Conquering His Cold Heart

Chapter 3: The Predators

Both Anastasia and Tilla were already out of breath from all that running. And the fact that they were currently being surrounded by three killers wasn’t helping to ease their condition either.

If the ladies hadn’t seen and heard the cruelty of the three of them, then they would have probably noticed how handsome all of them were and how grandly they were dressed. The ladies would have probably perceived them as three exquisite men who were handcrafted by God himself.

If one was to look at them closely, then their bodily features were to die for. All three of them had pale and smooth skin. They were tall and also had visibly sturdy bodies. And all of them were emanating the majestic aura without even trying.

However, Anastasia and Tilla were too busy offering their final prayers to God so they didn’t have time to admire those killers’ beauty. They were holding each other’s hands very tightly and were clinging to each other. They had already accepted that their lives were about to come to an end.

The ladies kept on waiting for the men to pounce on them or snap their heads or do something very cruel to them.

However, to their surprise, one of the three men commented in a somewhat warmer tone, “I warned the two of you not to scare these kittens so much. Look at them! They are shivering!”

And another one spoke to the ladies in a bit of an apologetic tone, “Did we scare the two of you this bad?”

.....

He leaned towards the man who spoke at first and whispered to him, “It was not my idea to scare them, you know.” Then he accusingly turned his gaze towards the other man who was still glaring at the girls.

The man who had come flying stepped even closer and stood directly in front of Anastasia. He then leaned closer to her face.

Out of instinct, Anastasia leaned backward and tightened her grip on Tilla’s palm. She held her breath and avoided having any eye contact with that man. She also tried her best not to be fazed by that closeness of his face... and his icy breath that was hitting her face.

He kept on glaring at her with his smoldering eyes for quite some time. And after a while, he finally asked in a husky voice, “Why were the two of you sneaking around in my castle?”

That voice managed to grab Anastasia’s attention. She stole a quick glance of that man and thought, ‘He is the King, isn’t he?’

Anastasia’s breathing had calmed down a little by now.

However, her fear still prevailed. It didn’t matter if these men were just trying to scare her and Tilla by saying that they were ‘mouthwatering’. What really mattered was the fact that she had seen them killing a helpless man.

She answered that man while still avoiding eye contact, “We were trying to f-f-find someone. And then we heard a voice. So we happened to fo-follow the voice. We didn’t mean to sneak around.”

No matter how hard the Princess tried to act like she wasn’t scared, she still ended up stuttering a little.

That man narrowed his eyes at Anastasia and tried to warn her, “That is still called sneaking around. Delicate kittens like you shouldn’t be doing that, especially in a huge castle like this one. Haven’t you heard the phrase ‘curiosity killed the cat’? You don’t want to be that cat now, do you?”

Anastasia pressed her lips into a thin line and briskly shook her head.

An amused smirk appeared on that man’s perfect lips. He straightened his back and finally asked, “I wonder if you are my tribute bride from Orsenia?”

Anastasia was now sure that the man who was standing in front of her was in fact her soon-to-be husband.

All of a sudden, her mother’s words came flooding in her mind – “Try to make the King fall in love with you.”

It made her recall the purpose that she had come here with. And no matter if the King was a killer or not, she had to make him fall for her.

The Princess swallowed her fear and put aside her conscience.

She stared deep into his crimson eyes and this time, she spoke in a much confident tone, “Yes, Your Majesty, I am your bride from Orsenia. I am Princess Anastasia Vairina”

And even when Tilla was still clinging to her, the Princess managed to curtsy to the King of Sorvando and added, “It is an honor to be in your presence.”

Tilla, on the other hand, forgot all about the mannerism and kept on staring down while holding the Princess as tightly as she could.

King Caspian slightly raised his brows at that sudden change in the attitude of his bride.

That changed expression, however, made Anastasia deduce that he didn’t believe her. So she wanted to show the letter sent by her father as proof.

She had kept that letter in her suitcase so she looked down at Tilla’s hands, only to look at the non-existent suitcases.

The Princess glanced back at the King and spoke in a calm voice, “I would have loved to present the letter from the King of Orsenia to Your Majesty. But it seems like we lost the suitcases somewhere in the castle.”

Those words from Anastasia prompted Caspian to softly chuckle.

And for a fraction of seconds, Anastasia felt something ticklish in her heart, something that she had never felt before.

Anastasia gazed at the King’s face properly. He had defined eyebrows that sat well above his dazzling eyes.

Now that she looked at his eyes again, they didn’t look that frightening. His nose was just perfect. In fact, everything about him looked perfect, from his perfectly symmetrical lips with prominent Cupid’s bow to his sharp jawline to his relatively short blonde hair.

Soon, she realized that she had been staring at the King’s captivating face. Before the King noticed that, she quickly pulled herself out of her daze and looked away.

Caspian gazed at the Princess again, this time with a little softer look on his face. Still, he was not done scaring the Princess.

So he asked her the question which she had been avoiding for a while now. “You witnessed the three of us killing that man, didn’t you? Aren’t you interested to know why we did that?”

Anastasia felt a sudden rage as well as fear building up inside of her. She wanted to ask why they did that. She wanted to curse them saying they were worse than monsters for killing a man and then talking trash about him.

Yet, she tried to put her emotions at bay. She did not want to hear his excuses for killing that man. Ignorance was bliss, after all.

“I am sure you must have had a reason behind that. You don’t need to explain your personal affairs to me, Your Majesty.” Anastasia replied in a soft voice.

Caspian slightly tilted his head and tried to read what was in her little mind. But her straight face made it difficult for him to read her.

Nevertheless, Caspian asked a question in an attempt to explain his killing, “Princess, have you ever heard of the superior predatory creatures called Vampires?”

Anastasia’s heart skipped a beat when she heard him mention the word ‘Vampires’.

And so did Tilla’s. Tilla was the one who had first introduced that word to the Princess. She used to share the scary stories about the Vampires with the Princess when they were in their early teens.

Anastasia remembered one characteristic that was always consistent in the Vampire stories that Tilla used to share with her.

They were the blood-red eyes of the Vampires.

From what she had seen and what she had heard earlier, it didn’t take long for the Princess to join the dots. ‘He is a Vampire!’ she exclaimed in her head.

As though to confirm her, Caspian said in a relatively cold voice, “Princess, right now, you are in the Kingdom that is full of Vampires... and only a handful of humans.”

“And of course, I am a Vampire,” he shifted his glance towards the two men standing beside them and added, “and so are these two.”

Caspian leaned closer to Anastasia’s face again to intimidate her. He gazed at the bulging veins on her neck for a fraction of seconds and quickly looked into her emerald green eyes.

He then whispered in a hauntingly calm whisper, “Aren’t you curious to know our diet?”

Anastasia didn’t answer him. She just kept on staring back at him without even blinking. She was putting on a fa?ade that she was a brave Princess when in reality, she was every bit scared.

Caspian gave a sinister smirk. He then stated in a chilling voice, “We drink human blood to sustain ourselves. Earlier, we didn’t just kill that man for nothing. We killed him after draining him of his blood.”

All of a sudden, Caspian gave a menacing look to Anastasia. He swiftly brushed his fingers across her neck and pushed back a few locks of her hair.

Anastasia gulped noticeably. She got goosebumps all over her body because those were the coldest fingers that had ever touched her.

Caspian leaned even closer to Anastasia, his cold lips softly brushing her ear, his whisper reverberating through her skin, “Since you are my bride, I won’t lie to you. Right now, you look very appetizing to me.”