She shook her head and sniffed. Things might have turned out so differently. So many ‘if onlys’ in her life. Maybe Devin wouldn’t have become so powerful. Maybe she and Kurt would have been married by now. Maybe she would have been happy again.
Peter reached for her hand and intertwined his fingers with hers. “I’m sorry, Anna. I misjudged you. I shouldn’t have listened to...some people and should have listened to my gut when I met you.”
He tugged at her hand and she went and sat in his lap and cried while he held her.
*****
Peter became genuinely affectionate towards Anna after that conversation. He held her when they went to sleep and when she woke, he was still holding her. He didn’t ignore her at home anymore, and even took her with him when he went out with his friends, though she still didn’t speak to people much. But when she did, she wasn’t mean or rude.
Among Peter’s group of friends that he went out with regularly was Aaron. Anna didn’t speak to him much, but Peter didn’t get upset when she did. Sometimes he even seemed to be encouraging their friendship, though Anna still kept her distance. She didn’t understand what had happened to make Peter nicer and didn’t fully trust it. Devin had been nice once, too.
Chapter Seventeen
Devin gave Peter permission to take Anna to his family’s home for Thanksgiving. The weekend before Thanksgiving, she went to the Gathering at the Manor as usual, but Devin didn’t have sex with her or anyone at the Gathering. He’d had her play with his cock, but wouldn’t let her finish him off. He slept with her in his bed that night, but didn’t have sex with her.
The next morning, he woke her early, sucking on her clit. He brought her to the edge of her climax and then stopped and held her down and fucked her hard, but wouldn’t allow her to come.
Ian appeared and with a strange sense of déjà vous, he and Devin tied her to his bed. Suddenly she realized what they were doing.
“No! No, Devin, please don’t.” Kaveh would come later and impregnate her. It was the same nightmare that happened this time every year.
Devin smiled and held up the syringe. “I thought about mixing it with your favorite fluid.” Anna was about to relax, but then he continued. “And so I did.”
He pressed the needle into her neck and the fire started immediately. It was much, much worse this time and she screamed as it rapidly entered her bloodstream and caused her whole body to feel as if it were on fire. The nerve juice made it worse and everything inside and outside was so painful she couldn't stand it. She screamed and tugged, which made everything worse.
Devin sat with her and traced patterns on her stomach with his finger, which felt like razor blades digging trenches in her skin. She screamed in pain until she couldn’t scream anymore.
Kaveh appeared as the fire was subsiding, but the nerve juice was still active. When he entered her body and pushed into her womb, it was the worst pain she had ever experienced and had she been able to scream, it would have likely echoed through the whole Manor. Kaveh moved his hips and pressed in deeper and deeper. Tears ran down the side of her face as her stomach cramped and he thrust hard and deep, the pain rising to unbelievable levels. But she couldn’t scream. She could only lay there and feel it. She felt her body tense and explode as if she were having an orgasm, but there was no pleasure. Only pain. Her muscles involuntarily clenched against him and he shouted as he came.
She hoped that once he left the pain would subside a bit, but it didn’t. She couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t think. All she could do was lie there in pain.
*****
“What’s wrong with her?”
The voice sounded familiar, but her brain was too fuzzy to put a face to the voice.
Anna opened her eyes, realizing with relief that the white-hot pain was gone, though she was still hurting. She was in her bed at the Manor. The light coming through the windows was faint. She must have fallen asleep and slept through the afternoon.
“She’s fine. Just some aftereffects of the morning.”
She brought her knees to her chest as her abdomen began cramping. She groaned and someone pulled at her shoulder to roll her to her back. Kaveh looked down at her with his golden eyes and put his hand on her stomach.
He smiled. “It’s done.”
Anna closed her eyes and hopelessness swept over her. Another pregnancy to deal with. There was no happiness with this one. No Alex to give hope. The baby would stay inside her until Devin needed it in the spring. And he would once again rip it from her body. She wished she were doped up on drugs again. She didn’t have much memory of the previous two experiences, and was plagued with the happy memories from the first time.
“Can I take her home? I have things I need to do this evening.” It was Peter. That was the voice she’d first heard. He sounded...irritated.
“Of course. Or you can come get her tomorrow.” Devin sounded amused.
“I don't want to drive back out here. You could have told me before I came that I’d be waiting. Besides, you had her already last night. I had to sleep alone.”
“You are always welcome to come, Peter. You know that.”
“I appreciate that, but Friday nights are my favorite night to go to the clubs. The women are more...willing on Fridays after a long week of working.” He laughed and Devin laughed with him.
So that’s what Peter did on Fridays when she was here. Well, at least she knew that he wasn’t sincere in his changed actions towards her.
“She gets pretty bad morning sickness about a month in...just to warn you.”
“Great. And I get to deal with it?”
“You get to fuck her every night. That more than makes up for it.”
“Except for those lovely nights when she’s too beat up to be any good to me.”
“It can’t be helped, Peter. Men have violent appetites.”
Peter sighed. “Where are her clothes?”
Anna felt fabric hit her legs. “Get dressed, Anna,” Devin said. “Your boyfriend wants to take you home.”
