Chapter 77 Chapter Seventy-Seven

Chapter 77 Chapter Seventy-Seven
Chapter Seventy-Seven
                        Theodota

My eyes trained on him without breaking. He bore so many similarities to his father in ways that sickened me to my stomach. My lips stretched into a cruel smile. 

“Did daddy send you to do his little work for him?” A bite lay underneath my voice. I saw his smile crack, a hint of uncertainty in his eyes, his legs digging into the ground as he came to a halt. But it was only for a moment, a moment before he continued his confident strides in my direction. My eyes dropped to his lower body, to his expensive pants that didn’t have a trace of smear, a huge contrast to the sorry looking excuse of an outfit I was putting on. My body reeked. 

“You are looking well I must say, Theodota. The gammas have been slacking off lately,” his voice was sickly sweet. I wanted to smack his face. I wanted to hit his knees until he fell to the ground. When he brought out a sharp knife, I stared at the blade and I wanted to plunge it into his stomach until he bled and died. 

He crouched to my level, a smug expression on his handsome face, mockery dancing in the way his lips curled, with the heavy breathing of the gammas behind us for company. The air was heavy and smelt bad. The whiff of Dimitris’ perfume didn’t do any good to tone it down. It smelt of all my bad experiences. It smelt of all the torment I’d gone through in this particular room. In this wide room that seemed to stretch on forever. 

“I’ve missed you, Theodota. I missed your pretty little mouth wrapped around my dick as you took me down your throat. I miss your struggles as you try to break free.” He chuckled and ran the sharp blade through my matted hair. I bit my lower lip, an effort to bite back my retort. It was not yet time.

“Answer me, bitch!” He growled, an unprovoked fury spreading through his voice and making his arm vibrate. I watched it tremble and wondered if his blood would spurt in torrents if I cut his veins with the blade he was currently holding. I wondered if he would scream for mercy, if he would beg me like I begged him that day when he assaulted me. If he would have the look of fear in his eyes as I did the day I died; strapped on that bed as the room burned with fervor. 

I also wondered if I would cut off his tongue first so I would hear him gag, splutter, his eyes rolling to the back as life slowly seeped away from his body. Would he cry? Or would he remain brave till the end? 

I was forced back to reality when the fool grabbed my hair and twisted hard. My scalp burned and itched and a wave of pleasure came from the pull before disappearing. 

“Don’t you dare ignore me,” he huffed and I was tempted to roll my eyes. 

“Why are you here?” I finally asked even though I was tempted to purse my lips harder, to taunt him with my silence, to picture several ways I wanted to kill him. Above all, I just wanted to be alone. To wallow in self-pity. 

“Isn’t that obvious?” Dimitris’ excited voice echoed clearly in the room. “I came to keep the mad girl company.” He said, and I arched my brow. “Rumors are flying around, you know. The gammas are afraid of you. They say you are mad. They say you killed one of them: one of the strongest among them. I wanted to keep you company and see what you are capable of.” He finished off. 

The laughter burst out of my chest in tight, constricted chokes. It bounced off the walls, it vibrated through my body. 

“Fool,” I spat upon the last coughs of my laughter. 

His reaction was swift like I expected, an instinctive lurch of his blade against my shoulder. 

“Say that again,” he breathed, his dare so loud even as his voice was a whisper. 

I tilted my head slightly, watching as his chest rose in upward and downward motion, a suppression of his anger. 

“You are a fool, Dimitris. A fool would be so jealous of you,” I said calmly. I didn’t feel any thumps against my heart, a reaction that almost came with facing him in my past life. 

“You are my mate, Theodota. You shouldn’t be doing this.” His tone dropped into a somber one, a false sense of pity towards my words and my situation. If I didn’t know better, I would think that he was being sincere. And, he just called me his mate.

“Mate?” I repeated. I knew that he was, that my rebirth had somehow shifted some things. However, how long had he known?

“You didn’t think I’d put my dick in just anyone’s mouth, did you?” He questioned in a self-righteous manner. 

“You knew I was your mate, and you assaulted me.” It was a bland statement but he answered anyway.

“Assault, is a strong word, Theodota.” He chuckled.

He leaned in and I smelt vanilla on his breath. Did he eat a vanilla cake? An ice cream? 

“You enjoyed it. You took me down your throat like a good girl,” he paused, a short laugh breaking out of his mouth. I wanted to sew up his lips with threads of fire. “But I could show you what assault looks like, my love,” He said, and my eyes darted around for a weapon he could use. For an item of torture. Oh. Silly me. The knife, of course.

