AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re not chaining me up?” she asks, her voice still thick with sex.
I manage a smile. “Chain you back up? I’m not an animal,” I tell her. Then I step outside and close the door, making sure all the wards are activated so that she’s locked inside.
“Goodnight Rose,” I whisper before heading off down the hall.
Chapter14
Rose
My dove. He had called me hisdove.
When I was Dahlia, he called me his dove all the time. I don’t think it’s a phrase he gives to everyone. He didn’t call Mina or Lucy his dove either. But to Dahlia he did. He was my lord and I was his dove.
And yet here we are again, lord and dove.
Does he know? Is he remembering?
I’m not sure. Though this Valtu is harder to read, I’m still pretty good at getting a handle on him and I think I’d know if he remembered or suspected. Instead, I think he used the term without a second-thought, not realizing the importance and relevance behind it.
Even so, I took those words straight to my heart. I’m holding them there tightly, because in the end, they might be all I have left of what we were to each other. That little term of endearment could be the only thing remaining in the end.
I exhale heavily, my heart feeling damp, and look out the window. It’s the morning and I’m still in this damn room with its chains and nightmares. Outside, the sun has risen above the clouds, a shaft of it coming in and turning the charcoal floor to light gray. In the daylight it doesn’t seem scary at all. It wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine this as some boutique hotel in the mountains or one of those crazy ass house rentals cut into a cave or something.
But last night told a different story.
The baby, the demon…
And the pure terror I felt when I realized that Valtu didn’t seem to care what happened to me. I was still just disposable to him, like all the others were.
Thankfully I fell asleep right away last night and slept all the way in till morning, the sex having tuckered me out.
Because…holy fuck.
I had completely forgotten that I was a virgin.
Before I remembered my past lives, I’d always felt a little sheltered from the boys. Maybe it’s because we’d moved around so much, maybe because I didn’t know any vampires and so I knew I’d have to try and hide my true nature from everyone. How can you date someone when your relationship will expire when you turn twenty-one? So aside from a few kisses at a baseball game, or playing spin the bottle, or getting groped at the school dance, I didn’t have any experience with sex at all.
But only my body carried that reality, not my heart and soul. I’d had sex as Mina, as Lucy, as Dahlia, and when it was Valtu it was the dirtiest most mind-blowing sex you could imagine. There wasn’t anything that I haven’t already done with him.
This body didn’t know that though, not until he was thrusting inside me.
I’m tight and he’s incredibly large and the pain took me by surprise.
What happened next, well, that should have surprised me too. But it’s Valtu, so it didn’t. Some things never change. That man has to experience everything life has to offer, and he’s always made sure to take me along for the ride.
Now, though, my body is sore. When I move there’s a real tenderness between my legs. I know vampires heal fast—the marks the demon made on my chest are already gone, fully healed—but this feels like it might stick around for a bit.
I made it through the night, at least. He called me his last night, a hint of his possessiveness I once took for granted, but I don’t trust him enough to know that it will last. He might have claimed me, called me his dove, but that was last night and I have no idea what type of person he’ll be in the morning.
I decide to get up and find out. I pull my small bag of toiletries out of my pack and head into the bathroom to take a shower. To my surprise there’s modern plumbing, which makes me wonder how exactly this place was designed. Did he create it out of magic, or had it been something else before?
There’s hot water too, which feels like magic itself, and I find myself lingering in the shower, enjoying the warmth while trying to psyche myself up for the day. I have to think on my feet without giving anything away. This might end up being a very long game, but if I stay on Valtu’s good side, I have a shot of accomplishing what I came here to do.
God, you sound just like Dahlia, I think to myself.
It’s true. Our lives are overlapping in more ways than one. But Dahlia had to hide who she truly was—a witch. An assassin sent to kill Valtu. What I have to hide is, well, Dahlia. I’m at least free to be Rose.
In theory, anyway. What I want more than anything is to text Dylan, talk to my mom and dad, let them all know that I’m okay. I want to know ifthey’reokay. But I had to leave my phone in San Francisco. There was no way I could risk bringing it to Valtu’s. Even though it’s encrypted and protected by a password and facial ID, vampires have an uncanny knack for breaking tech to their advantage. And with Valtu possessing magic, well, it wouldn’t be long before he’d be scrolling through my phone and wondering how I’m connected to Lenore and Solon and everything else. The cat would be out of the bag.
