CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

**SASHA**
My eyes fluttered open and my head filled with a pounding headache. I looked around the strange room, frowning at the walls of stone and the ancient -and yet familiar- chandelier that hung in the middle of the room above. I blinked rapidly, forcing my eyes to acclimatize to the sharp light that pinched my eyes, and then looked around the room again. I was alone.
I groan and slowly sit up on the very soft and comfortable bed, sighing and holding my head in my hands as I force the world to stop spinning. I looked up and I immediately felt my hackles rise.
Seated in the shadows, obscured from the light streaming in from the window was a man. A man whom the only thing visible was his legs.
“Who the fuck are you?!” I asked as I tried to recall how I had landed here in the first place.
I gasped as Joshua leaned forward and brought his face into the light, a small and sly smirk on his face.
“Nice of you to join us in the land of the living, Sasha,” he said with a mischievous glint in his eye. “I was beginning to think you had decided to leave us.”
My breath caught in my throat as my eyes fell on him. Joshua. The first man I had ever loved. The only man I could ever love.
“Joshua…”
His name left my mouth in a breathy whisper, my eyes instantly welling up in tears as memories hit me like a bag of bricks. He was still as handsome as ever, with hair greying at his temples, and soft lines decorating his forehead,
“Hello, my love,” he said, his voice still carrying that charm and softness that had endeared me to him.
The longer I stared at him, the more I remembered the events that had brought me here. An attack…Sasha…forest…bloodshed… dead people at the river…Oliver. I gasped and sat up straight as I remembered my child.
“What the duck did you do?!” I screamed, anger very quickly rising in my blood.
Joshua chuckled and shrugged. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, my love,” he said. “I have done a lot of things in this life. You might have to be specific.”
“Where the fuck is my son?!”
Joshua chuckled. For some reason, finding my anger amusing. “You’ve always been a fiery one, you know. My little spitfire,” he said. “As for the boy, he’s alive and not important. That’s all you need to know.”
My heart beat faster in my chest at his words, as my mind ran agog with all the possible things this man could have done to and with my son. Suddenly, he felt like a stranger…this Joshua…this one felt alien and yet so familiar.
“Where am I?” I asked.
Joshua looked around the room dramatically. “Here…alive…safe. With me.”
My eyes searched the room and my heart leaped for joy as I found the door, thankful that it wasn’t anywhere close to Joshua. Without stopping to give it a thought, I bolted for the door and had no idea what lay on the other side or where to run. All I knew was that I needed to leave this room, and I needed to find Oliver.
One second, Joshua was seated in the large armchair in the corner of the room, and the next, he was standing behind me, his arm wrapped solidly around my waist, pulling me away from the door. I stumbled as I was roughly pushed back, and quickly regained my balance.
The endearment in his eyes had disappeared and was now replaced by anger…anger that I wasn’t quite familiar with.
“What do you think you’re doing?” He asked, the stormy look on his face betraying the calm of his voice.
“I’m going to find my child!”
“Your child is Sasha. Our child is Sasha!” He screamed. “Remember?!”
“What have you done to Oliver?”
Joshua chuckled. “You don’t love me anymore, do you?” He asked, completely disregarding my question.
Tears gathered in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. “I never stopped, Joshua…but it felt wrong…”
Joshua laughed, his voice devoid of amusement, and pulled me into his arms, smashing his lips down on mine.
I gasped as his lips sucked mine into his mouth, and his tongue briefly tangled with mine. In a split second, I was transported back to all those years ago when we had first met. When our bodies had melded together perfectly. And then all too soon, he stopped.
“Does that feel wrong to you, love?” He asked, a smug look on his face.
I opened my mouth to speak, but words failed me. I could only hold on tight to him, as though he was my tether to this house…to this world.
“Joshua…”
He pulled away from me. “We can finally be together,” he said. “You have no idea how much I’ve given for us to have what we have. How much I’ve lost!!”
“Now isn’t the time for us to be together…” I whispered.
Joshua scoffed. “And when is?”
“I didn’t ask you to give up anything, Joshua.”
“You’re so fucking ungrateful,” he spat. “And for what? So you can go back to a husband that has never loved you, and that little sewer rat you call a son?!”
“My son is not a fucking sewer rat!” I screamed. “And stop calling him names, he’s been through so much.”
“I do not care, Sasha,” Joshua screamed back. “OUR daughter has been through so much too!!”
At that moment, I remembered exactly what had transpired that fateful day, and how I had landed here. I gasped loudly and sent my palm flying across his face.
I dashed blindly for the door again, determined to get myself out of this situation, still uncertain about how I got into it in the first place. And again, Joshua was right there to stop me. He took my upper arm in a death grip and pulled me into his arms, my mouth gasped in surprise as his lips descended on mine.
His tongue found mine and battled for dominance. His hands wrapped around me, holding me flush against him. I raised my hands to push against him, but while my mind wanted to move away from him, my body had a kind of its own. My hands snaked around his neck and pulled him in closer, deepening the kiss.
“Does that feel wrong, my love?” He asked, whispering against my lips.
I looked up at him, immediately transported to a time when for a year, I had had no worries, a time where it had been just us, a time I dreamt of king after I was gone. A time that his kisses reminded me of. And so I leaned up to his kiss again and allowed him to take me back to that time.
And even as we lay in bed, our bodies familiarizing themselves again after so many years, I wondered if this was the best option.