Stealing Kathryn

by Jacquelyn Frank

“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 he
re 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 naïve and unlike her such a thought truly was, but just because she rarely indulged them didn’t mean she didn’t have them.

  “My needs go well beyond those of my physical body,” he said to her, those green eyes flicking up from their low position in his bent head. She felt snared by that look, her throat tightening with a strange sense of having gotten in way over her head. She wanted to laugh aloud at the ludicrous idea as soon as she had it.

  “Well, mine don’t,” she countered, realizing she didn’t sound as convincing as she should have. She reached out to cover that up with her touch, having already realized how easily it distracted him. She snaked her arms around his neck, drawing herself in tight and snug to his body. “Your physical body will suit me fine,” she whispered softly as her lips brushed against his ear.

  Julian groaned softly as she wriggled against him, his hands tightening reflexively against her shoulders. Before she knew it, he had turned his face against her neck and was…

  Sniffing her?

  Asia’s brows lowered in a perplexed expression of disbelief as she felt him breathe deeply and sigh out an extraordinary exhalation against her pulse. Even more unusual was the fine tremor she felt run through him.

  “Such a sweet invitation,” he breathed against her softly, his nose nuzzling against her pulse. “Too bad it is a lie.”

  He had her by her throat in an instant, his hand locking hard and fast around her as he kicked her feet out from under her and sent her slamming down to the floor on her back. He controlled the entire action, however, keeping the impact minimal, if not shockingly violent, as he ended up with his grip shy of throttling her and his face mere millimeters from hers. He had thrown a leg over hers, pinning her to the hardwood floor firmly as she instinctively reached to grasp the wrist of the hand at her throat.

  “For a woman who wants to fuck so badly, you smell decidedly clean of sexual arousal,” he growled harshly. “What game is it you are playing? Why are you here?”

  “I don’t…are you out of your mind?” she rasped, the pressure of his hand just enough to warn her of his strength and the possible consequences if she ticked him off enough. “What the hell are you talking about?” Indignation seemed the way to go. Maybe a little fear. The more she was threatened, in actuality, the calmer and more in control Asia got. His kindnesses had rattled her much more than this would. This she understood.

  This was what she had wanted.

  She thumbed the catch on her ring, then grabbed his wrist again so the micro-fine needle injected into his skin. He would mistake the sensation for the cut of her diamond. In a sense it was exactly that. The heavy narcotic serum flooding into him would make him hers in instants.

  “I am talking about this.”

  To her shock she felt his hand sweep up under her dress. His fingertips dipped into her panties below the top elastic and it was all she could do to keep from freaking out as thick male fingers skimmed over her denuded mound and dove with intimacy between her nether lips.

  “Warm. Damp, to be certain,” he observed, “but in no way bearing the heat or wetness of a woman longing for sex.”

  “You’re blaming me because you haven’t done anything to turn me on?” she demanded incredulously.

  “Your scent is fear-scent, and yet not. You smell of a hunter. The predator. The ziniprano. Tell me, zini,” he said in a heated, fierce whisper of threat as he wedged himself in between her legs, “if it is a fucking you so desire, will it matter to you how it comes about?”

  The intent behind his devious invitation and the hard actions of his heavy body over hers triggered a hell of a lot more than fear in Asia. She knew she needed to wait, if only to see the narcotic hit him like a ton of bricks, making all of this infinitely easier, but she couldn’t. His intimate touch grew deeper as he spread her legs wid
e around his hips and Asia learned that there were just some things even she couldn’t do.

  “I don’t know,” she countered in a rasp of pent-up fury and hurt. “Why don’t you tell me how you did it to my sister, first?”

  He went still in surprise, just as she had hoped for, leaving himself wide open for her free hands to make their mark.

  Asia was a jujitsu master. She had achieved black belt status at a very young age, and had only increased in degrees until the time she had become the sensei of her own dojo. The art of self-defense, the art of power in small movements. This was what she used to drive rigid fingers into his throat and eyes simultaneously. She took satisfaction in his roar of agony as she used the ripple of her fit body to buck him off of herself at the first available opportunity. She spilled his significant weight onto the wooden floor and pounced on him in fisted, violent strikes.

  She hadn’t expected him to be an easy target, and he did not disappoint her. She didn’t even know how he had grabbed her and thrown her, but the next thing she knew she was getting floor burns on her bare legs as she skidded and tumbled away. She rolled up to her feet in smooth continuity, her hair whipping back as it spilled free of its twist. She ignored it, even though it was now a liability, and focused on her giant adversary as he growled with ferocious anger and crouched as if preparing to charge her. His following hesitation was a godsend. The more time he took, the more time for the drug in his system to take effect.

  “What is this?” he confronted her with a roar of fury. “Why do you play this brutal game with me?”

  “Because you are nothing but violent, evil filth, and this is what you deserve! You stole the single most precious thing from my life, as well as those most precious to the lives of countless others, and it’s time you paid the price for that!”

  “And you are going to make me pay, zini?” His laughter irked her as it rolled in irritating waves of derision over her. “Little warrior. So coldhearted, no? To play such a game as the bait just to lure me in close. For what? What is this imagined slight I have done to you?”