Chapter 36
36 Take It Off
“Mother! Why are you sending me away like this?” Anastasia desperately asked her mother as she was being pulled away by Caspian.
Anastasia tried her best to free herself from Caspian’s grip but she was too weak. All she could do was cry and beg her indifferent mother, “Mother! Please! Ask him to stop... I don’t want to marry a vampire. Please, mother! Save me, please!”
But her mother kept on cackling maniacally and continued watching her being dragged.
Caspian then tried to make Anastasia get inside the carriage that was waiting for them. Her hands and feet went numb when she realized that the carriage was full of human corpses. There were mutilated bodies and blood everywhere.
Caspian pointed at an empty spot in the middle of that gore and whispered from behind her, “Get in, love. I’ve saved a special seat just for you.”
“You monster! Leave me!” Somehow, Anastasia managed to free herself before Caspian put her inside that hellhole.
She ran back to her mother and grabbed the rim of her dress. “Mother, he is going to kill me! Please save me from that monster! Don’t send me to that hell.”
Her mother ran her finger across Anastasia’s neck and said sarcastically, “My baby! Caspian is your only salvation.”
Her mother then glared at her with burning eyes. And she shoved Anastasia back while yelling, “Now spend your life in hell!”
.....
Anastasia abruptly drifted back into the pit of never-ending darkness. “Nooooooooooooo!” she screamed while trying to grasp onto something... anything.
Suddenly, a clawed hand grabbed her by her wrist and pulled her up. That person was none other than Caspian.
The two of them floated in the air under the bright moonlight. She forgot everything that she saw just a moment ago and started to hover around in the air with him. Her heart was filled with happiness like never before.
However, out of the blue, Caspian sank his sharp fangs on her neck and started to drink her blood.
“Caspian! Stop! Please!” she begged and tried to claw him and push him away, but nothing seemed to work.
After almost draining her of her blood, Caspian finally looked at her with his blood-smeared mouth and gave a repulsive smirk. “You are my hundred and thirteenth wife. Oh, sorry!” He smiled even sinisterly and whispered near her ear, “You were!”
And the next thing she knew, Caspian grabbed her head with both of his hands and snapped her neck.
—
Anastasia shot open her long lashes and sprung up on her bed while screaming at the top of her lungs, “Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
“Anna!” Caspian flung open the door to Anastasia’s bedchamber and rushed in. He got up on the bed and held Anastasia’s tightly clenched fist with one hand and cupped her sweat-dripping chin with another. And he asked in a panic, “Anna, what’s wrong?”
However, seeing a pair of deadly red eyes up close right after waking up from that nightmare made it even worse for Anastasia. And she screamed even louder.
The only source of light in the room was the faint light of the full moon cascading inside through the window by her bed. And Anastasia couldn’t tell who was grabbing her at that moment or where she was at the moment. Her mind was still disoriented.
She instantly slapped away Caspian’s hands from touching her. And she pushed him back with all her might. Without knowing who he really was, she screamed in a terrified voice, “Get away from me, you monster!”
After that nightmare, her reaction probably wouldn’t have been any different even if she had known that the man on her bed was her husband and no one else.
Caspian felt a shrilling pain in his heart upon hearing his wife calling him a monster.
He gnashed his teeth and spoke in a hurt voice, “Wife, you can call me anything but that. I am not a monster... at least not to you.”
Anastasia’s eyes widened a little when she finally recognized Caspian’s voice. And amidst her ragged breathing, she kept on staring at the dark figure with a deep frown between her brows.
After a while, her eyes adjusted to the silver light from the moon. And her eyes also confirmed that the dark figure was indeed Caspian.
She closed her eyes tightly and opened them again. She was trying to figure out if she was still in her nightmare or if she was awake.
She gulped to ease her parched throat and whispered, “Caspian? Is it really you? Or am I still dreaming?”
She held out her hand and brought it close to his cheek. But her fingers were hesitant to touch him.
Caspian leaned a little forward so that he was in her hand’s reach. He then held her hand and pressed it against his cheek. And he lovingly whispered, “Yes, it’s really me. It’s your husband.”
He took her hand and kissed her palm. And he asked while pushing away her hair drenched with sweat, “Did you have a bad dream?”
Anastasia closed her eyes and let out a huge sigh of relief. And she lightly nodded her head.
Caspian felt sad that his wife was not even getting some peace in her sleep. He sighed and said in a low voice, “I’m sorry that you are having a really hard time here. I became too greedy when it came to you and now you are paying the price for my decision.”
Anastasia opened her eyes to look at Caspian. Even though she could not see his facial expression clearly, she knew that he was feeling dejected.
She held his hand and she tried to make him feel better by saying, “It would have been harder if you weren’t this caring towards me. I’m very grateful to have you as my husband.”
Caspian gave out a soft chuckle and gently nudged Anastasia’s forehead with his finger. “Silly woman! You know you are really bad at lying, right?” His voice reverted to sounding sad, “Everything bad that has happened to you, it has happened because I am your husband...”
“No! That’s not...” Anastasia suddenly shuddered with cold when a gust of cool breeze came rushing in from the window to hit her sweat-drenched body.
Caspian instantly went and closed the window.
Anastasia rubbed her shoulders and continued, “...you know that’s not how I feel, Caspian. I have not blamed you for those misfortunate things that happened, and neither should you.”
Caspian walked back towards the bed while speaking in a distressed way, “They were not misfortunate, they were carefully planned acts of revenge aimed at me.”
“Planned revenge?” Anastasia was a bit confused thinking how the first attack on her was a planned one. It looked like a random attack from a blood-thirsty vampire.
Caspian sighed and brushed the topic aside, “Let’s not waste the night by talking about these things. We will talk tomorrow.”
His sharp eyes could clearly see that Anastasia was drenched in sweat and she was shivering from the cold. Her thin bedgown was sticking to her chest because of her sweat. The lower half of her body was covered with a blanket but he suspected that she was sweating inside.
So he pulled the blanket away from her body, surprising Anastasia. She gasped because the gown was resting way up on her thighs. She hurriedly asked while trying to pull the blanket to cover herself again, “Caspian? What are you doing?”
But Caspian threw the blanket far away from her reach and gawked at her slender thighs while Anastasia pushed down her gown as much as she could. He cleared his throat and asked in a deep and sultry voice, “Wife, why don’t you change into another bedgown?”
“I don’t know much about humans but...” He slowly trailed his longing eyes up to her waist and to her breasts. Her wet gown was cladding her womanly curves so perfectly that Caspian couldn’t help but admire every inch of his wife’s tempting body.
“...but erm... I feel like you shouldn’t be sleeping in that wet gown.” Caspian let out a ragged breath and uttered in a seductive whisper, “Let me help you take it off.”