke calmingly to herself, “it’s just anxiety from a combination of bad dreams and I’m just wiped out from caring for my family.”

  She slowly focused on her surroundings.

  She realized instantly she was not familiar with the bed she was in. Completely surrounded by the intricate brocade of luxurious bed curtains, she was closed into the confines of the bed. Feeling disoriented and suddenly anxious, she moved her hand to her throat, her fingertips stumbling onto the unfamiliar heaviness she realized was lying against her collarbone. It was cold, metal. She looked down and saw a cascade of thin gold wire weaving around large, breathtaking purple stones that looked like amethysts. The jeweled necklace fell from the base of her neck all the way to the tops of her breasts.

  That was when she realized she was not in familiar clothing either. She had never owned anything as girly as this dress, which left her shoulders and cleavage almost completely exposed. It was made of a fine fabric like silk, soft and clingy. She was beginning to feel a very real sense of fearful unease as she scrambled to her knees and pulled the sheer violet fabric of her skirt up for inspection. She could practically see through the material, making it far more like lingerie than an actual dress, and that understanding sent a feeling of sinking dread into the pit of her stomach. And then there were the stones, the glittering glasslike stones that looked like diamonds that had been dusted abundantly onto the dress.

  They looked so real.

  They couldn’t be real diamonds! She had not thought there could be so many so small and so perfectly identical to one another, not to mention that they should be wasted on a nightgown!

  And whatever was this creation doing on her body?

  Who had dressed her in this gown?

  Where was she?

  She fought back the wave of nauseating fear this question drove into her throat, crawling madly over the bed to the bed curtains. She tore through the brocade, falling clumsily to the floor as she did.

  She struggled to her feet, staggering as a dizzy spell threatened her equilibrium. “Oh no, not this again,” she whispered in dismay as she clung to a curtain to steady herself. She felt strange, as if she were reviving from a drug-induced stupor.

  It was that moment that the full impact of the room struck her crazed senses.

  “Sweet Father save me,” she uttered. Her voice echoed back to her from the cathedral ceilings and the far distant walls. The size of it! She had never seen such an enormous room! She looked around wildly, her eyes burning with the sight of all the things she could not hope to comprehend. It looked like a vast hoard of treasure, as if it had been gathered together by a mighty dragon or was perhaps awaiting Aladdin to come and find it. It was a display of the finest of metals and most precious of stones, all gleaming gaudily at once. There were other things, huge paintings, peculiar tapestries, and amazing sculptures. And almost every single item was on display in some way, be it in a case or a frame, hanging up or in a box or…

  On her neck.

  With desperate, clawing hands, Kathryn grabbed the jeweled necklace and tore it from her neck. She cut herself in the process, but hardly noticed as she cast the cloyingly lovely thing as far from herself as she could manage. There was a bracelet as well, and rings, each of which followed the necklace in their fates.

  What was this place?

  How had she come to be here?

  Her heart was beating so fast with confused terror that her entire chest hurt. Panic washed over her until she could barely breathe. There were hundreds, thousands of things on display. Things whose purpose or name she couldn’t even guess. Some dreadful instinct told her she was not meant to see these things.

  This unreal, malignant splendor loomed up around her like demon phantoms of beauty from places and times unknown to her.

  Kathryn was drawing heavily for breath as she realized things were much more disturbing than they appeared.

  “Dad!” She tore her fingers through her loose coiling hair, which had, unknown to her, been arranged just so. “Jillian!”

  She started to run in a single direction. The walls were so far away, and she couldn’t even make out the doors. Everything looked the same, covered in an intricate gold inlay that went fully around the room. Then her legs seemed to go suddenly weak, the strength wobbling out from under her. She tripped over her own feet and smacked into the carpeted floor. But in spite of the painstakingly made rug, she cracked her head hard as she fell, the stone beneath the carpeting so very unforgiving. Finally, overloaded with shock and fear, seeing brilliant stars in her vision, she collapsed. The last thing she saw was those stars.

  Stars.

  And a curtain of soft, midnight black.

  “Fool!”

  Cronos braced himself for the blow that would likely kill him. It came hard and fast, hurling him an incredible distance before he crumpled to the floor.

  Adrian whirled around, threw back his head, and clenched his fists as he released a howl of insane wrath. It expelled a great deal of his frustration, and so he was calmer when he fell to one knee beside his damaged keepsake.

  He rolled her over with great care and tenderness. His harsh breath caught when her head lolled to the side, revealing the torn flesh at her throat and the bleeding cut across her forehead where she had struck it.

  “No.” The word quavered with unendurable pain as he touched the wounds.

  Ruined.

  She had been ruined by his foolish neglect. She shouldn’t have been able to regain consciousness, but when he had lost his control earlier, he had lost his power over her sleep.

  Never, never once, had any of his precious possessions been damaged while in his care.

  Perhaps, though, this damage could be repaired.

  But he knew nothing of healing.

  Adrian cradled his treasure close to his chest, holding her and yet afraid to hold her. He had not meant for any harm to come to her, but harm had come regardless. All of the darkness he toyed with while captaining the nightmares of people—he knew what evil was and the deep, ugly places those people could go. He had simply wanted to remove her from that ugly world, to take her from all the pain she had been suffering. He had done so against every rule, he knew, had even attacked his sister, whom he truly loved, only to have it come to this?

  The remorse that filled him then was sudden and bracing. The energy of it was intense and powerful. He drew in a breath of surprise at the feel of it. It was not a dark emotion, like the ones he was used to wallowing in, but neither was it a bright one. It was a peculiar shade of gray, and yet…so strong. Yes…he had felt it before. In certain dreams, there was guilt and sadness. Sometimes so strong it would overwhelm him, just as it was doing in that moment.

  Confused and having struck down the two people who always helped him when he needed it, Adrian was lost as to what to do or feel. He gathered up his Kathryn and hurried her back over to the bed. As he had done before, he carefully arranged her limbs, smoothed her nightgown down until it was perfectly straight, and then painstakingly arranged every single curl of her glorious hair.

  But as hard as he tried, the perfection of it was flawed and ruined by those terrible marks on her body. Frustrated, he roared out angrily, trying to shake off the waves of pain
riding through him with such inexplicable potency. He tried leaving the room, barely making it off the bed before he collapsed to the floor. He lay there panting for a long minute, trying to make himself get up and not understanding why he couldn’t. And then, finally, his psyche shorted out and Adrian lost consciousness.

  Something was pulling Kathryn, drawing her.

  She had been floating in a benign gray void of nothingness. Somehow she knew that she had been there for quite some time.

  But something was now beckoning her away from it.

  Slowly, with a soft sigh, she came around. She opened her eyes with a hesitant flutter of her lashes.

  Then she heard again what it had been that had called her back to consciousness.

  A moan.

  It was a low, tortured sound. The sound of someone in unbearable pain.

  And whoever that someone was, he was very close by.

  She sat up slowly, blinking once. She was aware of feeling stronger. Of feeling more well rested than she had been in a very long time. She did not even feel afraid this time as she quickly looked around the strange room. Of course, she wasn’t quite brave enough to look at any one thing for any length of time, either.

  Then the moan came again, drawing her full attention quickly to the floor beside her.

  She gasped softly.

  Whoever he was, he had to be the most massive man she had ever laid eyes on. Well, maybe with the exception of the color plates of giants in her childhood fairy-tale books. Still, the difference between seeing a drawing of a mythical giant and finding yourself sitting and staring at a real one was quite vast. Why, the width of his shoulders might be nearly twice the length of one of her arms from fingertips to shoulder! Of course, she was a little small, according to some people.