Primal Desires

Chapter 23

Rose's POV

3 days.

I'd been locked in this room for three days. Well, technically I had been locked in this room for 20 days, I think, but it had been 3 days since my pathetic attempt to escape.

3 days.

3 days of isolation. 3 days of starvation.

Nathan had been livid when he found me, and after taking his anger out on me right there in the middle of the office, he had literally thrown me back in my room, threatening that I needed to be punished for my 'disloyalty'. Apparently by trying to escape his clutches I had betrayed him – I had devalued his love and taken him for granted. Ha. If I was honest, I thought that, really, he felt threatened - that by managing to escape I had taken his sense of power and control from him.

He didn't like that at all.

He didn't like that I had been able to undermine him. He didn't like that I still held on to my sense of self-worth – that I still had the strength to defend and stick up for myself. He wanted to break me. He wanted to control me until I dedicated my life to him, giving him my body, my heart and eventually my soul.

Well, that wasn't going to happen, and I sure as hell told him that by my escaping. And I was being punished for that.

I hadn't had any contact with anyone in three days – not even Nathan himself had been down to see me. Oleg hadn't scuttled in each day as he usually did with food for me to eat and water to drink, meaning I hadn't been given any sort of nourishment in three days. I briefly recalled a fact in the back of my mind that the human body could only survive for three days without water, but I wasn't human. With our heightened immune system and our enhanced endurance, I was sure that Dhampirs could survive slightly longer without nutrition. But how much longer I was unsure – already I was beginning to grow weary. Every movement I made sent waves of dizziness through my weakened body and I was struggling to stay vigilant.

I didn't know how much longer I could cope.

Isolated in this room with only my thoughts for company, I could feel myself losing the will to carry on. I couldn't help but think of the people I loved back home - the worry they were feeling, their disappointment in me that I let them down. Lissa, Adrian, Christian. Baba. Dimitri...

Dimitri.

Dimitri. Fuck. I'd let him down the most. I promised him I'd be okay, that I could look after myself... what a mistake that had been. I'd let Nathan take control of me in a split second of hesitation and now he'd maintained that control for weeks, using his power to demoralise and abuse me for his own primal desires.

I knew that Dimitri had an idea of what I had been going through, and I was sure that he would be disgusted. Disgusted at Nathan for what he had done, disgusted at me for letting him.

How could he ever look at me the same way now?

"I'm so sorry," I whispered into thin air as a single tear rolled down my cheek. I wasn't sure who exactly I was directing my words to, but either way it didn't help.

***

For hours I sat reflecting on my current situation, trying to muster up some strength and willpower to carry on, until I heard a movement outside the door. As though someone was making their way down the stairs at the end of the corridor. My stomach involuntarily gurgled in anticipation, but somehow I knew that this would not be a welcome visit.

Slowly, I stood up from the bed and backed myself as far into the corner as I could, careful not to move too quickly thanks to my dizziness. Just as I braced myself, I heard the lock click in the door before it gently swung open and a pair of red, menacing eyes entered the room.