C H A P T E R 19

Valentina Dove Blackclaw

had been on the road for so many hours and her body goes restless, aching and sore and weak from being in a carriage and not have enough strength in her body from the loss of blood. Though she is stronger than she was before but is not in full health. Valentina watches the world as it travels past them and the Wolf inside her wishes to have its senses to feel the things that the human inside her cannot feel. A soft smile on her lips as the world outside is still as beautiful as it has always been and it has not been tainted by Vampires nor anyone else.

Most of the ride neither of them had spoken that much and when she did try to talk to him the conversations were short and did not last for a long time so she gave up as she found that he was not speaking to her as if he wanted to speak to her but speaking to her because he had to speak to her. Her smile falls when her mind goes to the fact that he can still end her at any given second and will do so without hesitation nor remorse.

Forgetting the things that he has done to her is impossible and the more that the ice blue-eyed girl thinks of it the more she should be angry. Vampires killed her mother and many of her kind, they kidnapped her and sold her to him, he locked her for days without food nor water in a cell and then when she got out he forced her to become his Blood Slave and all of this has happened because of him. She should hate him.

But she doesn't and she can blame that on the bond that the two of them share, as much as she doesn't want to this is her life now and he is her destiny. "We shall be arriving soon and when we do, you shall not speak a word until we are in the room that is meant for me. Is that clear?" He asks her and she looks up to meet his intense glare and not wanting to speak she nods her head. The thoughts inside her head have brought her down.

"It seems you've already started" He jokes and for some reason her lips curl up in a small smile as she had no control over it and she does try to hide it but it seems not well enough as when her eyes meet his scarlet red ones she sees amusement in them. "I believe it's best to do what you order me to do" She says, finally using her voice. However both of them know that she did not mean a word that she had spoken and she will not be following all orders that will be given to her by him. That is clear to them both.

He chuckles. "That I do not believe is the truth as much as you wish to say it as such. Though, I do must say that up until now you've barely done anything I've told you" He tells her and when she doesn't know what he means she still nods her head and smirks. "Perhaps that is because I am a Werewolf and not one of your henchmen" She says to him with sass in her voice. Even when she is a bit weak, she does not want to back down any time soon.

He smirks at Valentina and for a split second he looked impressed with her. "My henchmen are not as good looking" He teases her and she rolls her eyes as she once again faces him. "Henchmen are usually ugly so there really isn't much to compare to" She tells him with a smirk on her face as now they are challenging each other in ways that none other can and when she believes that one might die if they ever attempt anything like the things that she has done. "May be but true beauty is hard to find when looking for henchmen" He tells her.

Her ice blue eyes only look at him as if he is the only thing in the world that matters and perhaps he does but perhaps he doesn't as he is of course the only one that she can look at beside the view. "I did not know you look for beauty when wanting people to work for you. I shall make a note on that next time we try to find people for work" She says with a smile on her face. All the poisonous thoughts vanished. He did that without knowing what he had done.

"I must say, you do have words for everything I say" He says. Clearly ran out of things to challenge her with and it puts a satisfying look on her face as she adjusts herself in then seat, though as weak as she is she finds it harder to do than she would've thought and she ends up leaning a bit more against him than she had wanted. "Of course, what fun would I be without it and if I were not amusing you, I doubt I would even be still breathing here now" Valentina says.

It is true, if she were boring to him she knew she would not be alive. Though the bond can also be preventing her death which does make her grateful. "I can get amusement anywhere I wish with one order yet I cannot have you with one order" He tells her and his eyes look away from hers as if he were vulnerable for that moment. "You do realize you just proved my point?" She asks him with a raised eyebrow and a smile on her face as he once again looks up at her but she does look away, avoiding his gaze completely.

The room that was given to him is grand and fancy and unlike anything that she has ever seen before in her life. Then again she has not gone that much as she had never left the land that the pack owned and when she was taken away she was not exactly given the best room in the world, first the dungeon and then the room that was mostly empty and old but she did like that one. The room that she stands in now is much more modern than the one in his castle.

It even has a TV built in the wall and everything and she smiles when she sees technology that she has missed when she was with him. "I assume you like the room?" He asks as when he sets her down on a bed. When her ice blue eyes are looking over the room she notices only one bed and just one of everything which does worry her. "Why is there one bed when there are two of us?" She asks him suddenly as he faces her and he sighs which does not seem to comfort her in any way.

"I am a King and that is my bed, yours is on the floor. Yet I am willing to share..." He says and wiggles his eyebrows at her. Only making her let out a quiet groan but she does not say a word to that as she lies down on the bed and sighs. It has been a couple of days since she has laid down on a bed and this one is modern and unlike the one that Vladimir has which seemed to have been made in the medieval times that he seems to be stuck in for some odd reason.

