Chapter 3 The Capturing

15th February 1701, Desert Clan

The harsh rays of the sunlight filtered in through a small window with no curtains. Valeria squeezed her eyes. Today was going to be an unusually very hot day.

Valeria yawned and stretched. It was a Saturday morning, she felt like squealing, a day designed to be spent lazying on the bed. She turned to get more comfortable but she hit her elbow on something hard. She shot up from the floor she had been lying on.

Valeria slowly turned around with wide eyes. "Where in the world am I?"

It was a very small room with no bed. It was dark and stuffed with large jars and few almost transparent clothings.

After much struggle, she finally succeeded in fully opening a rusty window. Vast desert greeted her sight with a few clusters of wooden structures like hers. Far ahead, she could see gigantic caryatid columns and buildings of some sort.

"What is this place," Valeria whispered to herself. The view confirmed that this was probably the maids and servants section of wherever she was.

Valeria tried to get down from the stone she stood on and nearly tripped. A gasp escaped her lips. She was dressed in peplos like the ancient Greeks.

She began to shake her head, she had to be dreaming or Pandora was trying to prank her and she would not fall for it. But she asked herself how Pandora could have done all these. The structures surrounding her looked too real as though they were carved out from history itself.

Were her parents assisting her sister? But wasn't this going too far?

This is unbelievable.

Suddenly, violent bangs broke down the door. Valeria jump in fright but the next series of action left her confused and dumbstruck. She thought perhaps she was really having a weird dream.

The very beautiful and elegant Greek princess-like lady seemed raged and at the verge of snapping Valeria's neck but one could tell that there existed in her gorgeous eyes, a certain degree of fear.

A knight whispered something to the elegant lady and the next thing Valeria heard was a loud, "Seize her!"

She was yet to respond to the shock when a watch guard with an expression akin to one who had seen a ghost, announced something about the arrival of a tragic alpha king.

Loud sounds of horse hoofs meeting the desert soul could be heard by everyone in the small room. Valeria cranes her neck to see what the whole commotion was all about.

Valeria could not believe her eyes. She told herself, 'this is a dream alright?'

This was not the first time she was dreaming about her crush, Luke, but this was indeed the first strange and odd dream she was having of him.

A strong black stallion halted just outside the small room and the strong looking man came down with might and power embedded in every move he made.

His boots touched the floor and this was followed by the men behind him doing the same. He seemed to be their leader.

Valeria could not believe it. She had dreamt of this man many times but every single time, his gentle yet strong and firm imposing charisma always managed to throw her off balance.

She gaped at him with surprise and joy, failing to notice the resentment in his eyes. When he turned to the princess, Valeria gushed at his manly voice.

When he turned to her, that same voice which she expected to something in a nice and heart touching manner to her, coldly spat, "Capture the witch."

Yes, that voice was indeed heart touching. It not only touched her heart; it wrenched it too!

Two men held her and violently dragged her outside and towards a cage. Valeria began to struggle. The fear that was shooting up her spine was too real to be discarded.

If this was truly a dream, she so much wanted to wake up even if it meant losing a chance at being able to drink in Luke's features without being sneaky about it.

She was so confused so she struggled against those men like a bull yet she was overpowered.

Seeing this, Valeria started shouting for her sister, "Pandora, you better quit this joke! The interplanetary simulation device is not a play toy. Do you hear me?! Pandora!"

The men threw her into Tha cage on a cart but she continued to bang on the rods with her fists in a frenzy.

Valeria didn't know what was going on. She really wanted to believe that everything was a dream but the pain she felt from repeatedly hitting her hand on those rods was too real. Even the now old school pinching and slapping herself was not waking her up.

She wondered if aliens have taken over earth much earlier than scientists had estimated. But these people were clearly humans.

Then was doomsday 70,000 years early? It couldn't be, earth wasn't crumbling. That is if I am still on earth. Then what of pandora? My parents? Are they still alive?

With renewed vigor, Valeria furiously continued banging with the fear of the unknown creeping into her heart. "Where is my family? What have you done to pandora?"

In times of trouble, Valeria tended to subconsciously fear for pandora: that girl was a trouble magnet.

Aaman, one of the men who dragged Valeria, turned with uncertainty to their leader.

"Alpha Luke, the witch is slapping herself and calling for her dead clan and the goddess, pandora. Does she want to spit out blood and cast a walking corpse spell on her whole clan by Pandora's magic? Should we tie her up?"

Aaman was currently trying so hard to control those legs of his that were shaking in his boots.

He knew fighting against a few aggressive spellbound walking corpses was an easy pie. But a whole clan of those, including their dead ancestors from ages ago, even for werewolves like them, it would be a very dangerous fit as there were only nine of them here.

Luke saw through his facade and said to Aaman, with the intention of addressing the fear of other betas too.

"Such heavy and wide range curses can only be cast twice in a witch's lifetime. Each of them requires thirty years of recuperation. As exhausted as she is after using up her first wide range curse, she can only resort to cheap tricks. Don't be swayed by her deceitful actions."

Luke squinted a little at Valeria with his stone eyes and tightly clenched dust. His set jaw became even more tight as he ground his teeth.

This scene was so unsettling to Valeria. First, she was in God knows where. Second, she didn't know what had become of her family. Third, everybody here was speaking jargon and everybody here were calling her a witch and directing so much hatred towards her.

Every passing second, it seemed that a new person was a few tempers away from killing her.

The only familiar face right now was Luke's own. Even though Luke's physical appearance looked exactly like her Luke Alston's, their gazes and personality were totally different.

Her Luke Alston, who probably doesn't know her first name, could be intimidating most times, if your performance at work was poor. But this person was beginning to scare her.

Luke signaled Cerberus and George. The two men positioned themselves each at the opposite side of the cart. They all mounted their horses and sped odd, leaving the Desert Clan with a cloud of dust behind them.

Throughout the journey, Luke's attention was focused on the petite figure in the cage. She had finally quietened and was calm, too calm even.

Her knees were against her chest as her head and palms rested on them, cutting a sorry figure as she appeared lost in thoughts.

In Luke's eyes, that figure was as pretentious as it was sly and deceitful. When he saw her beside princess Eleei Alphelion, he recognized those eyes and didn't doubt for a second that she was the one. He would never forget the bewitching face of the devilish beauty that laid the curse.

That time, the sinister and evil intent was very obvious in her eyes as she pronounced that curse that always left him angry anytime he remembered it.

That very look on her face as the blood of his mate dripped down her vile fingers left him wishing that he could have her own blood on his vengeful hands someday. He couldn't bear looking at her but he had to, lest she tried to escape.