LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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