Tygers Page 22

  “So, Sarah isn’t real, but Ty is?” he asked in confusion, still trying to figure out how she was attaching her dead grandfather to Kyle’s imaginary playmate.

  She closed her eyes and ground her teeth. “No. The tigers are imaginary playmates. Tiberius uses Kyle’s dependence—” Katie growled her frustration. “Dammit, Keith. Stop doing that.”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Doing what?”

  “Rewriting everything I say into your own point of view and experience. If you don’t want to know, don’t ask. Don’t try to make this fit your worldview, because it won’t. You want answers, and—dammit—I really am trying to give you those answers because I don’t want to lose you for not talking to you.”

  Keith sucked in his breath. He had been evaluating everything she was saying, hadn’t he? It was an occupational habit that was hard to break. “What am I doing precisely?” he asked in wonder.

  “With every word I say, you revise your clinical diagnosis of your perceived neurosis, bordering on psychosis by now, based on your limited experiences and mistaken belief about the truth of my childhood traumas. I am not delusional. I am not suffering a persecution complex or paranoid episode or psychotic break or any other number of things that you have considered recently.

  “Break your occupational habit real quick, because it’s very distracting. There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in Dr. Freud’s psychology. To get this, you may have to look more at John Edwards than the good Dr. Freud.”

  Keith pulled back slightly and looked down at her, frowning as he considered what she just said. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes glittered in anger.

  “You’ve got Miss Cleo beat,” he said quietly.

  Katie blushed deeply, all the way down her chest. “I don’t just work in cards,” she offered weakly.

  “You’ve convinced me,” he conceded. “I’ll try to take everything you say at face value.”

  She smiled sadly. “That was the point. The only chance I had of convincing you was to show you.”

  “You said you don’t do that anymore,” he noted.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll turn it off. It wasn’t fair of me, but I had to make sure you’d listen to the answers you said you wanted.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” he managed. “You don’t have to stop reading my mind. I’d like to show you that I can do what I said.”

  “No. That’s all right. I believe you.”

  “Was this what set him off? You being able to read his mind?”

  She shook her head. “It’s part of why he hated me, but it’s not what finally got him killed that night.”

  “What was? What happened at the house that night?”

  “I don’t remember. I wish you could read me, so you could see I’m not lying about that,” she noted miserably.

  “How did the police know to come after him? That he was going to kill you?”

  “Grandmother called them.”

  “So, she wasn’t completely under his thumb,” he mused. “When you were in danger, she acted against him.”

  Katie locked on his eyes and smiled widely. “That’s it,” she cried in glee.

  “What—”

  The rest of his question was cut off as she cupped his face and captured his mouth in a searing kiss. Keith moved his hands up her back to her shoulders as he felt himself hardening in response. He knew he shouldn’t do what he was considering, but her response was drawing him in despite his rational mind.

  She pulled back and looked at him in triumph and pure delight. “I should have known you’d help me figure it out. God, I love you.”

  Katie stilled and looked at him in dismay. Her eyes were vulnerable, and her body language showed a sudden wariness. She shifted away slightly, and her hands retreated to the neutral zone of his arms.

  “Do you mean that?” Keith asked gently. His heart pounded while he waited for her to confirm that it wasn’t just a Freudian slip of some sort.

  Katie bit her lip. She seemed about to speak, and then she closed her eyes and withdrew from the conversation entirely.

  “Katie, look at me. Look into my mind. Please, do it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “All right.”

  He kissed her solemnly then sank lower to brush kisses over her neck and to tease her nipples to a hard arousal that had him aching for her. Keith moved his lips lower to trail across the smooth skin of her stomach, savoring the taste of her and the smell of them together on her skin. As he settled his cheek next to her inner thigh, she broke her silence with a deep sigh.