"You could always sleep on the floor. It would have no impact on my life as this is your choice and I do not appreciate your disrespect" He tells her but she scoffs at him. "I believe I have been disrespectful since the moment we met" She simply says as she turns on the bed to lie on her side to be able to face him as he has found himself a seat nearby. "Yes, it would appear so and yet I let you get away with it but it will not always be that way" He says and she smiles.

"Oh... I think it will and I even think that you will in the future think twice before you disrespect me" She tells him with a smile and a half smirk on her face as there is mischief in her eyes. She knows one thing that he doesn't. They are Mates and soon he will feel the bond too and when he does he will want to do everything for her. That is, if he does not kill her first and she does not die before that happens. He scoffs as he stands up from the chair he sat on.

Walking over to her he stands in front of the bed. "Is that so?" He asks and all she could do was nod her head at him. He opens his mouth to speak but a knock on the door breaks him from that and he collects himself. "Enter!" He hardly calls out, his voice loud enough to make her jump out from being startled. He darkly chuckles as he smirks at her. The door opens and a man walks inside. "King Vladimir, you and your Blood Slave have been invited for dinner at seven in the evening tonight" The man says as he slightly bows his head before Vladimir.

She notices that the man shows respect to Vladimir while she saw that in the split second that he looked at her, there was only disgust which she found to be offending but then she reminds herself that she is just a Blood Slave and that is what people see her as and also the fact that she is a Werewolf. "You are dismissed" Vladimir tells the man in an uninteresting voice and rather rudely to him and as soon as the man has left he turns to face her.

"If you do not wish to go, then you shall not. However, if I do leave you here alone, others might think of you as dinner and take advantages and this time I will not be able to get to you in time like last time and you will die" He tells her and the way that she heard his voice, there was concern but there was also anger and other things that she did not know what were. She thinks of this for a moment, she truly doesn't really have a choice in the matter but she doesn't want to make the choice.

The choice between being humiliated at dinner with Vampires which she has never done and doesn't know how to act or even if people will notice her, or on the other hand she will have to stay in the bedroom and may or may no be killed. Truly there is no choice for her. "I will go with you to dinner but I don't know how to act" She says to him as she forces herself to sit up. She hasn't got that much strength in her body but she does try as she doesn't want to depend on him that much.

He smirks at her. "You shall not speak nor look at anyone. You shall look down to the ground unless I order you to. I will not feed on you as you are still weak. If spoken to then you must answer but never look up at anyone. You are not to eat nor touch anything as you are to sit beside me and do whatever I order you. Do I make myself clear?" He asks her and she nods her head. His tone has changed and become darker than it had been before and it sends shivers running down her entire body.

Perhaps he just trying to act all tough for they are going to dinner with other Vampires but for her that makes her even more nervous that he has to show that he is strong in front of them because she believes that he is the strongest of them all and the most ruthless one. The golden haired girl sits on the bed and thinks of the words that he said to her and for once she truly believes herself to be a real slave for she is supposed to act like she does not even exist.

That she is only there to serve someone else and belongs to them. That brings tears into the corners of her eyes but not once does she allow them to fall down and not once does she show that all she wishes to do is let the tears down. The heaviness of the heart is threatening to come out but she doesn't allow that to bring her down, not when she is trying to be strong. Her herself and her Mate. She needs to be strong, that she is sure of and she needs strength.

Valentina had been so lost in her own mind that she had not realized that Vladimir had gone through a door that she believes leads to the bathroom and she only notices that he comes back into the room and then he sits down with a glass filled with crimson liquid which she can only guess to be blood. The horrible shivers are running down her back as the goosebumps take over her skin. For some reason this upsets her. Perhaps because he is drinking blood or perhaps because he is not drinking her blood. For her it doesn't make sense but she feels as if he should only drink her blood as he is her Mate.

However on the other hand she does not like it when he does take her blood and it makes her hurt and angry and confused all at the same time which leaves her in a knot that she doesn't know how to unravel. The world has not been that kind to her in revealing things to her and when it does it has the darkest humor that she knows of and it does confuse her even further when it should be helping her.

"Do you want strawberries?" He asks her and she as once again broken out of her thoughts as she had a lot to think of. She looks at him as he had found himself a seat and drinks the blood in the glass. "Yes, that would be nice" She answers after she has felt her stomach tighten and twist and turn in horrible directions. Strawberries are not a lot of food but that is enough to keep her from starving and the feelings that she did feel down in the dungeon always return to her when she feels hunger.

Standing up once again he picks up a bowl of strawberries that she did not know where there and had not seen before, then again she has been sort of lost inside her own mind to even have noticed that at all. "Thank you" She whispers to him as he hands her the strawberries. However she finds herself wishing to be in the place that they were before and even when they slept in a tent, she actually liked being there and she did enjoy when he fed her strawberries and held her when she ate. It makes her yearn for that once again.

