24

TENTH HOUR

Finally drifting in to deep sleep, Christian had the same feeling that he felt each time a dream was about to enter and disturb his sleep, his subconscious had prepared itself for the same haunting dreams that plagued him for the better part of his adult life, but it never came.

Instead of going back into the filthy, dark room that he used live with his birth mother and her pimp; instead of Elena's blood red torture dungeon, he felt himself falling. He didn't know where he was falling from but he knew that was from a very high place and he was falling very fast.

Looking down below he wanted to know how far he would be falling and what he would be falling on to. However, it was dark beneath and all he could see was an endless pit. He couldn't make out his surrounding, everything was blurry because of the speed he was free falling. For some reason, he wasn't as scared as he thought he would be. However, that didn't mean he didn't like the fact that he was out of control and had no idea what was going to happen to him.

All he could do was to look from side to side and try to make out what was going pass him. He was going past them so quickly that he didn't know if his eyes were deceiving him. He saw his previous submissives, saw his pimp, his birth mom and her pimp. But, images of his parents and family had lasted longer. Some of his ex-sub's appeared clearer than others.

During his fall, the image of Elena brought bile up his throat. He couldn't stomach the thought that they actually had a past, albeit brief. A voice in the back of his head had finally told him to accept that this woman was vile, and everything Susannah had hinted about her was true.

He heard a sound, he had recognized the owner of that voice before he could see her. In an instant, he looked down to where he was falling. It no longer appeared like the endless abyss but looked like a long tunnel — one that he could now see the light of.

There was a shadow standing at the bottom, the light shone passed her into the tunnel, and her face was in the shadows. He could recognize this body anywhere even just with the shape of the figure. He smiled in her direction, but he couldn't see the expression on her face. He assumed that she smiled back at him.

"Ana..." he muttered, the name rolling off his lips as he came diving closer and closer to where she was standing.

Before he knew what was happening, the feeling of free falling stopped and he looked around to find himself at the end of the tunnel in the arms of the same woman that was waiting for him.

"Anastasia," he sighed out her name. Staring into his eyes, she couldn't looked more beautiful. He could feel the love she felt for him oozing out of her blue eyes, he had only hoped that his eyes would reciprocate those intense feelings.

Is this what falling in love feels like? A voice in his head asked and he smiled.

...

Her hatred for Chicago was no different than the hatred he felt for Detroit. They both held bad memories and strong negative emotions for them. However, their pasts weren't exactly comparable.

Like what she had told Christian earlier, Anastasia was born in Montesano but moved to Chicago with her mother when her father was deployed. She had admired the military since she was very young, knowing that Raymond Steele was one of them. She pride herself for having a dad who was serving the country.

She wanted to be like her father, strong and being the pillar of the family. She knew her parents weren't married when they had her, and from what she could understood at her small age was that they had planned on getting married after he came back, and she would be their flower girl. Young Anastasia had been so excited about the pending event, she had been looking forward for the day since she was told.