Arabella was stunned as she saw Cassius who had held Adele’s fangs, ready to pull it out. Lady Genevieve, his aunt, had panicked trying to stop him by holding to his arms, begging for rcy. Cassius seed to consider his aunt’s words but then questioned his aunt with a cold chilling offer between two choices, "Fangs or tongue."
Lady Eve’s red eyes shook as she stared back at him in an utter shock as Cassius had made his firm choice, knowing well that he wouldn’t settle for anything less. She turned to Adele who had almost passed out from the shock and fear as Cassius’s fingers had moved to hold her teeth in a tight grasp.
"She can still speak if she has her tongue," Cassius stated and his aunt who was forced to choose between the two parts of her daughter’s body could only close her eyes, agonizing as though the pain was her own.
Cassius whose hands had been released then moved back to his cousin, looking at her dead in the eyes, his crimson eyes burning like fla, "Rember Adele," Cassius said, his tone grim as if he was going to present her with death. "This is the price of your own action."
Adele shook her head, she tried to claw his fingers to no avail as Cassius pulled out her right fang. She let out a shrill scream enough for Arabella to shudder upon hearing the yell. She wanted to stop Cassius, sure she wants to. The violence wasn’t sothing she wanted to see or rejoice but she knew this was sothing that Adele had started.
After all while Adele was losing her teeth, she had almost lost her life- no she had been in that verge of death, about to leave the world for good.
She shut her eyes as Cassius moved to pull her other fang, the sound of the scream turning into a chilling gurgle.
Blood was all over Cassius’s right hand as he pushed Adele down the ground. The little vampiress had lost consciousness, tears and blood all over her jaw as her mother quickly picked her body from the ground, words of regret as well as fury bubble in Lady Eve’s throat but she hadn’t directed it toward Cassius. She instead glared at Lucien, her useless son who had stood still, watching everything that had transpire as if he had been struck by thunder, frozen in place.
"Bring your sister now!" Lady Genevieve ordered before pulling her son and rushing out of the chamber. The rest of the servants who had been all around the room also feared the eerie silence that had rolled after Adele’s sharp scream.
The sight of the young lady who share his blood yet defanged by him so easily and so ruthlessly was a cold reminder that Cassius wasn’t soone who could be controlled. For now, it was only the throne and his mother’s dying wish that had beca his leash.
The servants all bowed in a quick succession, retreating from the room for the fear of their safety.
And there, Arabella saw him who had silently pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, brushing away the blood while his jaw was locked and tight. He cursed under his breath, muttering sothing. His crimson eyes were full of frustration and gone was the usual charm of mischievous and lazy smile on his face, as if sothing had cracked to show his true self, the calculating, cold, and stirred with that inferno-like fury.
He then dropped the now red handkerchief, turning his eyes toward had and paced to her chair. Though Arabella had just seen him pulling such a violence, she didn’t feel that fear of death from him, as if she knew that this man who had saved her life twice wouldn’t do sothing that would kill her.
It was an odd trust. Cassius was the source of her suffering but he was the only one she can trust, perhaps for the very first ti in her entire life and that spoke a lot about the people who had surrounded her.
Cassius moved with a slow, deliberate grace, his steps unhurried as he closed the space between them. The air crackled with sothing dark and electric, an unspoken tension laced between violence and sothing far more dangerous. When he reached her, he didn’t touch her, not yet, but the re weight of his presence sent a shiver crawling down Arabella’s spine. Not the shiver of fear but sothing more, sothing that caused her stomach to tighten.
Then, with the sa hands that had just torn through flesh and bone, he gripped the armrests of her chair, caging her in with his body. His fingers tightened, knuckles paling, as if restraining sothing deep and consuming.
His face leaned in, close, too close. Close enough that Arabella could feel the warmth of his breath against her cheek, tinged with the faintest trace of copper. Close enough that if she moved even an inch, her lips might brush against his.
His crimson eyes dragged over her features with an unhurried stare, heavy and unreadable, his gaze burning like embers waiting to ignite. The usual glint of mischief was absent; instead, there was sothing raw, sothing almost... possessive. A heat that made her pulse stutter.
His jaw was tight, his expression shadowed in frustration, but it was the way his gaze flickered and she could see how it moved first from her lips, then back to her eyes which made her breath hitch.
"I don’t like this," His voice was low, rasping with the remnants of barely leashed fury, yet there was sothing else woven into his words, sothing intimate.
Her fingers clenched against the fabric of her gown, her body still unwilling to betray her thoughts. Because no, she didn’t fear him. Not in the way she should.
And that, perhaps, was the most dangerous thing of all.
She didn’t answer him, hearing as his voice dragged like a velvet fabric to her eardrums, "I don’t like how you make do things I have warned myself not to do. Whatever I do, however less I make you to be, you never fail to take away all my attention, worry, and energy. This shouldn’t happen," he clicked his tongue, "You’ve slipped to my heart so easily. You, you can’t change ."
Was he... confessing?
Cassius, in this room where there was now only the two of them had opened up to her, a supposedly impossible occasion...
She couldn’t take her eyes away from his charming face, not the handsoness but how darkness seed to etch so perfectly on his chiseled jaw, his eyes that looked at her bear so much emotions that she was so aware was sothing he would never allow himself to feel.
"Then let go."
She felt her throat running dry.
"You don’t want to change. You don’t like getting hurt- despite you claiming otherwise- so let go. I will leave the cast-"
Cassius moved before she could finish, his grip on the armrests tightening, his body caging her in with an intensity that stole the air from her lungs.
"You will not leave."
The words were spoken low, but they rang with the kind of authority that shattered defiance before it could even form. His crimson eyes bore into hers, unreadable yet burning, flickering with sothing raw, sothing he refused to na.
He gritted his jaw, the fury of seeing her in verge of death and that panic was sothing he refused to acknowledge but for how long could soone like him- who feels emotions stronger than others- would be able to play fool to all these emotions?
He refused to acknowledge it more than worry and concern. But he could acknowledge that sense of possessiveness and obsession to keep her close, to keep her safe, and tuck away.
Even though he had told himself that this behavior was a venom to him, he can’t stop it. Like how he couldn’t stop this surge of emotions as he looked back to her eyes, "You’re not going to leave. Ever."
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