C H A P T E R 27

Valentina Dove Blackclaw

and the little boy; Aaron had been planning for some time to be able to sneak away. Not only are there guards patrolling the night but there are also a lot of things that could go wrong that mainly she had to take care. On top of her becoming weaker with each passing day. It was only the night before that she was coughing up blood in the middle of the night. The blood being a mixture of crimsons red and black and soon she would be too weak to even move.

Aaron has been by her side the whole time and they have taken care of each other, they care for one another and while they have not known each other for long, both of them feel a bond unlike any other. A bond that they know is forever lasting and neither of them will ever break. This night they have everything ready and Valentina had mapped inside her head the route that the guards take and how to get into the forest safely where they won't be spotted, also in which direction they should go.

It shall be a long trip ahead of them and they will not be carrying that much but they do have what they can take along with them. Some rations to make sure that they don't starve and a blanket if it gets cold but other than that they barely have anything. The golden haired girl is hopeful that they will be able to make it to the castle where he is n just three days if they walk the whole night, rest for some hours and then continue with the day before sleeping during the night.

"Are you ready?" She asks him as she sets her hand out for him to take. He gives her a bright smile. "Ready" He speaks and she smiles down at him as hand in hand they walk against the wall of the cave, using their dark colors and the night to shield them and make sure that they are out of sight. Valentina's eyes of the Wolf take over her vision and her eyes begin to shift from the ice blue over to the amber that glows, allowing the girl to see in the dark. Holding Aaron's hand tightly as her eyes would always shift over to him.

Making sure that he is safe and with her, even when she holds his hand. Her heart pounds waiting her chest as they make it out of the cave but it is only then that they hear laughter and jump back behind the wall of the cave. She scans the place and not that far away from her are two guards that are talking. Mates. That is what she would guess. Two men that look in love. Sighing in relief when she realizes that they have not seen her she walks with Aaron out of the cave.

Both of them lie down on the ground and wait for a couple of seconds. Valentina counts down from seven before she helps him stand up and they take off running into the forest. The only place where she doesn't know if someone will see her or not but she has calculated that no guard is going past the cave nor anywhere near them at that time. Their feet are running until they are far enough. Safe yet still not out of the clear. Breathing heavily Valentina stops to give the boy some time to breath.

She goes down on her knees to his level and looks at him. "Are you all right?" She asks him, not caring much about her own health in the moment. While the urge to throw up is real she holds it in, wanting to be strong and soon all of that will not be bothering her anymore as she will be close to him. He nods his head and warps his hands around her waist and hugs her. Salty tears form in her eyes that she refuses to let down. The heartwarming hug that he gives her brings her nothing but joy.

"And where do you think you two are going?" A voice comes behind them. Valentina tenses. Standing up she pursues Aaron behind her as every instinct inside her is screaming at her to protect him and make sure that he will be all right and that he lives and if it comes down to it, that he has a way to escape if need be. Shock comes across the girl when she sees Melanie standing there learning against a tree with a smirk on her face, as with her eyes of the World Valentina sees her completely.

She relaxes knowing that it's her but still it does not make her heart pound any lighter than it does for it is so loud inside her chest that it is like it wants nothing more than to break out of her chest to show the world how loud it is beating. "Melanie-" Valentina begins but let's out a sigh as she doesn't have any excuse as she had never planned on getting caught so she did not even find one. "Look, please don't say anything" She speaks, not knowing what else to say to the girl in front of her.

The raven black haired girl chuckles. "Don't worry, I won't. As long as I get to come with you" She says and that does shock not only Valentina but also Aaron who is behind the girl and holds her hand tightly. He also has protective instinct inside him as he is a male Werewolf but his ones are on the smaller side but he still wants nothing more than to protect those he cares for and that is Valentina. "Why would you want to come with us?" She asks, confused at why the girl that she barely knows would want to come with them, to somewhere that she doesn't even know yet nor does she know what Valentina is planning.

"I hate this place and I want to do something to help everyone" Melanie says in a 'duh' tone as she is rather uninsured. The amber eyed girl can see how serious she is about this and there is no stopping her now, so she might as well join them. "All right but if we do this then you cannot back down. No matter what happens, no matter where we are going, you cannot go rouge on this" She speaks and looks at the girl dead in the eyes.

The raven haired girl gives her a nod. "Of course, no matter what evil comes our way, I'm not quitting" She speaks and than it was settled. The three of them would head out there. As they are walking through the forest Valentina turns to look at her with a raised eyebrow. "How did you know that we were going tonight?" She asks her. She has been rather curious since she has been hiding her plans from everyone except for Aaron but he has never spoken to anyone but her over the last couple of days.