He didn’t disappoint. The tip of his blade touched my shoulder through my shirt and I wished I could feel its coldness. The pain came moments later, leaving a sharp twist and unyielding drops of blood in its wake. My lips parted but no sound came out. It was a mild pain compared to what I had gone through in the hands of his father. It was a pain I could handle. It was a pain I needed to distract myself from my self-pity yet again. I looked down to see that the blade was buried deep to the hilt in the soft tissues of my shoulder.

“That’s the best you can do?” The taunt caught him by surprise; I could see it in the way his eyes widened, in the way he pushed off the floor and took a step back. 

“You’re mad,” he said, almost weakly. A silent wonder.

I shrugged. 

He left the room seconds later, the gammas behind him. One of them turned to glance at me just before the last of their figures disappeared. He was brown-haired. But that wasn’t what caught my attention. That wasn’t what made me giggle. It was the look in his eyes: the pure unadulterated fear. It exhilarated me. 

But when the door slammed shut, I laid my hands against my knees. My head felt woozy. I was hungry. I stared at my skin and wondered if it would taste nice. 

“Eww,” I whispered. 

I sighed. This was all my fault. I was stupid.

The resolve that lay in my heart the day I opened my eyes in that classroom a few months ago, flashed through my heart. I jolted. Fuck. I had been blinded with emotions, blinded with anger, with fear, that I had forgotten the reason I was reborn in the first place. I had forgotten my reason for living. I had forgotten so much. I had even neglected the people that cared about me: my wolf, and Andreas. 

Andreas.

The thought of his name sparked an almost foreign type of emotion in my heart. I swallowed hard. I missed him. I missed our training sessions. I missed the way his fingers brushed against mine momentarily as we sparred. I missed…my mate. 

I was happy to be reborn, to be given the chance to take revenge on those who hurt me. To find my mate and find happiness again. To appreciate him for dying in that fire with me. Fuck. What had I done? What have I been doing? 

Here I was, no mate. No wolf.

Fuck what the Timekeeper said about avoiding Andreas. If he was my nemesis, then so be it.

“I’m sorry, Dria. I was a fool. I was so selfish that I didn’t even realize I was hurting you too. I was stupid. Pllease, come back to me. I need you.” A sob tore out of my throat, then it graduated to sobs wracking my body. 

I didn’t know how long I cried for, how long I mourned my loss before I heard it. I stopped and looked around to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating. But there it was. There it was at the back of my mind: a gentle laughter. The voice of someone I knew too well.

Dria.

My wolf.

“You’re back. Oh, you’re back, Dria.” I sobbed. 

“Finally,” she said, her voice so musical. “I’ve waited for you to realize how powerful you can be without being stupid and selfish.”

I didn’t retort. She was absolutely right. Stupid. Selfish. Strong-headed. I was a woman, a reborn woman. I was powerful. There was no need to hurt the people around me by making illogical decisions. 

“Did you…” I trailed off and swallowed hard. “Did you leave me on purpose?” I asked, afraid of what the response would be. Seconds passed before I heard her sigh.

“It was the only way to drag you back to reality. I needed you to see that we have more battles ahead. Kiel isn’t strong enough to hold me back if I wanted to talk to you. I’m sorry I let you go through all of that.” She whispered.

I knew in the past, I would scream and hurl insults. I would call her cruel and say hurtful things. But now, I did not. It was time to take responsibility for my actions. I was going to fix this. I would stop whatever plans Alpha Kiel had in mind.

A soft, curling sensation wrapped itself around my heart and I didn’t resist. 

“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for not giving up on me.” 

“Shh. I didn’t choose you for no reason.” She said, and I frowned. But I didn’t ask questions. 

“I’m going to take you on a trip to meet Andreas. Are you ready?” Dria asked, her voice hesitant.

I chuckled weakly. “Funny that you ask. I miss him.”

Dria’s voice turned grim. “You have to connect to his mind. It’ll only work if he opens his mind to it.”

I wonder what else my wolf was capable of. I had never heard of a werewolf connecting to another werewolf’s mind. Especially from such a long distance. Ever.

“Close your eyes and picture a portal.” Her sharp order forced me to obey without thinking. I was excited. I’d see him again.

“Let’s go. I’m ready,” I whisper as I pictured a portal in my mind’s eye.