“Will I hurt the baby if I fuck her?”
“No,” Kaveh answered. “It’s nearly impossible to hurt the baby. Just don't stab her in the stomach and you’ll be fine.”
The three men laughed and Anna sat up slowly. She didn’t look at them as she reached for her clothing. She was trembling and it took her a few minutes to get dressed.
As she walked with Peter and Devin out of the Manor she felt foolish. Peter had deceived her like Devin had when she first came to the Manor. The last few weeks she had slowly begun to trust Peter. He had started treating her like a real girlfriend. She thought he had begun to really care about her. But now she saw how stupid that was. She once again saw what a stupid, naïve, too-trusting girl she was. Maybe Peter would let her sleep when they got home.
Suddenly she had an unexplained urge to go to the house she’d shared with Alex. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to see the house again. Maybe it was because that was the one place she’d felt completely safe in the entire city. Maybe she could ask...? No. Peter wouldn’t take her. Did she dare sneak out? It was almost worth it. Besides, how would anyone know where she was?
But no, that would be foolish. She would make Peter angry. And Devin, too. She pushed the thought aside.
Peter helped her into the blue Audi R8 he had bought a few weeks ago, and then drove off towards home. Well, the apartment. The only home she’d ever truly had was where she’d lived with Alex.
Peter put his hand on her knee and she tried not to stiffen. “How are you feeling?” he asked in a gentle voice.
“Fine,” she whispered, staring out the window.
“Are you hungry?”
Anna shook her head.
“I talked with Aaron and the others about going out tonight, but if you’re not up for it, we can stay in.”
He really did have things to do tonight. “You can go without me. I’m sure you’d enjoy yourself more that way.” Her voice was faint but there.
Anna didn’t respond. She wouldn’t let herself be sucked into his niceness again. She would obey him and please him as she was supposed to. Her hands tingled painfully and she rubbed the backs of them. She wanted to cry and scream at herself for being such an idiot. Why would Peter really care about her? He had a girlfriend at home. He was here because Devin wanted him here to keep her company because that’s what Devin thought she needed. That was it. Nothing more.
“Are you sure you don’t want your uncle to bring your girlfriend to LA for Thanksgiving? I don’t mind staying here.”
Peter didn’t respond and stared at the road ahead of him. Anna looked out the window and watched the buildings fly by. It was getting dark.
“Vlad wants to get to know you,” Peter said after a long silence.
“Why?”
Peter shrugged.
They didn’t speak again until they were in the parking garage. Peter hurried around the car to help her out. She had learned that he didn’t like it when she tried to get out herself.
“Do you want me to carry you?”
“I’m fine.” She walked slowly to the elevators and he pushed the call button.
He stayed by her side the whole time, not rushing her. When they made it to the apartment, he helped her onto the couch then pulled out his phone.
“Hey, Aaron...yeah...no, I think we’ll stay in tonight...Anna’s not feeling well...no...okay...okay, ’bye.”
She looked up at him. “You can go out. I’m fine.”
Peter sat next to her and rubbed her leg. “No, you’re not. Devin told me what he did to you.” He sighed and shook his head. “You sure you don’t want to eat?”
Anna shook her head.
Chapter Eighteen
Later, as Anna lay in bed, she couldn’t get the idea out of her head about going to the house. She glanced at Peter snoring softly next to her. He was a sound sleeper. Would he hear her if she got up?
Without trying to overthink the situation, she slipped out of bed and went to her dresser. She pulled out clothes and then went to the bathroom. After she’d dressed and brushed her hair, she went back out to the bedroom and paused to study Peter. He hadn’t moved. After digging quietly through a box of her things, she located a spare set of house keys that she’d seen when she’d moved in with Peter. She grabbed her shoes, snuck out into the living room and silently left the apartment. She put on her shoes in the hallway, then hurried to the elevator, looking up the bus information on her phone on the way down. A bus was leaving in ten minutes two blocks away. She stopped briefly and purchased a bus pass at a kiosk, then hurried to the bus stop.
The bus was pulling up as she arrived and she got on and found a seat. As it pulled away from the curb, she began to doubt her plan. But what was wrong with going to see her old house? She wasn’t trying to run away...really. She just...wanted to see it. She needed a happy memory to overwrite the horrible ones that were plaguing her.
The schedule indicated that the bus ride would take about a half hour. She kept expecting to hear her phone ring...that Peter had noticed she was gone. As soon as she arrived at the house, she would turn the phone off. Somehow, she could be tracked through it, but she needed it to find her way.
Her old neighborhood was about a half-mile walk from the bus stop. It took her much longer to get there than she expected when she set out, but eventually the entrance to the neighborhood came into view. The gates were closed, but she had a key on her ring to unlock them, and within moments she walked the circular road to her driveway.
Her heart pounded as the side of the big white house came into view. The house was dark, as she would have expected. She walked up and hesitated at the front door. Was it still her house? Would the key work? Did she really want to go inside?
Part of her wanted to run away. But she wanted...something of Alex. She needed his comfort, even if he was dead. Would the house still smell like him?
She bit her lip, put the key in the lock, and turned it. A sigh of relief escaped her mouth as the door opened, but the relief was replaced with anxiety as a beeping sound echoed in the entryway.
