Stealing Kathryn (34 page)

“Did you hear me?” he demanded of them.

One of the guards spoke up. “I’m not getting in between these two again.”

“Finally,” Julian said, “someone who is wise enough to realize what it means to get in between a couple who is kind.”

“Cast your fucking vote,” Kathryn spat. “And look us both in the eye while you do it. And for that matter, look into the eyes of the thousands you will starve by this careless act.”

“Very well. All in favor of punishing Adrian for the crime of murder of another citizen of Beneath, cast your vote.”

Greison, Rennin, and Sydelle lifted their hands. Kathryn held her breath, waiting for another hand to come up.

“All those for acquittal?”

Julian and Giselle raised their hands.

“I am abstaining,” Christophe spoke up.

“What does that mean? What does it mean?” Kathryn demanded to know.

“It means we lose,” Adrian whispered.

“No! No, you can’t abstain!” she shouted at Christophe. “You can’t be a coward about this. You have to pick a side! There’s no such thing as washing your hands of this, because the act of abstaining is signing his death warrant. You either vote to kill him or you vote to save him. Choose!”

“The vote is done,” Rennin said dismissively.

“Choose!” she yelled at Christophe. “You choose!”

“Very well,” Christophe said.

“The vote is done,” Rennin snapped.

“It’s done when I say it is done,” Christophe said sharply. He looked down at the man and woman kneeling before him. “What is your name?”

“Kathryn,” she said hoarsely.

“Kathryn, you would so passionately defend your kidnapper?”

“To my last breath. He’s not my kidnapper. He’s my savior. I just didn’t know it at first. But I know it now. Please, I’m begging you. He’s no longer the beast you think he is.”

“You say that because you love him,” Christophe said dismissively. “It radiates off you so powerfully it’s hard to look at you. That certainly counts as bias.”

“You…love me?”

The soft query came from a hung head, his eyes suddenly lifting with his surprise.

“Oh, come on.” She sniffled. “With all the stuff you know before I even say anything, and you couldn’t see that one coming?”

“It is hard to see the things we crave the most,” said the Ampliphi leader.

“Yes,” she said, “I love you. Very much. So much that you can’t die.” She turned to Christophe. “I don’t know how else to beg you. Please. Vote.”

“Very well. I vote for…acquittal.”

“A tie!” Aerlyn squeaked. Losing all her elegant composure she ran for her brother and tackled both him and Kathryn to the floor. “A tie!”

“Correct. A tie,” Christophe said. “But there will be a probationary period. Any incidents in that time, this vote will come again.”

The jubilation on the floor didn’t diminish. Both women had faith that Adrian would do just fine.

“Untie him,” Aerlyn demanded of the guards. This time the captain stepped forward and gladly untied his prisoner. The first thing Adrian did was wrap his arms around his mate and hug her within an inch of her life.

“You saved my life,” he whispered against her ear. “You saved me.”

“You saved me first,” she said. “It seemed only fair.” She didn’t cry a single tear, not even a happy one. She had no use for them just then. She had fought a huge fight and won. The fight of her life.

“Do you still love me even now when I’m alive to pay you consequences for it?” he demanded.

“Yes,” she laughed. “I still love you.”

“Then say so. A dozen times a day. And never stop saying so.”

“Yes, sir. Whatever you say.”

He stood up, dragging his women with him. Then he looked at the council before him. “You won’t be sorry for this,” he swore to them.

“Prove it,” Christophe said back.

“I will. Thank you.”

He herded his girls out the door and they headed for home.

“This was a mistake, Christophe,” Greison said darkly.

“If so, it will be a great surprise to me,” Christophe said dismissively.

“You were swayed by the sentimentality of a woman,” Rennin said.

“I always planned to acquit,” Christophe corrected him. “I was just wondering how strong his mate was. She has proved herself quite resilient and remarkable. She’ll be a fine addition to our people.”

“She would have been better if she could have had multiple partners and multiple children from them,” Sydelle mused.

“Better than the relationship of kind feeding a whole village?” Gisella was aghast.

“You all speak so easily dismissive,” Julian spoke up quietly, “judging the relationship of kind without really having the first clue of how powerful and how beautiful it really is.” He looked down the length of the dais at all of them. “I think you are cursed, and it is a terrible shame. All of you who know not what kind means are living half lives and pale existences. Your faded states pale in comparison to your faded hearts and souls. Hear me now, it is the kind that will save this world. And not just the powerful energy it generates, although that is a part of it. Mark my words, only kind will see us through to the next generation of our people. And maybe, this time, kind will help us to resist the plague if it ever comes again.”