  Keith moved upward, tasting her excitement on the skin of her thighs and paused just shy of his goal. Katie shivered in anticipation and raised her hips to offer herself to him. He licked a slow path through her labia and into the depths of her. She cried out harshly, and her body bowed up from the bed. Keith pulled back slowly, and she whimpered at the loss of the sensation. He replaced his mouth with his fingers. Keith longed to recreate his fingers’ movements with other portions of his anatomy, but he wanted to draw out her pleasure as long as he could.

  “I can wait to hear it again,” he promised, though he would do almost anything to hear it now. Keith could play a game of trying to get her to say it by way of sexual manipulation, but that wouldn’t be fair or real. If Katie couldn’t say it and mean it without him pressuring her to, it wasn’t worth hearing. “When you’re ready to say it, say it.”

  “Are you sure?” Her answer was breathless in her excitement.

  He changed the way he was stroking her and brushed his thumb over her clit lightly. She cried out in response, and Keith felt his control slipping.

  “I’m sure,” he whispered. Keith wasn’t sure at all, not about waiting to hear it, but he wouldn’t tell her that. He wanted to hear it, and to make love to her for the rest of the day on the pure rush of it, but he’d take whatever she was willing to give. He couldn’t ask for more than that without risking losing her again.

  “You want it all? Not just a week or a month but the whole package deal?” She seemed stunned by the prospect of it.

  “Yes,” he assured her. “I want the whole package deal with all the options.” All the little options, especially. Keith couldn’t wait for the day when she’d trust him that much.

  She opened her eyes, and he drank in the look of invitation he saw there. “I do love you, Keith, and I want it all, too.”

  He replaced his hand with his mouth and claimed her with a groan that rumbled against her warm, waiting body.

  “No more,” she cried out. “Keith, please.”

  Still, he licked and sucked, nibbled and caressed shamelessly until she screamed out his name. He smiled as the contractions seized her. He stayed for a long time, administering gentle touches with his mouth and fingers to encourage aftershocks that swept her away again and again, long after she recovered from the initial release. Finally, he pulled himself over her again. She clung to him, and he laughed a low throaty laugh.

  “Feel good?” he teased.

  Taking him by surprise, she flipped him onto his back and straddled him. Katie ground into him and smiled as his erection grew even more against the wet flesh caressing and gently squeezing him.

  “What’s say we make you feel good?” she affected her long-lost accent easily, making him smile at the change.

  He pressed a condom into her hand, and Katie flicked it back and forth around her fingers with a simple grace.

  “Is this what you really want?” she teased.

  His mouth went dry, and his eyes locked on the foil wrap much as hers had at the drive-in.

  Katie leaned to rub her lips over his ear. “I know it’s not,” she whispered in a sensuous voice. “What do you want, Keith?”

  “Are you sure?” His voice was foreign and labored in his restraint. “Please, God. Be sure before you do this,” he pleaded with her.

  “Tell me,” she offered. “Show me what you want.”

  He snatched the
condom from her hand and tossed it away as his hand cupped her head and he took her mouth fiercely, in a possessive rush. Katie was his. She’d always be his. He rolled her beneath him again and slid inside her without losing her mouth. Their rumblings of pleasure met in their mouths as he froze deep inside her.

  He shook in the effort holding back took. Keith closed his eyes, savoring the feeling of the sensitive length of himself buried within her, but he had to be sure. He pulled back slightly to open his eyes and look into hers.

  Before he could find his voice, her plea reached him. “Please, don’t stop.”

  Her face was set in a look of pure need that drove him on. She wanted this as much as he did. He was sure of it.

  He cried out as he started moving inside her. The sensations were so pleasurable that they bordered on pain. The end came quickly. Keith threw his head back and roared as his convulsive release shook him. Aftershocks racked him as he felt Katie’s muscles tighten in response to the warm explosion he released inside her. Her fingers dug into his hips and she screamed as he lunged deep into her one last time, enjoying owning her utterly for that one instant in time.

