C H A P T E R 9

Valentina Dove Blackclaw

her eyes flutter open with the tiredness still hanging onto her eyelids like the life depends on it. Heat and warmth is the first thing that welcomes her when she begins to feel her body. Valentina's ice blue eyes catch the crackling flames of the dancing fire in front of her yet it does not touch her but it does give her heat. Her body aches all over and her stomach cramps like there is no tomorrow.

The smell of death catches her nose and she realizes that it is the scent of herself. Her heart begins to pound in her chest, slamming against her rib cage as it demands to be released from the cage. Her body warm yet she still trembles not only with fear but from the cold shivers that travel up and down her whole body. She has not moved from her lying position and does not dare to move either and will not intend to move in the future. Fear is living in her bones and it shocks her to the core.

Her ice blue eyes continue to blink as they watch the dancing flame of the powerful force. Yet her eyes only stare at one spot, as if she were trying to burn holes into the wall behind the fire and as if she were not even looking at the fire at all. No sounds but the sounds of her own breathing and the cracks in the fire makes it to her ears and she would be too afraid to listen to anything else. Her hands almost shaking as her mind begins to play back the things that have happened to her.

While her body should be feeling a stinging pain she does not. She doesn't know if it is her imagination but she does not feel as much agony has she has been for the past couple of days and she believe it is because of the medicine that she has been given. However a part of her doubts the fact that she was given medicine as she is nothing to them, nothing to her Mate. All hope has been stripped away from her the moment she lost one of the things that gave her endless hope, now there is one item that keeps her awake, one thing that makes her continue and fight back.

The silver chained necklace around her neck. In just this moment she has remembered it and she may have lost the book, yet she still has the necklace and will guard it with her life. Not that she has much life left. She can barley move her body and her eyes threaten to close and welcome the darkness once more, as the darkness is the only place where she does feel safe and there is no more pain and no more suffering of any kind.

She doesn't know where she is and neither does she care. Wherever Valentina is, she isn't suffering, or at least not that much. Her heart is still broken into so many pieces that not even she can put them back together and her soul longing for a man that neither wants her nor cares for her, all she is to him is food. She jumps up in when a door is opened and she gets startled by it. "You're awake, good" A woman's voice speaks, yet the voice does not sound to be friendly nor inviting. Valentina awaits for the woman to bring agony her way.

But the pain never comes and it leaves the poor girl confused and terrified. The woman walks over to Valentina and stands in front of the fire yet her eyes never leave the same spot that she has been looking at since she opened her eyes in that room that she's in. The woman goes down on her knees and then sits down. She sees only the clothing that the woman wears, not daring to look up at her face as she can already tell that she's a blood sucking Vampire, and that terrifies her to the bones.

The woman lifts her hands slightly up and her palm comes in contact with Valentine's forehead. Her hand so cold that it sends chills down her spine and goosebumps rushing on her skin all over her body. "Your fever has gone down but not quite. Best you stay here and continue to warm up. Can you understand me?" The woman asks her. She finds it odd that she has spoken to her before and yet she asks that question when she has finishes. Valentina does nothing. Her body still and her stare still blank and on the same spot as before, showing no signs to the woman that she can understand her.

"Your heart says all the words I need to know. It is calm yet beating strong. You do not have to be afraid of me, I would not dream of harming a Werewolf nor anyone. I dedicate my immortal life to help others and heal, not kill or hurt. You are safe with me" The woman speaks softly. She pulls her hand back and takes a cloth that she was holding on and presses it against Valentina's forehead. Yet again she does not respond or shows any signs that she is listening.

But Valentina is listening to the woman. Inside she does not trust the woman nor does she want or intend to trust her. Vampires are known for being manipulative and liars, they play with their victim and prey, just as her very own Mate has done to her. "Can I at least know your name?" The woman speaks after a while. The silence had been more competing in her mind and as she watches the fire dance to stay alive she keeps her mouth shut. She has not opened it in a long time and does not plan to.

"My name is Marcella but I am mostly known as Marcy" She says to Valentina. She takes the cloth from her forehead and sighs. "Not much of a talker, are you?" She asks and then stands up and walks away from Valentina's vision. "My daughter is born mute, Gwendolyn is her name. I would guess that she's the same age as you. Lovely girl. Studying abroad" Marcy says as she takes a wooden bowl with a hot liquid inside, and then takes a spoon with her, made out of wood as the bowl is.

"I am used to not being spoken too, but I do pray that you will find your voice once again. Such a terrible thing to lose one's voice" She says and sits back down near the ice blue-eyed girl. "I understand you are frightened but there is nothing here that is going to hurt you again. No one will harm you while you are in this state. I won't allow it" Marcy tells her, as if she were attending her own child. Though Valentina does not deny that this woman would be a wonderful mother, the gestures only remind her of her own mother, the woman that she has lost.

