AN: Sorry it's been a minute guys. Busy, busy, busy. lol. Anyway, here's another chapter. Let me know what you think and enjoy!

Chapter 20

The spike digging into her throat woke Maria. She winced as she tried to push herself up. Her inability to use her arms shocked her into clarity. Her surroundings were suddenly in startling detail.

She was somewhere dark again, dank, and that smelled a little off. Somewhere in the distance, she heard a noise, but she couldn't identify it. Her wrists were still chained together behind her back, but when she moved, she realized that an even longer chain bound them to the wall behind her. The collar was still firmly clamped into place around her neck, too. Thankfully, her gag was gone, as were the chains that had once kept her ankles together.

Maria awkwardly stood. She felt a very real chill, though it had nothing to do with the stale air. She was partially clothed, dirty, in pain, and chained –all by the most dangerous man she'd ever met.

Tears began to well in her eyes, but she did her best to keep them at bay. Maria had to remind herself to keep her head. She had to be smart. She wasn't a little girl anymore. She was a grown woman, soon to be one-hundred and fifteen years old. She could handle this.

With repeated deep breaths, Maria took inventory of her surroundings. The walls were stone, or aged stonework, she couldn't tell, but they were something along those lines. Logically, that meant either a cave or a basement.

No light permeated the space. There were no windows and a single door which led to who-knows-where. The floor was dirt, the room decently sized, and lacked any identifying marks.

There were other things, though, things that chilled her spine to see. Unlit candles littered the walls, stuck in place by melted wax. There was a table off to the side as well, and held all manner of things. She saw pens, pencils, scraps of paper, and small bowls. She saw matches and bottles of things she couldn't identify. She saw books and little metal things that could have been talismans, but they all meant nothing to her. Maria didn't know what any of it was for. She could only guess, and that frightened her.

For an untold amount of time, Maria sat in darkness. She did her best to keep her senses trained on her surroundings for any hint as to where she was, but her nerves were frayed to the point she had little control over herself.

Finally, she heard footsteps on the other side of the door. Maria perked. She got to her feet awkwardly and unsteadily, but she refused to be in such a vulnerable position. A bevy of locks clicked and the door soon gave way. He entered with a lit lantern that cast his face in a disturbing light. He smiled at her.

Maria did her best to remain strong and defiant, but it was fruitless. All of her bravado, all of the bravery that she showed in the face of Northman or even Edgington, meant nothing when faced with him. Maria pushed herself against the wall to put as much distance between her and Rasputin as she could. He found it amusing and grinned.

Grigori closed the door once again and locked it for good measure before he approached the table. He proceeded to set the lantern down, take the matches into his hands, and light the candles. One by one, the "dungeon" came into better view, but Maria paid it no attention. She was sure her gaze remained fixed to him.

Maria was shaking. She couldn't express how terrified she was of the man casually pacing around her to light the candles. There were no words, honestly. He rendered her speechless and robbed her of the ability to even think. The fear she felt towards him was simply primal, animalistic, and that animal was a mouse trapped in the talons of a hawk –helpless and small.

He remained silent as he finished the task. Grigori blew out the long, thin wooden match and tossed it elsewhere in the room, discarding it completely. He stood at the table with his back to her, shielding Maria from whatever he was doing. Her nerves were fraying even more. The longer he went without speaking, and the longer she was forced to endure her own imagination, the more frazzled she became.

"I have missed you, child." He finally said.

He continued to work and chose to speak in Russian for whatever reason. The familiarity of it and his voice sent very-real shivers tearing through her, to the point her skin prickled. She hated his voice.

When he finally turned, he held a mortar and pestle in his hands, and was grinding something within the stone basin. Maria was shaking violently, and tears had long-since gathered in her eyes. She was physically sweating out of fear and breathing shakily, but she refused to look away. Maria met his gaze without blinking, no matter how much it hurt.

Grigori approached sending Maria launching back into the wall hard. He stopped a few feet from her and let his eyes dance over her body. Unable to shield herself, Maria was forced to endure it.

His eyes were a sickly green, pale and as unnatural as the man himself. They sparkled with sinister intent whenever they landed on Maria, something she was aware of even as a girl. He was an ugly man with a bulbous nose, deeply-set, hooded eyes, and a stern mouth. His hair was always thin and greasy, slicked down to his head while his beard was left to grow in every direction. Little had changed since the last time she'd seen him. His hair was shorter, nothing more.

While he continued to grind whatever concoction he was making, Rasputin's eyes met hers once more. Maria clenched her jaw, grinding her teeth together tightly.

"You didn't make it easy to find you." He said, all the while twisting the pestle in a lazy fashion. "But I still felt you."

Maria blinked, sending tears streaming silently down her flushed cheeks.

"I will always find you."