The alarm? She searched her memories as she walked to the glowing panel on the wall. After staring at the numbers for a few seconds, she pushed the code she remembered and winced. The pause between the last number punched and the double beep that signaled the correctly entered code seemed to last an eternity.
She flipped the light switch and stared at the marble entryway where she last saw Alex. The table and rug were there, but the white vase that had sat in the middle was gone.
She wandered slowly through the house, basking in the memories of Alex for the first time in two and a half years. An unexpected peace descended over her as she did so. She stopped in the great room and stared at their wedding pictures.
Anna hardly recognized herself. She looked so happy and Alex looked so handsome. She pulled the picture of Alex off the wall and held it to her chest as tears fell down her face. Her heart ached for him. It felt as raw now as it had the day she found out he was dead.
She ran up the stairs and into the master bedroom. The bed was made and the room was clean. So many memories of being with Alex here. What she wouldn’t give for one more chance for him to hold her and kiss her and tell her that everything would be okay.
She walked through the room and into Alex’s closet where his familiar scent filled her lungs and memory. She inhaled Alex’s essence, drawing it deep inside until it rubbed like salt in the rawness of her heart.
Like a thrown switch, fury overcame her and she yanked at Alex’s clothes, tearing them off the hangars until there was a large pile on the floor in front of her.
Chest heaving, she stared at the pile for a long moment before burrowing herself into the pile. She clutched the picture of Alex to her chest and fell into a deep sleep.
*****
Distant shouting dragged Anna out of her peaceful sleep. She opened her eyes in the dark room and once again inhaled Alex. His clothes were so soft and warm and big. She never wanted to leave.
But her name was being shouted and footsteps pounded nearby. Light suddenly invaded her eyes.
“She’s in here!” someone shouted.
Anna blinked several times before her eyes focused on Aaron coming to squat down next to her. “What are you doing, Anna?” he asked.
“How did you find me?”
Aaron held up her arm with the gold bracelet. “GPS tracker. Peter could track you on his phone.”
“Peter’s here?” Anna looked around frantically. Oh, he would be so angry! He would take her back to Devin. She would get the injections again. What had she been thinking, coming here?
She hung her head for a moment before burying it back into the pile of fabric.
A few moments later, Anna heard more footsteps and she looked up to see Peter in the doorway. She backed away on her hands and feet and huddled next to the wall, still cradling the picture of Alex to her chest. She looked up at him, terrified of going back to the Manor.
“Anna, why didn’t you ask me to bring you here?” Peter asked softly. “Why did you sneak out?” He came to kneel next to her and pulled her into his arms. “Why didn’t you ask me to bring you?” he implored.
Anna didn’t know what to say. Why was he being nice? “I thought I was a bother. I’m sorry I snuck out. Please don’t take me to the Manor,” she begged.
“Anna, you’re not a bother. Why would you think that?”
“Because of what you said to Devin this afternoon.”
Peter’s brown eyes filled with concern. “Anna, are you talking about when Devin was telling me about your morning sickness and such?”
She nodded.
He closed his eyes and sighed. “I was hoping you were asleep. Anna, I...I couldn’t let Devin know that I was disgusted by what he did to you.” He took her hand in his. “That night, after that guy came and tore you up, I went to see Aa
ron and he told me your story. It was very, very different than what Devin had told me. And, honestly, a better explanation of your whole attitude and demeanor. Devin had told me that you were a pain in the ass and needed watching at all times and that he didn’t have the time to do so. That...you were a bitchy Elder-Mistress that had gotten too arrogant and needed to be brought down a notch. I could do what I liked to you and just needed to accommodate his need for you.” He looked back at her. “I’m sorry I believed him, Anna.”
“I wasn’t very nice when you came.”
Peter smiled. “No, but there was still something sad about you. And Aaron defended you to the teeth. He didn’t seem like the type of guy that would have been beguiled by you. At least not that much.” He paused and glanced at Aaron. “I heard you tell him backstage that you wouldn’t date him because you were afraid that something would happen to him. I’ve never seen an Elder-Mistress feel as deep emotions as I have you, Anna, and I’ve met them all.”
He stroked her cheek. When he spoke again it was with a soft and gentle voice. “I said those things to Devin so he wouldn’t think that I disbelieved him about you. I hate to imagine what he would do if he didn’t trust me anymore. You’re not a bother, Anna. I’ve become quite fond of you.” He slid his hand around the back of her head and leaned in to kiss her gently, his lips enveloping hers and his thumb stroking her cheek. “Very fond,” he repeated in a whisper.
They gazed at each other and Anna saw that he was telling the truth. She gave him a timid smile. “I’m sorry I snuck out.”
“I was scared to death when I woke up and found you gone. Fortunately, Devin told me about your bracelet when I first got here so I didn’t have to call him. I don’t want to think about what Devin would have done if I’d had to do that.”
Anna swallowed nervously. “You’re not going to tell him?”
“Absolutely not. I have no desire to see you punished.” He shuddered as if he knew what all it entailed.
The Life of Anna, Part 4: Ensnared Page 11