Dark Desires: Deliverance (13 page)

Vlad felt the searing
pain as the attack connected - he had felt worse and straightened his spine in
indifference. He let the cheap
shots go, knowing
they
served a purpose - It would fuel his opponent's confidence before he launched
his attack.

"Are all the
rumours about The
Impaler
just hype? Do you get other
men to do your torturous work for you? Because I must confess, I'm not
impressed."

"That's you,
pampered prince." Vlad's face was a mask of impassivity.
Keyaan
made a mental note.

"Speaking of
pampered, I did that for Valerie when she was under my care. I gave her
everything she could possibly want."

At the mention of
Valerie, Vlad's nostril's flared with his newly roused temper. He rushed
forward like a raging bull and again
Keyaan
dodged
him like a skilled matador. He struck successive blows, aiming the jabs at the
previous spots he had hit. This time, Vlad doubled over as the effect of the
attack took its toll on his body. Vulnerable,
Keyaan
dropped his elbow onto the left, upper quadrant of Vlad's back, aiming for his
kidney.

Razvan
watched the fight in shock. Physically, Vlad had every advantage needed to win
and skilled to a degree that would this fight a landslide victory. The sheik
was outclassing him with precision and mental dexterity. Vlad was being played
like a finely tuned organ and
Raz
wondered whether he
knew it.

In Romanian, he tried
to reach him, "
Y
ou need to get your emotions in check. He's using
them against you."

Vlad did know that he
was being poked and prodded where it hurt most. It was just much harder than it
looked to stay calm. The smug smile on the face of the man who spoke about
Valerie with such familiarity was difficult to ignore.

"You should have
seen her this morning, so beautiful."
Keyaan
closed his eyes briefly as he remembered running his hands across her skin in
the warm, sudsy water and later stroking her wet core. He opened them in time
to see Vlad's fury launching him into another blind attack.

This time, when
Keyaan
crouched for the bruising blows, Vlad ground his
heels in and used his body weight to spear him into the ground. The impact took
the breath out of
Keyaan's
lungs with its force and
surprise. He held his nemesis neck in place and punched him twice, hearing the
desired crack at the bridge of the nose. He returned the previous four blows he
had suffered in kind, but his hits bore such brutal force that he knew he broke
a rib or two.

"You never stood
a chance against me. Let this be a parting lesson as your life slips away from
you.
You.
Don't. Take. What's. Mine."

The wheezing breaths
that
Keyaan
took let Vlad know that the broken rib
had punctured a lung. He would choke on his own blood. When the man began
laughing, he thought he had lost his mind as he met his end. "She doesn't
belong to you anymore, especially after today. She will never forget me."

Vlad had heard enough,
he just didn't have the kind of control that would allow him to stand silent as
this man ran his mouth about his woman. The previous plan, that included
crushing the sheik's windpipe and feeling the last breaths leave his body
before mounting him on a stick, was abandoned. He took the battered face of the
sheik into his bruised hands and snapped the bastard's neck.

Vlad made his way to
the room wherein Val had been held for over a month. Standing outside was his
informant and her personal guard, Mohammed. He had given up the sheik in
exchange for a new identity and enough money to start over somewhere far away
and remote. A gay man in the Emirate state was forced to live a double life. He
was tired of hiding and being alone.

"Mohammed?"

"Yes." He
stood at attention and looked Vladimir in the eye.

"How is
she?"

Moe thought back to
the events of earlier this morning. He hadn't heard any sounds of disturbance after
leaving the sheik alone with Valerie, but he had heard the whispers of the
servants. They spoke of how he had taken off his
thobe
, sat with her in
the bathroom and afterwards stood at the threshold until they were done
cleaning up to ensure she wasn't disturbed. Indeed, when
Keyaan
came out of the room he was sans his ankle-length robe. He had his suspicions
but it was not something he felt comfortable discussing. Vlad could possibly
hold him accountable. It had been his duty to protect her. "She had a bad
morning."

"What do you
mean by a bad morning?"

"She vandalised
her room and the sheik came to see her about it."

Vlad had heard
enough. He wanted to see his Valerie for himself. He would determine whether or
not she was okay. When he walked in she was lying on the bed. Her head looked
in the direction of the door to see who had walked in. At the recognition of
Vlad, she was up and in his arms faster than he thought she was capable of
moving. Tears stained his chest and the act nearly broke him. He was not doing
very well with his vow to never be the cause of her pain. "Hey, I'm here
now" he mumbled into her hair as he soothingly rubbed her back.

"I know."

"Are you
okay?" It was a stupid question to ask, all things considered, but he had
to find out how she was faring after being trapped in this godforsaken place.