  Keith moved his mouth over her neck and chin, drawing lines on the sweet flesh and musky sweat of her. “I love you, Katie. Never doubt that I love you,” he crooned in her ear. Keith didn’t pull out. He didn’t remove his weight from her. For now, he wanted to lose himself in her, fall asleep still joined as one with her.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I don’t use drugs, my dreams are frightening enough.” Marie E. Eschenbach

  “Some people follow their dreams. Others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission.” Neil Kendall

  Katie was running. She labored the cold air in and out of her lungs as the darkness called her from outside the glow of the streetlights over her head. A few more steps and she’d be on the path. The darkness on the path didn’t scare her, not nearly as much as Pap scared her. She stumbled as he roared behind her but righted herself with little effort and ran on. Katie lifted the edge of her nightgown to keep from tripping on it again.

  “Come back here, you little bitch. You can’t hide from me,” Pap bellowed after her. His voice sounded far too close for her comfort.

  “Ty, stop. You can’t do this.”

  Grandmother’s voice was a welcome comfort as Katie turned onto the dirt track, though she knew the old woman wouldn’t dare try to stop Pap. Or would she? Grandmother was free now unless he caught her again, but he didn’t have time to do both. If he stopped to take care of Grandmother, he would lose track of Katie.

  He could do that. He could chose to stop and force Grandmother again, but he wouldn’t. He’d finish with Katie first and come back for the others unless someone forced him to take them on first. Grandmother was no match for Pap, and the woman knew that. She wasn’t stupid enough to try to take him on in a fight, but she might think of something else to help.

  Katie shivered at the thought of Pap controlling Grandmother again. She never understood why he wanted that quiet obedience. It wasn’t real. Maybe it made him feel like a king. He liked having power over other people—his family, his friends, his employees, even his enemies, she was sure. Maybe power was more important to Pap than love.

  That was what started this whole thing. Sarah had assured her that Grandmother would love Pap anyway if she were free to choose instead of bound in his power. Feeling love instead of power would be good for Pap, Katie had reasoned to herself. It would be good for everyone. All she had to do was free Grandmother and Pap would see that it was better that way.

  But it wasn’t good. Katie stifled a sob as she ran. The moment Pap had realized that Grandmother was free of his power, he turned on Katie. He knew who to blame. Who else was capable of it? She turned and ran even as the scream of rage built in his throat and shielded herself from his mental fury as he struck. A burning pain seared the back of her shoulder. It faded to a dull ache as she kept her shields up and kept running. He couldn’t touch her mind while the shield was intact. Katie was pretty sure about that. All she had to fear now was Pap getting his hands on her.

  The night was dark. If she could hide herself in the darkness until morning, Katie would be safe with her mother again. Her mother wasn’t quite like Grandmother. Pap could force her to comply, but she had an inner strength when it came to her family—usually. Pap wanted Carol with him tonight. The fact that it meant Katie being left with him too was immaterial to him. The fact that her mother would not typically leave her with him was immaterial. In the end, her mother did exactly what Pap wanted.

  Katie heard Pap throwing curses after her as he fell on the trail. At least that gained her a little time. Her bare feet found the trail, but the cold ground chilled her until they felt like little more than blocks of ice at the ends of her legs. Her nightgown whipped around her knees in a strong wind.

  She paused at the clearing and looked at the burned-out hulk of a car in fear. Sarah urged her on. Help was on the way, but Katie would have to stay hidden until they arrived, and Pap would find her too quickly if she hid here. She pressed on, running again to make up the distance she lost.

  Up on the plateau, Katie curled into a ball in the furthest corner. She covered her mouth with her tiny hands to stifle her breathing and hoped the shadows would hide the pink of her nightgown. Katie could see Pap as he topped the short climb, and she shut her eyes against the sight. Time. She needed more time.

  He started talking, and her eyes snapped open.

  “I know you’re up here, Katie-girl. Don’t think I don’t. I have all night to find you.” Pap paused and looked around again.

