Stealing Kathryn. Jacquelyn Frank
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and ask after them because of his appearance, and Aerlyn didn’t trust him to manage Kathryn’s sleep and dreams for the length of time it would take for her to do the task.
“Then I’ll leave you to it. Only take care not to frighten them, Adrian. They are ill enough without you adding to the stress of it,” she warned him sternly.
“Do not fear, sister,” he ground out darkly. “Despite what you think of me, I am not all evil yet.”
He pulled away from her and went in search of Kathryn’s family, walking through the dream walls of the large ranch house they had created for the benefit of their recovering guest. It was going to take constant work and surveillance to keep the deception going, but all they had to do was hold on to it until she went through her “healing” process in a normal manner and then they would deliver her back to her home and her bed. She would hopefully be none the wiser for it. She would put her experiences with Adrian down to the most vivid nightmare of her life and that would be the end of it. Aerlyn and Adrian’s presence on the dream and nightmare planes would continue on uninterrupted and unexposed. The Ampliphi need never know how badly Adrian had behaved. Then, as soon as was possible, they would go before the Ampliphi and remove Adrian from his duties as a Guardian. The strain was too much and Aerlyn feared there would be nothing left of her brother if he continued on.
She feared that he might already be too far gone and that she had somehow let that crucial point pass right in front of her. They had been placed in the Barrens together, given the job of gathering much-needed energy, but she and Cronos were supposed to watch Adrian carefully. One being could not constantly take in the kind of dark emotions that Adrian must manage and remain sane or stable. They were supposed to have provided him with balance. A touchstone. But now she could see that Cronos had only been playing into Adrian’s descent into darkness. The Companion had reveled in it. He had been too close to Adrian’s side all of this time and been exposed to the same negativity he had. Cronos must be dealt with as well, but it would be a touchy matter because the Companion could blackmail Aerlyn and Adrian at any given moment by exposing what Adrian had done to the human woman. If this did not go well, if she wasn’t safely returned to her life, Adrian would stand trial for his crime. Regardless of his service to his people and the extenuating circumstances, the court of the Ampliphi would be harsh. They had little tolerance for behaviors that might expose the presence of those who were sent to gather the energies they needed so badly, and even less for those behaviors that were, in general, reprehensible. Aerlyn might have stopped Adrian from doing something truly evil to Kathryn, but the intention had been there.
Aerlyn dreaded to think of what might have happened had she not recognized the trouble he was in. Would he have simply kept Kathryn like a pretty thing, leaving her untouched and precious to himself, or would he have taken her into a dark place, using her to sate the wicked desires his corrupted soul now craved?
Aerlyn shuddered to think of it. She wanted to believe that, at his very core, Adrian was still the good man he had once been. That some sense or sanity would have come through at the last minute and he would have controlled his urges. But her doubts were much too strong. Her fears too well founded.
She reached out through the miasma of the dream state she held innocent Kathryn in and gently touched the other woman’s face. “You have to forgive him,” she murmured softly. “He doesn’t mean to be this way.”
More importantly, though, she had to forget him. Forget what she had seen and done. All they had to do was get through two days. That would make it believable enough for her. Then she would be back on the Earth plane, back home with the loved ones she cared about and for.
“Just two days. Please, let him hold on for just two days,” she prayed.
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