Her grief forms salty tears in her eyes yet she does not allow them to fall. Enough tears have been shed and she doesn't want to shed anymore. "Do not cry. You are safe here. In truth you are the first Werewolf to enter those halls" Marcy says. Valentina has realized that she is only speaking to make her comfortable and safe yet how can she feel safe in a place where the live creatures that can end her in a blink of an eye? "I have soup for you to eat, you must be starving by now. You are too thin, it is not healthy" She says.

No matter what she says or does Valentina's eyes never wander from the same spot and even when the fire is slowly and barely noticeably going out she still looks at the black kohl wall behind the flames. Her trace like stare scares the woman for she believes that this girl truly is gone but doesn't know what horrors and sadness she has witness and deep inside she still fights and she will continue to fight against all that threatens to harm her.

Marcy lets out a sigh of sadness as she puts the bowl down to the ground beside Valentina and stands up. "I have to be somewhere but please eat, if not for yourself then the Goddess for may she bless your soul" She says and gives her one last glance before she goes to the door and walks out of the room, leaving Valentina alone with a bowl of soup in front of her and fear that prevents her from moving. Her eyelids feel too heavy for to keep open and her body is on the brink of shutting down from not only the lack of food but also because there might be hope but she feels like giving up.

When it has been cleared to her that Marcy won't be coming back any time soon and the silence has taken hold on her for some time her eyes finally look away from the same spot. Her ice blue eyes catch the bowl where a warm soup sits with a wooden spoon. The scent lingers in the air and her stomach begs on its knees for food, no matter what it is. Her eyes look down into the bowl and judges it.

Trying to spot even the faintest poison that could be hidden in there. Going against her stomach's wishes she continues to look down as if she were to stare long enough the answer of whether it is poisoned or not will present itself to her. For a couple of minutes she continues this before slowly her aching hand begins to move. First she moves her fingers, feeling the numb feeling in each finger as she moves them around. Then she lifts her hand but it falls right back into the same position as it were in before.

Her arm sends waves of agonizing pain throughout her whole body as she did that and she bites her own inner cheek with her teeth but only faintly as her body is too weak. No food has been given to her for days and she cannot know for how many but all that runs through her mind is that she needs that food. It might be poisoned and it might taste horrible yet either way her body does need it or she will be the next dead body that shall be carried out of this place and she has not fought this much for her to give up now.

No! Valentina has fought too much to give up and she will not be giving up. Through the pain she lifts her hand once again and then lays it down on the ground beside the wooden bowl. Her mouth waters through the dryness and she can feel her stomach already preparing itself for the food that is about to welcome itself into her stomach. Resting her hand for a bit there before she begins to lift her hand again and moves it to the wooden spoon and grasps it into her hands.

The grip she has on the spoon is weak but it is there and her lips slightly form a faint smile as she is almost there. Lifting the spoon up no matter how much is in it. She forces her hand to move towards her mouth. Drops of the soup land on the ground as the spoon travels in the air but soon she makes it to her mouth. Opening up her mouth, her lips feeling so dry that she can feel them crack and hints of blood rushes inside her mouth. Taking the whole spoon into her mouth she feels the warm liquid land on her tongue and flavor travels.

Swallowing is hard for her and her throat is aching but she forces the liquid down her throat. It feels wonderful to feel the liquid leak down her throat and then it falls into her empty stomach that feels satisfied for getting something. Dropping the spoon on the floor and taking the bowl with her hand and brining it closer to her face. She forces her head to move to the bowl and then tips it slightly so her mouth could take the bowl and then she opens it, allowing the liquid to leak down her throat.

Sleep had found her after she had confused the whole bowl of soup. Yet it did not last long as her stomach had become upset with her even when it got what it wanted this whole time. A faint wince escapes her throat as her stomach's cramping worse now that she has fed it and it's unhappy. She can't know why but it burns her and the pain is agonizing to her, she has a hard time not moving her hands to cradle her stomach to help with the pain yet it would only bring more pain her way.

Valentina's ice blue eyes fill with salty tears that threaten to fall but she refuses them for the same reason as she did want to cry before, she doesn't want to shed anymore tears. She groans in pain as her stomach pains grow worse with each minute that passes and for once she wishes she had not eaten as she is not convinced that some kind of poison was present in that will soon take her life and she hates herself for giving in the temptation. The Vampires are getting rid of her once and for all and she played their game the right way.

They used the one thing she needed against her, as Vampires are too manipulative for her own good and soon she shall leave this life forever and there will be nothing and no one to save her from this fate. Valentina won't be remembered for all she knows are either dead by now or battle for their lives. Closing her eyes to relieve herself of that pain or trying to forget it yet she can neither relive it nor forget it as the pain in her stomach sends waves of pain throughout her whole body.

The fire has grown smaller and one would not notice if walked into the room but Valentina has noticed and her eyes have seen how it is slowly dying, much like herself and her body has felt as the cold is biting her and how the fire is not warming her as much as it had done before. Not much of the room she has seen beside the fireplace and the fear if turning around and seeing her worst nightmare standing in front of her keeps her from moving out of that spot.

