To His Hell and Back
Chapter 36: Cycle Of Abuse

Chapter 36: Cycle Of Abuse

Cassius’s towering figure loomed over her, forcing her to instinctively retreat as he closed the gap between them. With every step he took forward, she found herself backing into the cold, unforgiving cobblestone wall, her escape route narrowing with each passing moment.

Lights entered from the gaps of the stained glass beside them but the glaring light couldn’t compare to his crimson eyes which locked onto hers with a strange intensity that made her pulse race.

His steps were slow, deliberate, each movement calculated to close the distance between them. Arabella instinctively pressed her back against the cold stone wall, her breath hitching as she tried to create space between them, but with every step he took forward, she found herself trapped further.

"Have you made your path to escape yet birdie?" Cassius smiled, his grin was oddly energetic.

She glanced at him, noting how casually he was dressed despite the maids’ earlier gossip about his supposed "bloody expedition." It seemed the rumors were nothing more than idle chatter after all.

"I didn’t plan to escape," she answered, her eyes drifting away when she felt his hands caught her cheeks and her lips puckered as he had squeezed her face lightly.

"What did I say about lying? But fair enough, I’ll be merciful today."

"Y- yay? T- Thank you?" she answered him as she heard him chuckle. Cassius then dropped his hands and instead turned toward the portrait.

"Does this interest you?"

Bella turned her gaze to the exquisitely painted portrait, the woman’s features captured with such precision that her crimson eyes, a shade of vivid maple leaves, seemed almost alive. No artist could ever hope to replicate that haunting beauty. It was an understatement to call it beautiful; it was utterly breathtaking, an evidence to a beauty now frozen in time.

Her attention shifted to Cassius as he reached out, his index finger brushing the portrait’s surface. His eyes flickered, a brief, almost imperceptible moment of vulnerability crossing his features. The half-moon birthmark on his neck glinted softly in the dim light, adding to the mystery of the moment.

Looking at his face, she then tilted her chin and then turned to the portrait. She took a couple more glances and her eyes finally widened, "Queen Morgana is not your birth mother is she?"

As if alive, his eyebrows raised, "Woah," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "Have you spoken to her already?"

She gulped. She was going to deny as she felt like a caught mouse for stealing a cheese. But she wasn’t the one in the wrong, besides she would be punished again if he found out she’s lying, and he always seem to know when she lied, as if her thoughts are transparent on her face.

"She dragged me out off your room," she answered sincerely and saw him whose eyes paled for a moment in a daring glance.

"She always knows how to put her hands on things that doesn’t belong to her doesn’t she? First someone’s husband and father, then someone’s castle, and now my pet. The first two, I might let slide. But the third? That’s crossing the line. I suppose I’ll have to teach her a lesson soon, don’t you agree, little bird?"

Bella pressed her lips tightly together, refusing to take the bait. She wasn’t going to be a catalyst for a bloodbath, no matter what, she wouldn’t.

Cassius tilted his head, amused by her silence. He reached out and poked her cheek with his index finger, his touch light but deliberate. "Always so quiet when I speak," he drawled, "but somehow endlessly chirpy when you find the perfect moment to berate me. Clever little thing, aren’t you?"

"Then... is this lady, your mother?" Bella asked as she turned back to the portrait.

Cassius flickered and smiled, "Beautiful isn’t she? A pureblood noble, a vampiress who was both the most frightening and the most breathtaking. Her beauty, it drove many vampires to madness."

He paused, his crimson eyes lingering on the portrait. "A beauty like that doesn’t last long, though. They tend to fade —or die— far too quickly."

Turning his head slightly toward Bella, his voice softened, though the weight of his words remained heavy. "To answer your question, she is my mother. The woman who gave birth to me."

So this is... the source of the beauty. Now it all made sense. Queen Morgana is indeed gorgeous but cannot be compared to Cassius’s birth mother. Her features were prominent, it was the beauty that would cause you to gasp and stare to admire their features for a long while before realizing you had submerged into their appearance.

She didn’t have to ask where she is now considering Cassius had answered her curiosity before it could surface.

Cassius, on the other hand, watched Arabella. The words the sorcerer had echoed from the forest still haunted him, ringing in his head. He was one who despise fate or fortune teller, not believing in any of it, but this is different. He could tell it’s different, perhaps in his blood or his guts.

Was the star that was said by that sorcerer is none other than this birdie?

"Why is it that you’re so terribly cruel?"

The sudden question slipped from Arabella’s lips, her voice tinged with frustration and something else, curiosity, perhaps? It caught Cassius off guard for the briefest moment, a flicker of surprise crossing his face before he masked it with a sly grin.

"Such an odd question," he mused, tilting his head as if pondering her words. "Cruelty, you call it? No, little bird, it’s not cruelty. You simply haven’t seen the worst this castle can offer. That’s why you think me cruel."