He has been clinging to her this entire time, never wanting her to be far away from him and if she is then he will be a crying mess. He needs her just as much as she needs him. "It was quite easy. I saw how your eyes would always dart to the guards and count the seconds and memorize their route. It came very clear to me that you were planning something new but I did not know what it was so I followed you. In the shadows of course and I eavesdropped during the nights where you two sat by the fire and planned. It does not take a genius to figure all of this out" She speaks.

"Oh" Is all that Valentina said. She had thought that she was so careful with everything, and tried her hardest to make sure that none knew what she was planning but it turns out that someone has found out and is coming with them. And it would appear that Melanie had also been planning this as she too has rations and she has another blanket with them and something else that she did not want to tell them just yet.

"Don't feel bad. Everyone else were clueless in this" She tells her, trying to cheer the ice blue-eyed girl who had turned back to her normal eye color, seeing as there was no danger to be found. They have been walking for some time in the forest and none has followed them, beside Melanie. "Where are we going exactly? I never really got that part" Melanie asks the golden haired one who giggles at the question. "That is because I never said it out loud to be heard" She answers.

"We're going to a Vampire castle, Vladimir Bloodthorn's to be exact" She answers her questions and she can feel how the girl beside her tenses by hearing that. "You're joking, right? Tell me that you're joking" Melanie almost pleads but Valentina just shakes her head. And as the three of them are walking Valentina begins to tell her about her Mate and why she is going there. Not before long she is telling her the entire story and she is unable to helps herself with all the details as they just spill out of her mouth like never before and nothing gets missed out.

Melanie listened to her speak and she gave her the silence that she needed and she did not say a word nor make a sound, unlike Aaron who had to stop the girl and ask her a question if he did not understand a word that she had said or just to ask what was happening in her story telling. Valentina did not know if he knew what was actually going on in her story and believed it to be just that, a story that is meant to give them some sort of fun during the walk.

By the time that she has finished telling them they have gone to the edge of the forest where a long road is ahead of them. Valentina can feel her strength being stored inside her as she can feel him closer to her, though she is not sure why he would be so close to her when the castle is far away still and they still have a long way to get there. Yet at the same time she is not going to question such things as she can feel that she is coming to him and soon they will be in each other's arms.

They sit down by the edge of the forest to rest a bit where there is a bit of a shelter for them to hide if anything were to happen. The three of them are not only risking their own lives but the rest of the Packs because Werewolves are still being hunted and everyone wants to kill them and if they are caught then it will not take long to find the rest of them and then they have single handily brought down the Werewolf species, none of them can live with that on their conscience.

Valentina gives Aaron a piece of bread and a bit of water but does not have anything for herself, neither did she plan on having those rations for herself but to give them all to him to make sure that he has the best changes. The hope inside her screaming at her that as soon as she reaches the castle her Mate will take care of her and make sure that she is fed. It has also not been the first time that she has been starved and while the flashes of that take over her mind and the pain as well, she ignores it and focuses on the good and Aaron as well as her Mate.

"You should rest a bit, it's going to be a long way ahead of us and you need the energy" She speaks to Aaron as she notices how he is tired not only because it's the middle of the night but also because they have been walking for some time and he is only a child. He nods his head and snuggles closer to her and lays his head down on her lap and close his eyes and it was not long until he was deep in slumber, clearly in need of it.

Melanie watches it with a smile on her face. "He adores you, a lot. You take care of him and I think he's starting to think that you're his mother" She speaks and she has no clue how much her words do shock the girl. "I don't think that I can be his mother. I do care deeply about him yet I do not know how to be a mother" She confessed and as much as she would like to take care of Aaron as he was her own son she doesn't know how to, she is still new to the world, and perhaps soon she might not even live to see him grow up.

It does not go past her that she is actually dying and the fear of not being able to make it to the man that she is desperate to find as he is the man that makes her heart feel whole and he is the only one that can piece together her heart and own it but he is not forcefully taking her heart from hr chest and owning it for himself but she is gifting it to him and she is allowing him to hold on to it and love it in a way that she needs to be loved.

Holding Aaron in her arms she smiles and that smile is only meant for him. "You don't need to know how to be a mother to be a mother, you just have to make the right choices and before you tell me that you don't know if you're making a right choice, the right choice is always where you put him before your own desire" She speaks and it does make Valentina feel guilty for she is literally following her own desire.

Yet like everything else there is another side to the story and that is not that selfish of her and her actions actually do save his life if one might that it that way. If she does not travel with him to Vladimir then she is going to die and he will be forced to go through that pain again and she is not about to let that sweet boy go through the same pain again. It broke him once and he's just a child and he does not deserve it.

Which is why she has to do this. Both of them need to be alive and both of them have to live their lives to the fullest which can only happen if she is alive and that is why she does things. "And I don't suppose you know what you're talking about or did you hear all of this from sort of a healer or a counselor" Valentina jokes slightly as she plays with Aaron's hair which she has come to enjoy to do and one day she will brush it and make braids of it and laugh when he tells her he doesn't like braids.

