Stealing Kathryn (19 page)

It was much too rich to be worn and she didn’t feel worthy of it, so she went to the bureau she’d seen him take his clothes from. There everything was for a man of his tremendous size. But unlike the almost threadbare things she’d seen him in yesterday, these were made of fine cloth and were well tailored. Silk shirts and rich, dark slacks…She wondered why he hadn’t worn these before. Then she realized it was because he hadn’t cared about what he looked like. This morning, however, she had seen him pull out a midnight blue silk shirt and dark pants, lying them on the bed before they’d started their row in the shower.

She flushed as she thought of how boldly she’d just started touching him. It had been such an insane thing to do! But she’d been so curious for so long, and she’d never felt a man like that before. Now she wished he hadn’t stopped her. Oh, she appreciated what he’d been trying to do, and was glad for it really. But if only she’d had the chance to go further. She’d wanted to see…. She’d wanted to feel.

Sighing, she closed the last drawer in the bureau and turned to her next victim several long paces away. A wardrobe so huge she could have stepped inside and paced circuits within. She pulled open the doors and was greeted with the heavy scent of cedar. Then she began to make out that these were all dresses in here. Gowns, actually. So beautiful! There had to be a hundred of them! Fur and silk, sequined and embroidered, daring and conservative, and everything in between. She couldn’t have dreamed anything so exotic and spoiling in all of her life. These were red-carpet gowns, not Kathryn Macdonough gowns.

But hadn’t he let her wear that diamond-dusted creation? And she didn’t want to wear one around the house, where it’d get ruined; she just wanted to try some of them on. She glanced over at the beveled glass mirror not too far away and stopped to bite her nail for a moment.

“They probably won’t fit my fat bum anyway,” she said as she inched closer to them. Why would he have all these here? Were they part of his one-of-a-kind collection? Were they perhaps his sister’s? She was a one-of-a-kind beauty. She was the type who deserved dresses like these.

Slowly she began to look at them, sliding each hanger past her so she could gasp and admire the next in line. Some of them were outrageously indecent. No backs, barely any fronts, see-through and short or slit so high you couldn’t possibly wear underwear with them!

She brushed past all of those and then, suddenly, she found one that she didn’t think she’d blush just at the thought of putting it on. She’d never had dresses, really. No use for anything but jeans and tees on a ranch. But if she had had one, this fire engine red minidress might have been exactly what she’d have picked. The empire waist would hide a world of sins, and the way it flowed it might actually fit over her backside.

Sneaking a peek around the room first, she carefully eased the dress off its hanger and dropped her towel to the floor. Very carefully, so as not to rip anything by accident in case it didn’t fit over her butt, she dropped the dress over her head.

It fell over her like water and perfection, as if it had been made to fit her. If this was a dream, then she was going to hate waking up. She smoothed her hands over the satiny fabric, watching it shine all around her body. Then she remembered the mirror and practically ran over to it. She tilted it so it was just right and then gasped at what she saw.

Long, wet hair aside, she looked awesome! Not just okay or passing or like she was trying on someone else’s clothes, but perfectly tailored to her body sexy and awesome! Oh, her sister would just die–

She cut the thought off before she could finish it. Of all the things real and imagined she’d been through these past days, she had a rock-solid understanding that she was never going to see her family again. Whatever the future brought her, seeing her family wasn’t going to happen.

Kathryn lifted her chin and trying to leap back into the joy of the dress. As she pivoted, she wanted to enjoy it so much, but she just couldn’t stop worrying about her dad and sister. How would they get on without her? Dad was getting older now and her sister was still school age. Who would do her lessons with her? Who’d help her dad feed the stock and do the hundreds of never-ending chores the ranch always demanded?

When the door across the room creaked, she looked up and saw that awful little man scurrying her way. He came right up to her, and she immediately backed away. “What do you want?” she demanded. “I thought you weren’t supposed to come near me!”

“Cronos will not hurt you. Not ever again,” he promised in a high-pitched plea, his hands held out in supplication. “I apologized to my Master and now apologize to you. Cronos will never hit you again. I know better now.”

“W-well, good,” she said carefully. “Apology accepted. But you shouldn’t come in here without knocking! I could have been dressing!”

“Apologies again. I will remember to knock next time. But now, we must go. The Master wants you to come.” He curled his bony hands forward as if he wished to pull her along by a rope, leading her like a horse. Kathryn shivered and knew she was never going to like this horrid little man, but Adrian had apparently sent for her and she had a few things she wanted to talk to him about.

