VALERIAI was scared, very scared but more than that, I was confused. Grace was supposed to be dead. She was four years in the grave. Just recently, Amelia had gone to mourn by her graveside. She certainly couldn't be another of Dimitri's look-alikes. Of that I was sure.I blinked, half expecting her to simply vanish or her features to morph into someone else's, but she remained there, bent over me, staring at me in surprise. A chill ran down my spine. Looking at her was like looking at my own reflection in the flesh."Grace." My voice was little more than a squeak. The sound of my voice brought her to herself. She got off me and shakily stood on her feet. "If you're not dead... where have you been all this time?"She gave a slight shake of her head and began to back away really slowly. She kept looking at me like I was a ghost. When the center table was finally between us, she moved around the house, touching objects, lifting them and putting them down again as though she wanted to b
DIMITRII waited impatiently for the last person to leave the meeting room. I bowed him out and then I left, shutting the door behind me. On my way to my office, I stopped at Valeria's on the off chance that she had forgiven me and that we were all over the issue we were having. I was surprised to find that she wasn't there. Her desk was very well arranged, not the usual way it used to be before she got off work. It almost seemed as though she had clocked off for the day. I shut her door, called on the man crossing the corridor at that time."Sir?" he said, looking expectant."Valeria," I said. "Do you know where she is?""Oh. She isn't here at the company. She left a while ago and hasn't come back since. I think she left for the day," he volunteered.I called Vance and was surprised to hear he wasn't with Valeria."Why the hell not?" I exploded. "And where is she?""She's at home. I dropped her there on her request... that was after she visited her Grandma at the hospital. She told m
DIMITRIValeria went over to the bed and began to sulk. I dragged my hands across my face as I tried to get my breathing under control.Yes. I wanted her physically but then this behaviour of hers was rather strange. Valeria would never want to use sex to gloss over the issue we were having. It was puzzling, really puzzling and I could not go to bed without trashing out the issue."Valeria."She gave me a swift sideways glance and a frown. "What? Did you change your mind?""No actually," she said slowly. "You have been so angry with me lately and yet you want us to have sex?""Yeah. Well. You pushed me away, didn't you? You obviously don't want it."I went to sit by her."That is not the point," I said."What is?" she muttered."The point is that it's very unlike you. You always insist on us talking out our issues before engaging in any form of intimacy. Tonight... you're different.""It's the pregnancy," she said as though it were obvious. "Pregnancy hormones play hell with a woman'
VALERIAEveryday it was the same; the steady, monotonous drip drip drip of water leaking somewhere. Most times, the sound haunted me in my dreams. It was all I could usually hear in the silence of this place. I had cried so much that it now seemed as if my tears had dried up. The worst thing about being kidnapped, placed in an underground room and chained to the wall like a dog was the silence. There was no one to talk to, no sounds at all except the sounds I made on the occasions that I cried. I had not even been told why I was here.In this hellhole, there was no way of knowing night from day. All hours of the day looked the same. Although judging by the long, long hours I had spent here, I figured I had been kidnapped for days already. Exactly how many days I had no way of knowing.And then I thought of Dimitri. The thought of him brought fresh tears to my eyes. I wondered how he was faring now. No doubt he would be worried sick about me and our baby. Maybe he would think I had r
VALERIAI came to myself a while later. I didn't know how long I had been out. My brain felt fuzzy. My stomach hurt and my mind still reeled from the deviousness of Grace's plan. There was a miserable, hollow feeling in my chest as I slowly sat up. I could not see any other way of getting out of this situation.The tips of my toes touched something hard and unyielding, something that did not feel at all like the texture of the plates used to give me food. Curious as to what this was, I put out a hand, ignoring the feel of the chains cutting into my wrists, and groped for the object. Finally, my fingers closed on something thin and rectangular, something with a screen. My throat went completely dry. The blood roared in my ears. I knew what this object could be, but was it even possible that something like that could be here? I brought the object close to my face and crowed with happiness. It was tablet! Judging by the blinking light in the top right corner, it was fully charged. Fo
DIMITRIThis phase; that is if it was a phase (I was seriously beginning to think it wasn't) had not passed yet. Valeria was still behaving as weirdly as ever, even more so. With every passing day, I saw a new facet of her character. I would have been a liar if I said her attitude wasn't giving me a cause for concern. At home and at work, it was the same thing. It was like she had gotten a whole new personality, albeit an unpleasant one. One thing I was sure of was that I had to get to the bottom of this. My work lying abandoned, I thought of ways by which I could get to know what was really going on with her. First, I had to be sure that Valeria's new attitude was not all in my head. Someone else had to confirm that Valeria had changed, that I was not just imagining things.Having come to this decision, I quickly left my office, went over to the corridor where Vance was standing guard. I gestured for him to follow me to a place where we could not be overheard. "I have a job for you
DIMITRIShe was in a good mood when I got back home. I could tell by the smile that lit up her face the moment I stepped into the room."Missed me?" I murmured."Always."She got up to take me into her arms. I tried not to be too still as I wondered if she would use this opportunity again to initiate sex. Thankfully, she didn't. She pulled me over to bed and seemed genuinely interested when she asked about my day."Something on your mind?" she asked me a while later.My fingers briefly stopped massaging her hands. There was actually something on my mind. I was still mulling over my idea of taking her to the pack. I still wasn't sure that it would be one of the solutions to the problem. But watching her watch me, I decided I had to at least try something."As a matter of fact, I do," I said. "I had an idea today. I will be spending some time at my pack for a while and I want you to come with me. I am sure a change of environment will do us both good.""I think...""You think?""That it
VALERIAJudging by the dull headache I felt, I had been asleep for a long time. I had just woken up rather abruptly. Lately, I had been doing a lot of sleeping. Who would blame me? What else was there to do in my lonely cell but to plot on how to escape if I ever had the chance, and to sleep. At least dreams brought oblivion and made me forget how miserable I was for some time.I stretched my legs, began to sit up and froze. The hairs on the back of my neck began to prickle. The room was dark as usual, but I felt instinctively that there was someone with me in the room. Someone was there, watching me. Seconds later, I was sure it was this feeling that had woken me up.I blinked rapidly, shut my eyes tightly and blinked again. Opening or shutting my eyes made no difference in the oppressive darkness of the room. I could not see a thin, just a solid wall of darkness that somehow looked more solid at a spot on my left. Or maybe that was my imagination. The feeling of being watched made m