The soft grinding of the pestle finally ended. Grigori returned to the table and set it down. He dumped whatever he'd been working on into his palm and approached her again. Maria had a sinking feeling and reacted immediately. She tried to back away, to move away from him and whatever he'd made, but she was limited –trapped.

Rasputin opened his palm when she was stuck against the "corner" and blew. The powdery mixture sailed at her. She tried to keep from breathing it in, but choked on it regardless. The effect was instant.

Maria's head began to swim and her stance wavered. She struggled to stand, but her knees began to tremble. They couldn't support her anymore and before she knew it, they slammed into the dirt floor. Maria lifted her head, which suddenly felt as though it weighed tons, and stared up at the monster. He was blurry, out of focus, and more than once she saw him in double.

"What," She mumbled.

Her body was heavy and no longer under her control. She told herself to stand, to do anything at all, but every time she tried, Maria toppled to the floor again.

"What'd y'do?" Her words slurred.

He approached and again she struggled to move, but she couldn't. She was completely subdued.

"I'm going to tame you." He said with a voice twisted by a growl.

For ten hours the sun held him hostage. Ten-fucking-hours. Decades had come and gone faster than those ten hours passed, but he had no choice. Eric couldn't set foot outside without burning, and what good would he be if that happened?

Blood had poured from his nose and ears throughout the day, staining his dark shirt. He wiped it away at first, but after a couple of hours, he didn't bother. He had too much to think about, too much on his mind.

Maria's fear hadn't subsided. It dipped a bit, but it was still there. She was still in danger and his feeling of uselessness only served to enrage him. The furniture and nearly everything else that wasn't nailed down suffered for it. Eric had to take out his rage on something, and the furniture was all he had.

By the time eight-thirty that evening rolled around, Eric fled Fangtasia. The sun hadn't completely set behind the horizon, but he didn't care. The ache of it frying his skin didn't matter. He'd waited for too long already. As horrible as it was to admit, Eric needed Maria's fear. As long as he felt it, he knew she was alive.

Her extreme emotions guided him. Miles passed as he flew toward her, long-since leaving Shreveport. Only one thought coursed through his mind as he headed south: Maria belonged to him and someone or something was hurting her.

To the overly-proud and possessive Viking, that was unacceptable.

His journey brought him to an abandoned cemetery outside of a no-named town in the south of Louisiana. Eric didn't know where he was, nor did he care. He only charged forward, following the overwhelming scent of Maria's fear and pain.

Winding paths and a dark tunnel that led into the ground barely registered with Eric as he raced into a haunting scene. The smell of blood hit him the moment he was underground. It was only a millisecond before he burst through a thick, multi-locked wooden door.

The door flew inward, splintered and broken. Eric stood in the center of a dungeon that had likely been a crypt some time ago. His eyes instantly fell to Maria and all of his anger, his fury, fled him in that instant.

Maria was on the floor, trembling and crying. She was curled in on herself, doing her best to remain as small as possible. Her shirt was gone, discarded somewhere, leaving her in nothing but a pair of panties. But it was her skin that held his attention the most. Maria's once pale yet pristine skin was stained red and brown. A dozen marks or more littered her back, slices narrow but cruel, and were the cause of the blood he smelled. Where wet blood had once flowed, dirt clung, caking in some places.

Eric felt sick. Phantom bile rose in his throat and he struggled with the very-real desire to vomit.

So lost in his own shock, Eric almost didn't notice that they weren't alone. The sound of Maria's dwindling heartbeat was choked out by another. His fangs instantly sprang forward and his head jerked to the side. Standing only a few feet from him near a table was a man he'd seen a dozen times, but never met.

Rasputin stood with his sleeves rolled up, blood staining his hands, and an angry blade in his hand. It was a knife Eric recognized. It was the one he'd seen in his dream slicing into Maria's back, the one that left the scar behind.

Filled with unimaginable levels of rage and violence, Eric raced for the sorcerer. He gripped Rasputin by the loose fabric of his shirt and threw him as hard as possible against a distance wall. A loud crack permeated the space when Rasputin's head bounced off the stone. The man in black crumbled to the dirt floor and Eric genuinely smiled when a pool of blood gathered beneath the wound on the back of his head.

Rasputin's heartbeat began to fade until Eric could only hear Maria's, and that brought him back to the moment.

His feet fell almost silently as he approached her. When he made it to her side, she hadn't noticed. She didn't even move when he touched her shoulder. Whatever Rasputin had done, it left her nearly comatose.

Eric rose and snapped the steel chains binding her to the wall, and the one keeping her wrists together. When her arms fell back to her sides, he began to unbutton his shirt. He didn't hesitate to wrap her in the dark fabric before lifting her into his arms and fleeing the dungeon.

