To His Hell and Back
Chapter 56: Hollow Heart

Chapter 56: Hollow Heart

stake had pierced through Cassius’s heart.

Cassius staggered back, while the two women watched how his crimson eyes widen with disbelief, his breath hitching as a sharp, unbearable pain exploded through his chest. The stake, wooden, jagged, and merciless, was buried deep in his flesh, right where his heart lay.

His fingers trembled as they hovered over the wound, disbelieving, as if touching it would make it real. But reality was already sinking in. The warmth of his own blood, thick and dark, gushed from the wound, spilling over his hand in sickening waves. It dripped between his fingers, soaking his clothes, pooling at his feet.

His legs threatened to give out. His body, always so powerful, so untouchable, suddenly felt weak, betrayed by something far crueler than pain.

Betrayed by her.

Cassius lifted his gaze to Arabella, his expression raw, his lips parting as if to speak, but no words came. His breath hitched, a strange, broken sound, as he swallowed back the coppery taste of blood rising in his throat.

His vision blurred. Not from weakness. Not yet. But from the sheer audacity of what she had done.

"Hah," a small chuckle left his lips and this seemed to make the cloaked woman to frown.

"Still laughing vampire?" She reached out her hand and pointed it toward his chest where his heart was once still beating at, "Do you know that though humans have always feared how powerful vampires are, the truth is, they aren’t so almighty as we think. They age like us. They could die like us. You can also feel pain and have enough ways to be killed. If your head is cut, like all humans, you would die. If your chest is stabbed, precisely on your heart, gone is your soul from your body. If we stab a silver dagger toward your skin, it will burn, and the healing would take a longer time compared to normal blade."

Cassius heard what the woman had spoken but his eyes was still fixed at Arabella who had moved from behind him to make her way over the cloaked figure. She smiled upon seeing his crimson eyes that were alertly staring at her. No guilt- not even regret- was seen on her face.

"I didn’t think that you would be so easily fooled, Your Highness," Arabella spoke up. "We all have heard about you being so impossibly guarded up. You would even kill your servants and men who had proved to betray you even in their slightest thought. However, it’s not so easy to imagine that someone as weak and lovely as me would kill you, don’t you agree?"

"Arabella," he uttered her name but Arabella didn’t look at him with worry or rush to check his wound.

"Really, no one would have guessed that you are weak to this type of... human," The cloaked woman giggled. "Don’t you know when I had looked into that in that head of yours, you could easily kill whoever was behind you except her? How odd. Did you fell in love with a human, Your Highness?"

"Why?" Cassius ignored the woman again, his eyes piercing through Arabella who frowned seeing that despite his death, he was still prideful, ignoring the cloaked woman even when he’s already under their mercy.

"Why don’t comb through your memories and find the answer in your own head?" She raised her eyebrows, brushing her reddish brown hair over her shoulder as she looked at him with disgust. "Do you really believe that a human like me would ever have a single ounce of sadness or pity for you? Truthfully, everything was just a pretend. Once I stepped into this town, I met her and unlike you, she promised that she would make sure to kill you and severe our bond. This way I can be free from someone like you."

"Hehe," the dry chuckle came from the cloaked woman. "Awww, how painful it is to be blinded by love. I thought you knew better than anyone, Your Highness. Love doesn’t suit someone like you. Did you really think this would end any other way? That she, a mere human, would be any different? That she wouldn’t betray you like all the others?"

Her grin widened as she saw the flicker in his crimson eyes, the faintest, most fleeting sign of something breaking. Yes. There it was. The cracks in his carefully constructed armor. Her grin spread from one ear to the other.

"You’re always so sure, aren’t you? So untouchable. So above it all." She dragged her nails down his chest, the sensation searing against his already ruined flesh. "And yet, you never learn. No matter how many times the world spits you out, no matter how many times they betray you, you still look at them, searching for something that doesn’t exist. You hide this all by pretending to be someone who doesn’t need other people. But deep down you always reach out to find someone who can understand you. Unfortunately for you, the person you thought could be trusted wasn’t that special someone you wish for."

She leaned closer, her breath cool against his cheek. "Tell me, Cassius. Did it hurt when your mother betrayed you too?"

A sharp, cruel pause.

"Ah... I see it now." Her smile deepened, and she tapped a finger against his temple. "You were just a boy, weren’t you? Clinging to the illusion that she loved you. That she would always protect you. But even she abandoned you, didn’t she? She left you to them."

The cloaked woman seemed to enjoy the suffering that seem to have dimmed the light out of Cassius’s eyes. He was bleeding to death and what’s better way to torture him than seeping into his darkest thoughts? She could read everything from his eyes, the pain of wanting to trust someone, and to find his own people. The fact that he would always be alone and left with no one beside him.

This was the joy for the women to see, they who always wish to see the suffering of a vampire was overjoyed seeing his expression that broke apart.

Cassius’s breath was ragged now, not from pain, but from something deeper, something worse. The kind of wound that never healed, no matter how much blood had already been spilled.

"You were never anyone’s first choice, were you?" the woman whispered, her voice silk over steel. "Not your mother. Not your father. Not her. No one chooses you, Cassius. They only use you."

Arabella stood still with the happiest smile he had ever seen.

"Ah fuck," a curse slipped from Cassius’s mouth. "Birdie," he called. "Was this your payback for leaving you in the maze? I have to say this is very painful."

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