She followed Cronos out of the room.

He led her down what appeared to be back stairwells. The enormous house seemed to go on forever as they went down and down. Before long they were in the basements, and she had a feeling she knew exactly where she was going to end up.

Sure enough, Cronos took her to the workroom, with its single torch and the black-fingered mirror standing large and ominous in its special spot. Cronos walked up in front of it and gestured with both his hands toward the mirror.

“My Master awaits you,” he said.

“In there?” She knew she sounded as disbelieving as she must look. “You want me to step inside that thing?”

“Yes. He’s just inside. You won’t get lost or be alone. My Master would care for you above all other things.”

“Then he should have stayed out here,” she muttered under her breath.

She wasn’t certain about this at all. There were very few things that made sense to her these days, but one thing she had a certain understanding of was that this mirror was nothing to fool around with. Still, Adrian had promised he wouldn’t cause her any harm. He wouldn’t ask her to come to him if he thought she could be hurt—would he?

Kathryn decided he wouldn’t. She couldn’t explain it, but she trusted his statements to that effect. At least she did now. He had exhibited a great deal of control lately and had made great efforts to be sensitive to her. This made it highly unlikely that he’d ask her to do something he didn’t think she could handle.

Taking in a shaky breath, she reached to touch the mirror. To her surprise, blue electricity jumped out and struck her wrist. It didn’t hurt her, but it did tingle strangely up her arm. And it wasn’t a good tingle at all.

“Faster is better. It hurts less,” Cronos advised, bending to look behind her for a second. She looked too, but no one was there.

“Faster is better,” she echoed, shaking out her hands and trying to gather her courage. She had seen Adrian do it twice. All it took was a step. Just a single step. She held her breath and jumped in.

Cronos watched as blue lightning shocked her from all sides, just as it did the Master when he went through. The difference was the Master was bigger, as well as ten to fifteen times stronger than the girl. He could tolerate and survive such a shock. With luck, she would be dead by the time she crossed planes. If she did survive, she would be immediately lost in the nightmare plane. Only his Master had the power to find the mirror and only he could step out of it. Everything else was be-spelled away from the mirror, so no dreams could cross into their plane. Yes! She is gone now! Gone for good!

But the longer she was lost the better, so Cronos raced away from the scene of his crime and went to continue eluding his Master. All he had to do was wait until he realized she was gone for good. Then all would return to what it had once been.

All would be well.

Kathryn lay on her face in the strange gray world she’d been thrust into. She’d been shocked pretty savagely by Adrian’s mirror as she’d passed through, making a lie out of the theory that she would feel it less if she’d just gone through faster. She felt numbed all over and sore at the same time, like someone had shoved her from behind and sent her sprawling head over heels. Her heart raced erratically and her chest hurt.

She became immediately put out. Why in hell would Adrian beckon her to come through that awful thing if he’d known it was going to hurt so badly? He had promised…

She tried to get to her hands and knees, failing miserably. She had an awful taste in her mouth, like limes gone rotten, and this place smelled of the smoke that seemed to be everywhere. She was covered in the stuff, as it clung close to the ground for the most part, and she was most definitely a part of the ground in that moment. She worried about her pretty new dress and made another effort to get her face out of the floor. Her limbs were all wobbly from the shock and didn’t seem to want to coordinate themselves under her command, but eventually she got the unruly buggers to pay attention and go to work all at once.

On her hands and knees, she rose above the better part of the smoky flooring. She looked around the endlessness of the dismal gray world she was in. She didn’t see Adrian anywhere. Her heart skipped a beat, her stomach sinking cold and wet within her. She whipped around to look for the mirror, but couldn’t see the portal anywhere.

It has to be somewhere nearby, she told herself.

There was no need to panic. Adrian was around there…somewhere.

“Adrian!” Her voice was rough and squeaky at first, but rose strong by the second time she shouted, “Adrian!”

Where is he? she wondered after five minutes of calling for him proved fruitless. He wouldn’t just leave her alone like this! He regarded her as a precious thing, a treasure to be carefully cared for and guarded. He wouldn’t just…

Suddenly the cold idea that Cronos had not been acting on his master’s orders entered her head, leaving behind a soul-deep chill unlike anything she had remembered feeling before. No, she tried to convince herself, he wouldn’t dare!

“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.