His grin widened, his sharp teeth glinting in the dim light. "But dearest birdie, let me enlighten you, there are things far worse than death or even physical wounds. Things that linger in your soul and make you beg for release. You suffer none of those horrors yet." His voice dropped lower, softer, a dangerous purr. "And do you know why? It’s because you’re under the protection of my wings."

She frowned, "You kill, you keep me against my wishes, and you-"

"-It was your father who had released you into hell. I hadn’t captured you, you were brought here to pay for his debt," Cassius cut her off, his words dangerously sharp. "Call me cruel, but were you going to survive a day without my protection? Did you forget what you had to do to protect yourself against Rueben? Then Why are you so needy to leave the castle, Arabella? Is life outside the castle better? Same? Wasn’t it worse? Your father, even I a vampire wouldn’t have sold my daughter to bury my debts."

Bella’s eyes snapped as she balled her fingers into tight fists. It annoyed her how true his words were. It annoyed her how Cassius is correct, how his words that were so sharp wasn’t exactly all wrong.

Outside the castle, inside this castle, it was the same. Humans, vampires, they are the same.

Evil and good, they live beside each other in both realm and even though she despise this, it is the truth, this was life.

However, she didn’t ask this question to him because she was naive. Cassius wasn’t someone who was born kind or born into a situation that could turn him into a merciful angel even if his face looked like one.

She wanted to know if there was more that she could find from this vampire, that perhaps this nature he showed where he looked so difficult to understand, was merely a front, and deep inside he’s someone

"From where I came from, what you’re doing is nothing more than a crime. Kidnapping and selling humans, it is a violent thing," it was something she couldn’t understand, this violence, this thirst for power, was it really necessary? Her breaths hitched as her words became increasingly more emotional, "Right, maybe to you vampires, we don’t mean anything, but does it really make you feel nothing at all when you see the humans dying? We might not have feed off blood like you, but don’t we look so similar? Too similar even. Body, limbs, and the fact we both could easily die, isn’t that enough for you to feel something when you kill us?"

Cassius’s red eyes flickered. Something deep inside him seemed to have shake but Bella couldn’t tell what it is. She only hope that perhaps his reason for saving her was close to mercy, maybe there is that soul in him that could be gentle.

However his calm face betrayed her expectation as he watched her face while she tried to convince him.

He then spoke, "Do you know why we vampires had began to use human pets as entertainment, Arabella?"

It was his first time calling her name out loud and it was enough to make her heart stopped for a beat.

She stared at him, "Because of your thirst?"

"Maybe," Cassius turned to the portrait of his mother, his red eyes seemed full of mockery as he said, "It was you humans who had the idea of making other humans of lower ranks as their pet slave. What were those humans told to do? To entertain the humans of higher ranks, raped, violated, abused, and then killed once they had their fun."

Arabella was stunned. She doesn’t know how the castle works because she had never set foot here. But she didn’t know either that this tradition of having pets in the castle was done by the previous king, who was a human.

"Do you know what’s worse?" Cassius smiled wide but his eyes were so ruthless that it made her shudder. "They took vampires from my land, took out their fangs, starve them from blood so their body grew weaker. Then they held those vampires here, in this castle, to be shown around as either an ornament or as their pet."

Just thinking about Cassius’s words sent shivers down Bella’s spine.

She just realized that perhaps humans were the start and perhaps.. this was the cycle of abuse that had hit them due to the previous King’s violent decision.

"That’s..."

"So your argument, little bird," he murmured, reverting to the nickname he often used, "is flawed."

His finger tilted her chin upward, forcing her to meet his gaze. With a subtle gesture, he pointed to the vast hall around them, now cloaked in shadow as the sun had set.

"Look at this place," he said, his voice quiet but sharp. "Humans built this chaos long before we inherited it. Your kind started the violence you so despise. Now you’re saying that your kind is the one who wanted peace?"

Arabella opened her mouth to speak, but his pointed glare stopped her.

"Tell me," he continued, leaning closer, "who can truly say what’s right or wrong? You, a human? Or I, who rule over the wreckage your kind left behind?"

She held his gaze, her defiance flickering.

"Right," she said with her deep frown. "If you’re really speaking the truth, then maybe you are correct about us starting this abusive cycle. But the ones who had to pay for it isn’t this innocent lives, should we? The ones who had done this, the King and those who supported it. But not the entire human kind."

"That’s true," he said and she was surprised by how he had agreed to it. She saw a flickering light at the end of the tunnel but then had to hear the rest of his words, "I have even changed some of the laws to lessen this violent nature. But what about the ones who had to suffer from your King? My people, for one, is never going to be at peace while they see humans who had harmed their kind. This have became our world, birdie, not yours anymore. How it operates will benefit us more than you. And though you cannot accept it no, you will soon. You will also learn in time that being under my cloak of protection will benefit you more than trying to run away from me."