Chapter 9

9 A Tearful Reunion

“What happened? Are you not feeling well?” Caspian hastily asked in a worried voice. He could hear a vicious noise coming from the Princess’s stomach. It sounded as if there was a thunderstorm going inside her stomach.

Anastasia’s cheeks and ears turned red with embarrassment. “I’m just a little hungry,” she replied softly and pressed her lips into a thin line.

“Oh, I will send a human right aw-” Caspian awkwardly paused for a second and corrected himself, “human food... I will have someone bring human food right away.”

Caspian had never hosted a human before so it never occurred to him that they needed to be fed frequently.

“That would be lovely,” Anastasia gulped and gave a forced smile because she was reminded again that she was his food.

As the conversation between them started to turn awkward, Caspian gestured towards the door said, “Er... I will see myself out then. I will have Zenon pick you up before the ball. You may also bring along your handmaid so that she can accompany you throughout the ball.”

Without waiting for Anastasia to say something, he swiftly turned on his heels and walked towards the door.

Anastasia suddenly widened her eyes because she had forgotten to ask one very important question to him. “Umm... Your Majesty, I wanted to ask you a question to you, if that’s okay,” she shouted before Caspian reached the door.

.....

“Go on,” Caspian stopped on his track and waited for her question while slightly turning his head to the side.

“Do you...” Anastasia contemplated for a second if it was really okay to ask what she was going to ask. ‘Since I will be his wife, I think it is my right to know,’ she thought to herself and cleared her throat. And then she blurted out, “Do you have other wives or mistresses?”

She asked it because she wanted to know her position in the castle. She wanted to know if she needed to be wary of some bloodsucking jealous woman who could possibly try to murder her out of spite for trying to steal their man. It was already a pain for her to be wary of the man himself.

Upon hearing that question, the corner of Caspian’s lips curved up a little. He turned around and asked cheekily, “Why? Are you planning to back away from the marriage if I say that I do?”

After everything had finally fallen in place, there was no way that Anastasia was going to back down now.

So she boldly replied, “No. I am just trying to know if I have other competitors or not. If I do then I will have to work harder to win over your heart.”

Caspian was yet again impressed by her determination. “Your work is going to be a lot easier then. You don’t have any competition,” he smirked and snidely added, “at least not inside the castle.”

For a fleeting moment, Caspian swore that he saw her face drop when he said the last sentence. He smirked at the thought that the woman in front of him was most probably a jealous type.

Well, he was really bad at reading a woman’s face because Anastasia was nowhere near jealous.

Rather, she was scared thinking that she could be in danger from not just the King but from other women as well. ‘Maybe he has some mistresses somewhere outside the castle. I better not go out of the castle at all,’ she gave a reminder to herself.

It was not uncommon for the Kings and wealthy Lords to have several wives and even some mistresses. So the news itself didn’t come as a surprise for Anastasia.

Anastasia heard her door creaking open when she was lost in her thoughts. She glanced at the door to see that the King had already disappeared from the room.

‘Are all the vampires this fast? Can they all fly?’ Anastasia imagined some random woman flying from above the sky, picking her up and then throwing her on the ground from a height. She shuddered at the thought of dying like that.

‘I better not leave the room,’ she thought to herself as she rubbed her arms.

And even though the main door was wide open right now, she didn’t dare to walk out of the room fearing that she would meet other vampires or worse, the King’s mistresses if they happened to be visiting the castle.

After a while, she heard some light footsteps. She knew exactly who those footsteps belongs to because she had been hearing them since her childhood.

“Princess!” Tilla stood at the door with her eyes full of tears.

“Tilla!” Anastasia ran towards the door and embraced her only friend and the only person that she could rely on from now on.

The Princess complained as streams of tears began to roll down her cheeks, “Where did they take you? I waited for you for the whole night. But you never came!”

Both of them instantly began to wail in each other’s arms.

Tilla spoke as she sniffled, “I am so sorry, Princess. I wanted to come but they had me locked up in one of the rooms of the servant quarter. I begged them to let me out but no one listened.”

“It’s okay. I am glad that you are okay, Tilla. I was so worried thinking the vampires might have done something to you. I had never been this scared in my life.” Anastasia sobbed as she tightly wrapped her arms around Tilla.

Tilla was also in the same state as the Princess. And she replied breathlessly, “I’m also happy to see you well, Princess. I was scared thinking the King might have done something bad to you. I couldn’t even sleep the whole night.”

Tilla abruptly pulled away from the hug and asked, “Did he come to your room? He didn’t do anything bad to you, right?”

Anastasia didn’t reply to Tilla’s question because it was hard for her to categorize what kind of things fell under the ‘bad’ category.

She recalled everything that Caspian did to her. He had tried to send her back to Orsenia, he had constantly tried to scare her, and he had even kissed her on the neck.

At one moment he would appear to be very gentle and at the very next moment, he would act like the predator he was.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Tilla moved her gaze all over the Princess’s body to search for her answers.

The handmaid didn’t see any kind of bruises on the Princess, which was a good sign. Her hair and her dress were a mess though. The Princess hadn’t even changed out of the gown that she was wearing yesterday.

She even darted her eyes around the living room and peeked through the open door of the bedroom. The bed looked untouched so she sighed in relief. She didn’t want her fragile Princess to be touched by that monster King.

Tilla then stared at the swollen red eyes of the Princess and asked, “You also didn’t sleep the whole night, Princess?”

Anastasia shook her head innocently, “No, I couldn’t sleep just like you.”

Tilla gave a wistful smile to the Princess and wiped her tears. She sighed and revealed why she was here, “Princess, I was asked to prepare you for the wedding celebration happening tonight. Are you aware of it?”

Anastasia nodded her head and smiled, “Yes. The King informed me a while ago.”

“Are you okay with it... with marrying a vampire?” A few worry lines appeared on Tilla’s forehead as she questioned the Princess in a worried tone.

If it was up to Tilla then she would have already taken the Princess back to Orsenia. And if she knew that it was the Princess who had insisted on staying here in Sorvando then she would have probably smacked Anastasia, disregarding that she was the Princess.

Anastasia smiled hesitantly and answered in her soft voice, “It might take me some time to adapt but I think I will be okay.”

To Anastasia, Caspian was the definition of the forbidden fruit. He tempted her in more ways than one, but having him came at a price.

One of the obvious temptations to get married to Caspian was the hope of getting the cure to her disease so that she wouldn’t die at a young age. But ironically, the price of that decision was that she was going to constantly be in mortal danger from now on.