But she stops laughing when she sees the seriousness on her face but there is also a bit of sadness. Valentina furrows her eyebrows at the girl and takes her hand. "Hey, is everything all right?" She asks but all she gets is a tear that rolls down the black haired girl's face as she lets out a sob. It worries Valentina so she takes both of her hands and while she can't move because of Aaron being on her lap she tries her best to be there for her friend.

"You can tell me everything, you already know my life and how messed up it is" She speaks to the girl who just sadly chuckles. "You're literally running to the love of your life and you say that is messed up. I would say my life is much more messed up than yours could ever be" She speaks and that does confuse Valentina. While Melanie has told her about her life there has always been this feeling that she is not telling the full story.

"How so?" Valentina asks her friend as the confusion is still very much alive inside her body, perhaps it might distract her from the pain that is slowly but surly starting to take over her body and it only wants to destroy her from the inside out and not in the good way, it wants to take her away to a world where the living cannot cross and it will be death. "I have never told anyone this before and I'm not sure how I can even speak the words" Melanie says to her but Valentina holds her hands to tell her hat she can tell her anything.

"I got pregnant once" She begins and Valentina opens her mouth as she looks at the girl, not expecting her to say those words. "You have no idea how happy I was at it and for months I was so excited but in the sixth month I felt strange. There was something wrong. I could feel it. It wasn't until we visited the Pack's healer that we found out that the baby was... d-dead. My baby girl. They took her out and I held her in my hands, she was so small. And I killed her. It was an accident, I swear it was" She speaks with the tears rushing down her face like waterfalls.

A few hours pass before they start their journey once again yet move at a slower pace, the tiredness has found its way to them, especially Valentina who is having a hard time breathing. Though neither of them notice it as she hides it well. Her chest is hurting and her heart feels like it has shattered and her every step brings forth the agonizing pain. She's sure that it will not be long until she has broken her teeth from gritting them tightly to stop herself from screaming in pure agony.

To save their energy they decided that it would best to not speak that much or barely at all. It does work for the ice blue-eyed girl for she can barely even speak at the moment nor do much anything. Her body is shaking from the pain and she is on the verge of falling down to the ground in pure agony. The pain inside her doesn't seem to leave and it only grows worse. While it should be getting better for she is starting to get closer to the man that she loves, and to her Mate.

She should be feeling better but she is not and it does not make any sense but her mind is much too occupied to think of the pain to even take a break to think of her Mate or question why she is feeling this agony. She had let go of Aaron's hand before so she would not hurt him. Valentina's hand are clenched so tightly to the point where there are crescent shapes on her palms which have started to bleed a bit from the wounds that she creates on herself.

The air seems to get hotter the more that they walk and they are going much slower than they were and the tiredness inside them is present as the sun that is starting to show itself. It seems that they have been walking all night and it shows on their faces. Aaron barely able to keep his eyes open even after the rest that he had, and Melanie is starting to grow heavy too as well as Valentina who is having a hard time controlling her eyelids. It seems that they have a mind of their own and they don't seem to enjoy wanting to stay open for the time being.

They want her to keep them closed. To make matters worse the black dots that have begun to dance on her vision have invited themselves to a party which she is having a hard time throwing them out and it would seem that they do not want to be thrown out as they are starting to take over her, overwhelm the girl to the point where she is having a hard time seeing anything at all. It takes everything that she has inside her to keep herself moving, one step at a time and she is not about to let herself fall down and crumble.

Valentina is stronger than that. She is better than that and she has survived great many things and it is not time or her to fall and let something like this beat her down. It is not long now until she is in the arms of her Mate. The girl can already feel him close to her, the bond is still there and she is coming for him and when she has him she is not going to let him go. He belongs to her and her alone and she will make sure that everyone knows it.

Her knees are shaking so badly that she can barely hold herself standing upright so when she falls down to her knees making both Aaron and Melanie have stopped in their tracks to look at her. On her knees she puts her hand to the ground and sits down. Her body unable to keep going. The dizziness in her head makes it near impossible to tell what is happening around her and she is having a hard time hearing anything. Their mouths are moving but the golden haired Werewolf can't hear it, it doesn't come to her head.

Valentina falls down in a fetal position on the ground. Their touch she can feel on her body but the tiredness is taking over her and she can't handle it anymore, her body is unable to stand. The only thing that runs through her mind is that she is dying and now is her time to go. She has lost her fight and now death is taking her as it had taken her father, even when she had fought her way through it for so long but it would seem it was just too long.

Her stomach twists and turns as it is hurting as well as the rest of her body. She is dying from the inside out. When being so far from her Mate it will start to affect her and sooner or later she knew this was happening, though what she never knew was how hurt it would be and how much agony she would be in. Aaron cries as he desperately tries to shake her and bring her back to reality, bring her back to him. A pain has formed inside his heart and he doesn't know if he can stop it.