  Katie pushed her back firmly against the cold rock.

  “I’ve left you alone up until now, because you never interfered with me. You’ve gone too far this time, and you’ve shown me too much. You’re dangerous, Katie-girl. You have too much power for a rebellious little girl—and too little understanding of that power.” He laughed a harsh laugh. “You could even rival me someday. We can’t have that,” he chided.

  “What I want is simple. I just want to make sure that you’re never a threat to me.” He lunged her direction.

  She squealed and tried to scramble away, but there was nowhere left to go. Pap laughed that horrible laugh as his hand fisted on the front of her nightgown. He drew her up to his face and watched in amusement as she tried to wrench herself free from his grip. The cold determination in his eyes frightened her more than his scream of rage at the house. Katie cried and shook in his hands, and his smile turned stiff.

  “Now,” he purred, as his free hand cupped her jaw and cheeks, “it is time that you learned to heed your master like the rest have.”

  Katie screamed as Pap’s will covered hers. White-hot bands of steel pressed inward around her mind. Coherent thought left her. Sarah’s whispering went unnoticed through Katie’s screaming until the other girl’s warnings became a wailing urgency.

  Fight back. Do what he is doing. Use your mind to hurt him.

  Katie struck Pap with all the force of her will, fueled by fear and pain and a full measure of desperation, and Pap recoiled. The searing pain of his assault remained after the attack ended. She imagined a branding would feel rather like this. Katie was still free, and now she knew what to do to him.

  Pap had to be trapped like he tried to trap her—not made to serve her, though that would mean safety for her in the long run. His powers had to be crushed as he attempted to do to her. Powerless and with only her power remaining, he could never touch her again. Katie could order that of him.

  She pushed a surge toward him in the sudden certainty of what he feared. Katie read it in his mind as hers touched it. She was strong. In time, she would be stronger, strong enough to destroy him. But, was she strong enough now?

  Katie’s answer came swift and hard. Pap’s bellow of pain and rage lasted only a moment before he released her chin and struck her soundly with the back of his hand. The world faded several shades darke
r as her head rocked back. Warm blood cooled on her face in the chill wind. He was moving, but she couldn’t seem to figure out where he was going.

  “You will not be bound. You will not learn to obey. There is only one choice left for you.”

  Sarah’s scream brought her mind into focus, and Katie started screaming and clawing at him. Pap laughed as he neared the edge. The landscape beneath was nothing more than an indistinct blob of blackness to her, but Katie knew what awaited her there. A panic set in. He meant to drop her. He really meant to do it. She screamed louder still, praying for some intervention. The houses were far away, but maybe someone would hear her.

  “Stop,” a strange man’s voice commanded.

  She stifled her scream, stunned into silence by the answer to her prayer and afraid that the voice was commanding her to stop, afraid of angering the person who could save her. Pap jerked his head around and looked at the police officer in confusion.

  “Back away from the edge and put the child down,” he continued.

  Katie could see the progression of Pap’s thoughts clearly. He couldn’t handle her and gain control of the officer at the same time, and he knew she would interfere if she could. If Pap dropped her, he would be shot before he could gain control of the officer. Another officer topped the plateau, and he knew it was over. Still, he could exact some measure of satisfaction by taking Katie with him when he died.

  Everything happened quickly after that. Pap lurched toward the edge and threw his arms out to release her to her death. Shots rang out and a second scream matched hers. Katie clutched Pap’s wrist with both hands in desperation. Her scream crested as she felt herself falling. Pap landed heavily with his arm over the edge and a hysterical Katie grasping to the thin hold on her life.

  Pap’s eyes burned with hate and his free hand reached down to her. She thought he simply intended to pry her fingers off his arm and make her fall. Instead, he touched her forehead with blood soaked fingers and pushed back against her head. Katie grimaced as his blood splashed on her face in heavy drops.