“It will come again,” Christophe said grimly. “It always comes.”

“Let us hope not,” Gisella said with a shudder.

“I can’t believe it. Kathryn, you were wonderful!” Aerlyn said, reaching to hug Kathryn for the hundredth time. “I never would have thought you had it in you! You were so brave!”

“I was, wasn’t I?” She preened proudly and Adrian laughed at her. He knew how important it was to her that she had stood up for herself. He slung an arm over her shoulders and drew her tight to him, giving her a soul-searching kiss until she had to pinch him to beg him for some air.

“Aerlyn, I love you, but we have some celebrating to do,” Adrian said.

He felt the wave of emotion that suddenly came off his stock-still sister.

“Oh, Adrian…I haven’t heard you say that to me in so long,” she said, her eyes suddenly rimmed with tears. She covered her mouth to catch a startled sob. Adrian instantly left his mate and went to her, folding her up in his arms and kissing the rise of her cheekbone warmly.

“I love you, sis,” he said softly. “I always have. Even at my worst I was aware that you were there for me. Had it not been for you, I would never have made it as long as I did. Certainly not long enough to hold out for Kathryn.”

“You are really back, aren’t you? The brother I once knew—you’re back again at last.”

“Back and better than before. Believe you me, I will never take a single thing for granted ever again. Not my looks or my emotions, not dreams or nightmares, not the simplest beauty of the simplest thing. I won’t take you for granted again, Aerlyn. I just hope you can forgive me for the things I did to you.”

“I forgave you instants after they happened,” she said. “You couldn’t help yourself, Adrian, and I knew that.”

“Hardly a good excuse. But I am glad to hear that you don’t hold it against me.”

“No. And now that I have my brother’s love, I am going to go back to the Barrens. Won’t you come have dinner with me there tonight?” she asked.

“We have no way of traveling through the planes without my mirror,” Adrian reminded her. “And I doubt they’ll just let me walk in and use it.”

“I wouldn’t want you to anyway. The farther away from that vile thing you are, the better it will be for you,” Aerlyn said. “Very well, then, I’ll come here.”

“We’d love to have you,” Adrian said.

“We would? But I don’t know anything about anything! I don’t know your foods or how to cook them. I don’t even know where the kitchen is!” Kathryn said in a rush of panic.

“Not to worry,” Adrian soothed her. “We’ll go out to eat. We do have restaurants here, you know.”

“Oh, right.” She exhaled a huge body-sagging sigh of relief. “I’m so glad.”

“You’ll learn everything soon enough,” he reassured her. “Meanwhile, Aerlyn, we’ll see you tonight,” he said, moving to rush his sister to the door.

She giggled and waved to Kathryn with a waggle of her fingers. “Have fun celebrating!”

Then she was through the steel door and Adrian was spinning the latch into place. He abruptly turned to face Kathryn. She snickered as he stalked over to her very purposefully.

“A man with a new lease on life,” she noted as he approached.

“And the first thing he wants to do is make love with his beautiful mate,” he told her.

“Charmer,” she said as she opened her arms to him.

“Vixen. Wolf in sheep’s clothing,” he teased. “You tore into Christophe like you had no fear.”

“Oh, I had tremendous amounts of fear,” she told him. “Fear for you and for your life.” She reached up and kissed his mouth warmly. A little too warmly. She almost forgot what she was saying. “I was so scared I was going to lose you. I had just found you, just found a new life and way of enjoying it, and they were going to take it all away.”

“I am so sorry I put you through all of that,” he apologized softly. “I didn’t mean to kill Cronos. Something just…snapped inside me. I had him there, in front of the Ampliphi, and I just knew he wouldn’t quit coming after you. I knew he’d find ways to get to you. It wasn’t safe to leave him alive. I just couldn’t do it.”

“I know. I understand,” she soothed him.

“You do? You don’t think I’m a murderer?”

“Honey, I was the one with the knife stuck in her chin. I still have the boo-boo.” She pointed to the scab on the underside of her chin.