"You are awfully quiet" He states as he sits down on the bed beside her, he still holding the glass of now half full of blood and the shivers run down her spine as her ice blue eyes look down into the glass. "Yes, did you not want me silent?" She asks him but she doesn't look from the blood and this dreading feeling rises within her as she doesn't want her blood to ever be in a glass like that. It makes her feel disgusted and horrified. He chuckles as he takes a sip.

"I suppose I did ask you to be silent yet I do enjoy when you speak your mind like before, something has changed and I believed it has something to do with us being around other Vampires" He says and he was correct yet not with all of it. It is true, she does feel nervous about being around other Vampires that can kill her in a second and she will not longer exist but that is not the only reason for she fears the feelings that she has started to get for him and when everything inside her screams at her that it is wrong, she does find herself falling.

Perhaps it is the bond that is falling for him or perhaps it is her or perhaps both, she doesn't know and fears to find out. "Yes, your suspicion is correct but if you want to get the reason out of me then you will have to offer me something better than what I have now" She says and she does not mean the strawberries but she will leave it to the King to figure out what she meant. He only smirks as he finishes the rest of the blood from the glass.

"You are a strange one but I think that is why I keep you around" He says and she rolls her eyes before she looks up into his scarlet red ones. "No, you keep me around for my blood but that is another story. What is the time?" She asks him. She doesn't know what the time is nor does she know when the dinner starts. Vladimir doesn't carry around with him any clocks so she doesn't even know how they will be able to tell the time as there isn't a clock either in the room with them which she finds rather odd but doesn't dwell much on the question of why that is.

"It is five in the evening" He tells her and she raises an eyebrow at him and how he knew that but it seems that he doesn't understand the look that she has given him. "Now, do you wish to bathe before we leave for dinner or after?" He asks her and she gulps at his questions. "Before" She answers and she doesn't know why she is so nervous to be talking about that with him but she is. Perhaps because he would need to help her a bit since she does not seem to have much strength to take a shower or even bathe for that matter.

Sharply nodding he stands up, sets the glass aside and then he turns to face her and he helps her stand up and while she does walk on her own two feet, he does support her and help her stand and walk as he takes her to the bathroom. "Do you want me with you?" He asks her as if it were the most casual thing in the whole world but it is not and she shakes her head and nods it at the same time. A war inside her mind.

One part of her wants him to be there with her while the other part doesn't and she is in the middle. He chuckles. "All right, I shall be there and not be there" He tells her as they are in the bathroom. "You can leave, I can handle this on my own" She tells him and he rolls his eyes as he helps her to the sink table where she is able to stand and support her body on and then he leaves.

Being alone from him makes her feel like she needs him, like her whole existence depends on him and when she doesn't want to feel this way, Valentina knows she doesn't have a choice in the matter. "If you need me, you know I am here" He calls outside the door to her and she allows a soft smile to form on her lips. The stars are aligning for her, the Mate bond is so strong that he wants to be there for her, to help her and save her. It's the bond that is working and while she doesn't know his feelings, she knows that there is something he has to feel for her.

Taking this as the perfect opportunity to get some alone time, she sits down on the toilet as it is closed and then she starts to undress herself from the dress that she is wearing and when she's naked she looks at herself with disgust. The rips are sticking out as a sign that she has not eaten that much and she did spend days in a dungeon with no food and she grew thinner. Standing up she looks at herself in the mirror and she's horrified by the girl that stares back at her.

Knowing that is may be her but it doesn't look like her at all. Her cheekbones have sunk and her cheeks are hollow like. Her eyes are lifeless and empty. Her hair is everywhere and tangled and dirty and messy. Her neck and small parts of her chest is covered in dried blood and dirt. Her whole body is skinny to the point where she sees her skeleton. It makes her disgusted at the person that stands before her and her mind doesn't feel this way at all.

She believed she was getting better than she was. Around her neck there are bruises from when he had choked her and her whole body is scattered with bruises and small cuts. Her wrist is still wounded and looks ugly like that. The pain she has ignored yet looking at all of herself and seeing how pathetic she truly looks she begins to feel for the pain and not just the pain on the outside of her body but also on the inside of it as well as her heart is paining so much that she feels as if it is about to be ripped out of her chest to be broken in a million pieces.

The tears are running down her cheeks as she stares at her own reflection and the ice blue eyes that stares back at her are foreign and don't look like hers. Then again before she was even taken her eyes had taken on sorrow and sadness as it hanged over her like a shadow that never wanted to leave her alone and she was truly living in a dark and rainy day that never wanted to end and it only makes me more and more miserable.

Valentina doesn't know for how long she has stood there, staring at herself and it doesn't matter but she breaks herself finally away from the disgusting being and she turns to the bathtub where she fills it up with water and allows it to run before she goes into the bathtub filled with warm water. As soon as she's in the water it starts to change color, not the same as before when she had bathed in the castle but it was still an ugly color. It was there to remind her how dirty she looks and has been looking for the past days.