"Y-yes, I'm just
so happy to see you." She wasn't doing too well. She had actually been on
the verge of a mental breakdown when he walked through the door. Lying was
going to be harder than she thought.

"Let's go, I
don't want to keep you here longer than necessary."

As they moved through
the palace walls, she took note of the dead bodies that were strewn about. Moe
was never too far behind and Vlad did not seem affected by it. She wondered
whether he had been on their side all along but a more pertinent question came
to mind. "Where is Gaby?"

"She left
earlier in the week. Don't worry she's safe."

Val thought of the
kind woman's lover with gloom, "And Kamal?"

Mohammed gave her the
most genuine smile she'd ever seen from the staunch man she had come to know.
"He is chasing after her, as usual."

There was one person
she dreaded to ask after but had to know.
"And Key- the
sheik?"

Vlad had been listening
in on their exchange and answered the question himself. "He's dead. I made
sure of it."

They made their way
outside where they were met by the heavy sound of rotor blades cutting through
the air. She climbed into the passenger seating located in the middle of the
helicopter and she was secured in by Vlad who took his seat on one side of her
and Mohammed on the other. There were shortly joined by three other men she had
never seen before. Soon they were airborne.

When they landed at
the private airport, they moved straight to the jet that
Taras
had been gracious enough to provide. It was sleek and luxurious but too
ostentatious for Vlad's taste. The only reason they were on it was at the
behest of
Razvan
- boarding a commercial flight would
have risked discovery.

When everyone was
settled in Andrei approached Valerie.  "Vlad, aren't you going to
introduce us?"

"Fuck off."
He wasn't in the mood to entertain his brother. He just wanted some privacy
with his woman.

"Valerie, if you
ever get tired of my brother, just
know
that I'll
gladly take his place. I'm Andrei." He stretched out his large, manicured
hand and bent over to kiss hers.

"H-hi!"
Val was flustered by the devilishly handsome man who held her hand. She
couldn't believe that she was meeting a member of Vlad's family at the worst
possible time.

"Someone wants
to die today."

Andrei let go of her
hand, knowing that he'd ruffled his quota of Vlad's feathers for the day and
turned to the voice that spoke. "This grouch is
Razvan
,
the older, more depressing version of Vladimir."

"Nice to meet
you too" she smiled timidly at the man who regarded her with sharp, royal
blue eyes that were a shade darker than Vlad's but magnificent all the same.

Throughout the
exchange, Vlad remained silent, holding her small hand in his much larger one,
whilst gently massaging the inside of her palm with his thumb. It's his eyes
that did all the talking and if looks could kill, Andrei would be on the wrong
side of the plane door very soon. After the brief introduction, he steered
clear of her and Vlad. The man had attached himself to her side and allowed
no-one to go near her.

The relaxed
atmosphere and the man beside her was a different experience in travel compared
to the journey she had been forced to make a month before. "Are we on our
way back home?"

"No, we're going
to Istanbul in Turkey. I thought of you when I last visited the city a few days
after we met. I promised to take you with me when I had the chance." He
lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a loving kiss to her fingers.

Val squeezed his hand
in a show of affection. He was an enigma to her. He played the cold, aloof man
in front of others but with her, he was genuinely romantic. She didn't want to
draw any attention to the change in case he backpedalled, so in a show of
appreciation, she placed a kiss on his
stubbled
cheek.

After the couple had
checked into the presidential suite at the Millennium Suites, it was close to
midnight. For the second time in Val's life, she was in a different location
with nothing to her name except the clothes on her back. She undressed from her
side of the bed with her back turned to Vlad. He had seen her, all of her, from
various angles and positions, yet tonight she was ashamed of her nudity. She
felt like a different woman than the one that had left Cape Town, she felt
tainted.

Vlad had also gotten
out of his clothes in preparation for bed. His eyes were locked on Val, the
woman who had hounded his dreams almost every night since she had been taken from
him. He didn't plan on doing anything other than holding her tonight - that was
until he saw her exposed, smooth, brown skin enhanced in beauty only by the
glow of the bedside lamp. His howling erection had him reconsidering the short
respite he planned to give her. He went over to her side and stood behind her,
running his thick fingers down the curvature of her spine. He placed his
calloused hand on her waist and spun her around to face him, tilting her head
back to look into her eyes. "You were right during that Skype call we had.
I never did tell you how beautiful you are. You are the most beautiful woman in
the world to me." He bent down and kissed her gently, savouring the feel
of having his woman back in his arms again.