“I see that.” He bent his head and kissed her gently on her boo-boo. Then he began to kiss a gentle line of kisses down the side of her neck. He no longer had fangs to torment her with, but that didn’t keep him from using his teeth against her skin, back and forth and back and forth until he ended with a nip on her earlobe. Kathryn gave a theatrical little shiver and he chuckled. “You are so easy,” he remarked. “Just a nibble on your neck and you’re ready to throw open your legs for me.”

“Oh! That’s so not true!”

“It is too,” he said, wedging a leg between hers and drawing his knee up tight against her. “You’re like an inferno already.”

“It’s just warm in here,” she breathed.

“Really?” He slid his hand under her skirt and dipped his fingers past the furring of her pubis. “Is it raining in here too?” he asked. “Because you’re all wet.”

“Do you have to be such a smart-ass?” she asked breathlessly as his fingers toyed with her sensitive flesh.

“Today I can be whatever I want. Today I am invincible. All thanks to you.”

“Careful,” she warned with a little moan. “Don’t let all of that go to your head. You can’t get in any trouble for the next six months.”

“Not a long time at all. It just shows you how convinced they are I’m going to fuck up quickly.”

“I know,” she said as she ran her hands over his broad shoulders. “And we’re going to prove them wrong, aren’t we?”

“Monstrously wrong,” he promised.

Did you miss HUNTING JULIAN, the first in the Gatherers series?

As a Gatherer for his colony, Julian Sawyer travels to Earth to bring back the Chosen—women who possess energy potent enough to help revitalize his people. The stunning, silver-clad beauty who strides into his club one night radiates a sensual magnetism unlike any he’s encountered, and Julian realizes that Asia Callahan is not just Chosen, she is his kindra: his one true mate.

For months, Asia has tracked the beautiful and mysterious Julian across the country, convinced that he’s behind the disappearance of her sister and a dozen other women. She’s prepared to believe he’s a ruthless killer, but when she presents herself as bait, she discovers that the truth is far more shocking. Taken to a strange, hazardous realm she never knew existed, Asia will face the ultimate choice—between abandoning the life she’s always known, and forsaking a passion as dangerous as it is powerful.

In all the time she had been stalking him, the one thing she had noted above all else was that Julian Sawyer was a man of very few emotions. He was always calm and always steady. Perfectly controlled at all times. Except for tonight. Tonight he was different. Different for her.

“Asia,” she offered at last, the firmness of her tone warning him that was as far as she was willing to go. “My name is Asia.”

He digested that for a moment, and she wondered how long it would take before he considered his condition satisfied and subjected her to the slightly chill air-conditioned atmosphere of the apartment.

“Asia,” he echoed, his large hands sliding smooth and warm up over her shoulders until, she realized, he had resettled the straps of her dress into a less precarious positioning. The unpredictability of his actions disturbed her a little. This wasn’t how he had been with the others before her; he had shown no interest in speaking to them. Asia tried to remind herself yet again that a difference was a good thing. Something had set each pair of women of the past seven months apart from all the others. She needed to be set apart if she was going to be among that select class of victims.

In keeping with her character of the night, however, she dropped her hands onto her hips and cocked her head as she bent a knee forward enough to rub her leg between his thighs where it settled against them.

“I thought you were out for a fuck,” she noted bluntly. “You can skip the Mr. Romance routine. I don’t need it.”

He studied her carefully a moment, reaching to trail his fingertips up along her throat. “I think you do need it,” he observed. “I think you have a great many needs you’d rather not share with me. You want this to be uncomplicated and straightforward, where it cannot be.”

“Sure it can,” she forced herself to say even as his uncanny words made her heart race beneath her breast. “You are a man. I am a woman. As long as we have all the interlocking parts required—and I admit, a fair amount of skill would be nice as well—we can get straight to where we both want to be. You haven’t had a hard-on for me for this long because you want to talk to me,” she pointed out.

That earned her a wry smile, the expression a bit sheepish and fearfully endearing as he ran a hand back through one side of his dark hair. She had thought it was black, but up close she could see it was the darkest of browns possible. It bothered her suddenly that there was so much about him that was appealing. It was like roses. Something so fragrant and beautiful that you couldn’t help burrowing your nose into it shouldn’t have things like thorns and bees to hurt you. She appreciated how naive and unlike her such a thought truly was, but just because she rarely indulged them didn’t mean she didn’t have them.