Yet slowly she does move her body towards the fire, trying to grasp as much heat as she possibly can to keep herself warm as the cold frightens her. Memories of being down there in the freezing cold brings her only physical as well as mental pain and she tries her hardest not to remember that and keep those bad memories away from her mind, shooting them down and ducking them away in the darkest corner of her mind to keep herself sane and protected from the and that she has gone through. Yet she still finds herself unable to forget it all.

Everything plays on repeat in her brain and it makes her want to go insane. She wonders if she has already gone insane from this. Wondering if now she is still there and hallucinations playing that make her see this fireplace in front of her and the pain she feels is her stomach digesting itself and she's falling into the eternal rest, never to be seen again. She wonders if this is all just her mind agreeing with the fate that awaits her and accepting what is to come next and where she is going.

The door opens once again and she lets out a faint and almost silent groan of pain as she is both startled and her stomach is making her want to throw up the liquid that she just put into her stomach. Footsteps grow near her and then the same woman, Marcy sits down next to her. "You've eaten. There is still will to live in there. That is good, he has not broken you" She says before she picks up the bowl and puts it on the side, out of Valentina's vision. "Do not worry, the feeling you feel is not poison" Marcy says to her as if she already knew what she was thinking of the pain.

Her eyes look over to the woman but she doesn't catch her face as her eyes are blurry from the salty water that has formed in them and her eyelids threaten to shut her eyes once more. "When the body has not gotten food for a long time and then gets food it is bound to want to back up again from the stomach is not used to it. It will take days or weeks for the body to get used to eating" Marcy says, answering the unasked question from the girl.

Valentina still doubts her words and she doesn't know if the woman is there to help her pass onto the next world or there to help her. The confusion is real inside of her and perhaps that is because she feels as if she can't trust anyone or if she has lost too much for trust again. "Now that you've eaten, I would like to change the bandages on your head. A nasty wound, I'll tell you but with my help it would be like it never happened" She says.

Her voice is low but Valentina could still hear her and that brings her to an even more confused state than she was in before she had no idea she even had a wound at the back of her head, or if she did she forgot about it. There has been so much pain and misery with her for the last couple if days that keeping track of them all has been like finding a needle in a haystack, impossible. However, the headaches she has been getting could be the result of an injury at the back of her head.

Marcy stands up and walks past her. Valentina doesn't know where she is going but at this point she doesn't care about anything. If she has the strength she would've run out of there a long time ago, no matter their attention of giving her food and medicine. She must remember that they were the reason she needs it in the first place or her own mate. Marcy comes back with a box of some sort. The box is wooden and she can't see inside of it but not does she care about it. She takes something that she can't see up from the box and puts it on the ground.

It's a smaller box, smaller than her own palm and made out of wood, dark wood, but she can't tell the type for she has never seen this type of wood before as it is too dark. In the box is a green substance and judging by the smell of it, she has realized that it is Aloe Vera salve of some sort but never seen this type but on the other hand she does not know how Vampires live or do things. "To my people this is called The Salve of Life because it has the ability to heal wounds in ways that normal plants cannot" Marcy tells her.

It is as if Marcy can read her mind for she has answered two questions that she has only thought. Her eyes stare at the green salve in the box. Some but not a lot has been taken from it. "You see, my family are humans" Marcy announced quietly to her. Not only shocking the girl but also confusing her even further. She wonders if she had been wrong when she had noticed that she was a Vampire, her skin felt cold against hers before and she has the same scent as a Vampire does.

Marcy takes a clean cloth and dips it into the green salve and takes some of it into the cloth. Then she moves Valentina's head to the side a bit which earns her a wince from her. "Forgive me for all the pain I cause you, I do know that this hurts and I'm trying to make you feel better" She says, trying to move as fast as she can so this can be done with it and she will not feel as much pain from this.

She presses the cloth against the wound and a sharp pain runs through her as she does this. "It will soon be over" Marcy tells her. "I used to be human once, it is true. But life always has a different plan for us and sometimes we just have to accept the things that have been thrown our way. I did not choice this life but with time I learned what a gift it has been for me and a family that I love with my whole heart" She continues as she rubs the green salve on her wound.

Valentina finds it odd that a Vampire, the most vicious creatures to ever walk the earth speaks about love and family as if she were a normal person that doesn't crave the crimson liquid in people's veins. Her story sounds so unbelievable yet somehow she finds it in herself to believe it and it does confuse her as does everything that has happened to her in this place. "Am I going to die?" Valentina asks, her voice barely a whisper. Her throat burns when she speaks and when she has her mouth opened she feels as if she will throw up at any second.

Marcy is shocked but not only because of her question but also because she spoke. The first words she has spoken. That is a start. "No. I don't think he would allow you to die" She answers but Valentina is still confused. Marcy lets out a sigh as she removes the cloth, with now most if the slave on the wound. "I know you believe us to be monsters and perhaps we are but those ten days you were locked down there I could sense that there was something different about him" Marcy tells her.