Val felt the tears
slip down her cheeks. This time, they were a result of his loving words, words
she wished she could believe because at present she felt anything but
desirable. If she weren't so beautiful, would
Keyaan
have focused his attention on her? The unanswered questions continued to
disturb her, even as Vlad picked her up and laid her on the bed. It was only
the sound of his voice that pulled her out of her miserable thoughts.

"I've missed
you. Every single day, every single minute that you were away from me, I
thought of you." He gently tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear
wanting an unobstructed view of her. There were so many thoughts and emotions
running through him that he found himself dumbstruck - struggling to find the
right words to articulate how he felt. "I'm sorry I let this happen."
He kissed the top of her left breast then her right. "I'm going to spend
every day making it to you."  He continued to worship her body,
trailing kisses all the way down to her navel. He continued his adoration,
giving her light pecks on the inside of her thigh and drew himself back up, his
concentration on the prized jewel he had longed for.

"No!"

"What's
wrong?" The look of worry on his face tore at her heart. The only way to
explain her rejection of him was by telling him what had happened earlier this
morning. Was there even a point in regaling the events if the man responsible
was dead?

"I haven't
showered all day." She was too craven to say anything on the topic and
offered up an excuse instead.

"We can shower
afterwards," he said it with a finality that was adhered to when he ran
his tongue down her slit. He worked her lips from the outside in and latched
onto her pearl with such force it propelled her to the pinnacle of pleasure.
When he inserted two digits into her core, the euphoria ceased with the flash
of a memory.
Keyaan
had also worked her to bliss with
his skilled hands.

"Vlad
stop!" He pulled back immediately and regarded her with concern. Again the
guilt and shame prevented her from telling him the truth.  "I need
you. Make love to me now, no foreplay. I just..." He nodded his head in
understanding. He also needed her. He had dreamt of this moment for so many
nights, in so many different ways that he needed to make sure that this was
real. He aligned himself against the channel he knew as if it were his own and
thrust into her.

Val kept her eyes
open as he entered her. Vlad's powerful shaft pushed in and pulled out of her
and his hips ground against her own. The visual connection she maintained as
she watched him ensured that her mind and body did not mistake him for someone
else and rob her of the joy brought on by their pleasurable reunion.  With
the familiar contraction of her walls, she sought his lips with her own,
twining her tongue with his as a reaffirmation. When the heat suffused her
insides as his essence spilled into her, she opened looked at him and found
herself staring at ice blue prisms. This was the man that she loved.

Once he'd emptied
himself inside of her, Vlad pulled her body to
lay
on
top of his. "I will never leave you unprotected again, I promise."

For a long time after
they had made love and he'd echoed the words of his heart, she lay awake,
thinking of how she was going to keep the discovery of that incident from ever
seeing the light of day. Having not come up with any concrete ideas, she
eventually drifted off to sleep feeling protected in his arms.

Over the next couple
of days, Vlad took her sight-seeing in the city. They had visited Blue Mosque
and
Topkai
Palace the day before and had just
returned from the
Hagia
Sophia Museum. In retrospect
taking her to another palace may have been a bad idea but she didn't voice any
grievances, in fact, she was uncharacteristically quiet. At first, he thought
that she was having a hard time adjusting to being sociable. Beyond the
introductions on the jet,
Razvan
and Andrei saw her
again in passing when they came by their suite to say goodbyes – even then she
hardly spoke what would constitute a whole sentence.

Then there was her
reaction to him. Whenever he took hold of her hand or rested it on her back as
they walked, or placed it on her leg or any other part of her body, she would
flinch before she relaxed and eased into his touch. The reaction had thrown him
off to the point that he was compelled to do his own investigation to find out
why. He had to persuade her, almost to the point of pleading, that she allow
him to wash her in the shower – that was strike one. Her body remained tense as
he ran his fingers across her shoulders, back, stomach, breasts and legs – that
was strike two.  He checked for any bruises, any signs of marring on her
skin that would indicate she had been abused in some small way, but he saw none
and it pissed him off because there was no explanation of her behaviour – that
was the third and final strike for him. His only conclusion was that the fault
lay with him. She was angry with him but miserably failing at keeping the fact
hidden.

"Valerie, you
know you can talk to me."

"W-what?
I mean talk about what?"

"You're angry
with me and you have every right to be."

"I was in the
beginning. I floated between loving you and hating you but towards the end I
forgave you… you came back for me."

"You love
me?"

She nodded her head
in the affirmative as she continued to dry herself off.

This was not what he
was expecting. She was mad at him and he wished she would just get it off her
chest instead of keeping it all locked in and creating this divide between
them. "I'm not worthy of your love and I'm not worthy of your forgiveness
either. If I had stayed away from you after I left Cape Town, then none of this
would have happened."