Eric didn't stop to assess anything until he was standing in Maria's bedroom back in Shreveport. When there, he laid her down gently and finally noticed the collar around her throat. With a scowl, he yanked it off of her as gently as he could. When it was away from her skin, leaving behind pinprick marks, he tossed it to the far side of the room.

She was still trembling and hadn't opened her eyes. In fact, she didn't seem to notice they'd flown home, and given how terrified she was last time, it worried Eric that she hadn't reacted. With his fangs out, he tore into his wrist. Using his free hand, Eric tenderly lifted her head and placed the bleeding wound to her partially-opened mouth. A few heart wrenching seconds passed before he felt her actively feeding from him. When he did, Eric allowed himself to calm a little.

Maria fed from him for a moment, perhaps two, before she finally released him. The moment she opened her eyes, Eric saw and felt that fear again. She began to panic, scrambling to get away from him until Eric grabbed hold of her arms.

"Maria," He said sternly.

His voice and his refusal to let her go seemed to help snap her back into reality. Her wide eyes finally landed on him and immediately filled with tears. Suddenly, Maria lunged forward. Eric was taken aback when she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly. He didn't move a single muscle, not even when she dug the tips of her fingernails into his back to the point he was sure he'd bleed. In truth, Eric didn't know how to react, so he chose to do nothing.

Maria clung to him desperately. She was still shaking, but he assumed it had subsided since he rescued her.

She continued to claw at him, to pull him against her as closely as possible. Eric was very aware that Maria didn't want an iota of space between them. He wasn't certain what to think, and then she said something that made him pause.

"Thank you."

She sounded as broken as she looked on the floor of that dungeon, but that wasn't what disturbed him the most. What Eric found unsettling was the amount of shock in her voice. Maria sounded sincerely and completely astounded by the fact that he had been there, and it was in that moment that he realized she expected to die. Maria expected to be abandoned and die alone.

Untold seconds –or perhaps minutes- passed before Maria finally stopped shaking. In fact, she almost melted into him. When her body relaxed, it molded around Eric's.

He wasn't sure how to proceed. A small voice told him to comfort her, to hold her in his arms like a normal person would, but the majority of his brain still wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea. He could do it while she was asleep because, well, she was asleep. There was no witness to the tenderness. That was why he chose to be a smarmy ass when she woke. But awake, he childishly felt exposed, as though she'd somehow think less of him if he was kind. Given how many times they'd showed one another compassion in that way, Eric knew he was being ridiculous, but that angry, proud, and arrogant side of him still struggled for the foreground.

Still, he didn't want to neglect her. Again, they'd been through enough, and she'd experienced Hell the whole day. Eric felt obligated to ease any of that ungodly fear and pain because he swam in guilt that it happened at all.

He eventually made a decision on how to proceed.

While Maria still clung to him, he threaded his arms beneath her, and stood. Eric cradled Maria to his chest in a bridal-hold and left her bedroom. When he reached her bathroom, his mind did flash temporarily with the dream he'd had that day, but it didn't linger. He had other things to think about.

Crouching near the toilet, Eric set Maria down. Her hold didn't loosen, so he was forced to take her wrists in his hands and almost pry them away. She was reluctant, but eventually complied. He looked at her when she drew back and saw dust and dirt on her face, trails of clean skin from tears, and where the dirt clung to the liquid. It disturbed Eric, how weak she looked, because he knew it was wrong.

He turned away from her and sat on the edge of the bathtub. Without a word, he began to draw her a bath. She needed it and it was all he could think to do.

The only sound was of water cascading into the tub, and the moment he shut it off, they fell into another silence. Eric stood upright and shifted to look down at the young woman in his shirt. She was staring at the floor wringing her hands.

"Clean yourself." He said. Maria gave a small nod as she looked at herself.

Eric left the bathroom, closing the door behind him when he did. Almost the same instant, his phone began to ring. When he retrieved it from his back pocket, he spotted Pam's name flashing.

"Yes?" He answered.

"What the fuck happened here!" She screamed into the receiver.

"Pam," Eric's voice was light and airy, a tone he knew she'd instantly hate. And he was right.

"Don't fuckin' Pam me, Eric. The fuck happened?"

"Nothing." He said. It was a blatant lie and he knew she was aware. "I'll take care of it."

Pam let out a huff and seemed to have calmed a bit before she spoke again. "I've already made the call. New tables and chairs'll be here in an hour."

"Thank you, Pam." He said with a smirk.

"Fuck you." And she abruptly hung up.

Eric smirked, chuckling a little to himself as he replaced his phone into his pocket. With the destruction he left behind at Fangtasia settled, Eric's attention drifted back to the bathroom door. He finally heard the sound of water rustling, so knew Maria had at least gotten into it.

Now, he had to wait.