Chapter 17

“Seth!”

Alex hurried into Seth’s room where his friend was still recovering from the beatings. He was sitting up in bed, engrossed in drawing within his sketchpad.

Prior to their capture, Alex hadn’t known of Seth’s amazing artistic abilities. Seth had created a stunning portrait of Anna, which Alex had taped above his bed. Alex also had a particular fondness for Seth’s satirical cartoons depicting their malevolent captor. But those were kept hidden.

Seth put his pencil down and looked up, raising his eyebrows. “What’s up?”

“Anna came again.” Alex sat down hard on the chair in the corner. He smiled. “She looks so much better. And she didn’t hate me.” He ran a hand over his cheek, almost feeling her touch again.

Seth chuckled. “Told you.”

Alex shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know.”

“So what did she say?”

“She said...” Alex sighed. “She said she didn’t want to dream of me, but she was...” He thought back to the few precious moments of being with his beloved again. “But she wasn’t angry. She was sad. I guess that’s better.” He shrugged and leaned his elbows on his knees. “Maybe not.” He looked up. “She’s still wearing our wedding band.” He rubbed his finger over the antique script on his ring. Though they were thousands of miles apart, she still wore her ring.

Seth nodded approvingly. “She’s moving through the stages of grief. Sadness is near the end of the cycle. That’s good.”

Alex stared at the floor. “I tried to tell her I was real, that it wasn’t a dream, but she didn’t take that well.” And the tears about the baby... Why was she just now grieving over the loss? What else had Devin done?

Vlad had told him what Devin had done to her and the baby, and Alex had been so furious he’d nearly destroyed his room. He’d spent a couple of weeks in the cellar after that. That fucking freezing cellar Vitaly put them in whenever they pissed him off too much, or he had guests. He got sick every time he went in there.

“Maybe you just need to let her think it’s a dream.”

Alex looked up. “What?”

Seth shrugged. “Maybe if you just let her think it’s a dream, she won’t be afraid, and you can just enjoy seeing each other.”

“But if she believes me, then she’ll let Vati know and we can be rescued.”

Seth scrunched his face. “Remember what Vlad said? She’s not allowed to see him.”

Alex leaned back in the chair and stared up at the ceiling. Seth was right. Devin had apparently amassed so much power, he could now command foreign Elders. Vlad didn’t seem to approve of it, but Alex hadn’t dared press for more information. The Russian hated him, and Alex suspected he’d only brought it up to torment him. Vlad and his father loved messing with his head. And they had. The thought of Anna being cut off from the only family she had—his family—was distressing, to say the least.

He’d been hoping that eventually Anna would believe that her dreams were real and she could tell his father, but, as Seth had reminded him, that wasn’t possible anymore. He closed his eyes and let out a long breath. The tiny bit of hope Anna’s appearance had given him had been extinguished.

Then it flickered back to life. She’d admitted she missed him. She hadn’t given up on him. And he refused to give up the idea that someday they’d be reunited.