Conquering His Cold Heart

He was so close to breaking Ruby. He believed he was close to finding out who the werewolf was who had entered his Kingdom undetected. He wanted to take his wife back to her room and quickly return back to interrogating Ruby again.

However, seeing Anastasia being stubborn when she needed to rest was making him feel agitated.

So he grumbled, “Anna, you need to understand that there are things in this Kingdom which I cannot reveal to you. This case is something like that. So please, stop being stubborn, and let’s go. I will come and find you later.”

Anastasia already hated what she was going to say next. But she said it anyway to poke at Caspian’s heart and make him stop torturing Ruby.

“So, this case is more important to you than me?”

Anastasia knew what she just said was the worst thing she could say to a King. Making a King choose between his duties as a King and duties as a husband was the worst thing a Queen could do. However, she asked that in order to stop Caspian from torturing that woman heartlessly.

As expected by Anastasia, Caspian felt a sour pinch in his heart when his wife asked that.

He was doing all this because he loved his wife more than what was necessary. He was obsessed with his wife. And the constant fear that he was going to lose his wife to the werewolf prince of another Kingdom was enough for him to act like this.

.....

However, he couldn’t tell these things to his wife. He didn’t want to scare her by exposing his crazier side.

Seeing how silent Caspian was, Anastasia felt bad for him. She wanted to beat herself for putting her husband in such a difficult situation, that also in front of his guards and his friend.

But all that she wanted from him was an answer. If that seemingly innocent woman in the cell had done something to deserve that cruelty, then she was ready to silently walk away, no matter how much she disliked the cruel nature of the punishment.

Sorvando was Caspian’s Kingdom. And he had the right to set punishments based on his own judgment. But she needed to know what that woman did. She couldn’t think of any crime that would deserve such a barbarous punishment.

Anastasia suddenly felt goosebumps running down her body. She could tell that she would start to tremble like yesterday real soon.

So she hastily spoke again, “I can hear her screams from my room. I came here because I couldn’t stay quietly in my room when another woman was being tortured to death. What did she do to deserve such brutal punishment?”

Caspian wished that he could be truthful to Anastasia about the existence of the werewolves. But he would have to be ready to face the consequences if he did that.

‘Why did the ancestors have to make a blood pact with those werewolves?’ Caspian bitterly thought to himself. He couldn’t even get mad at the ancestors because he knew that the pact was what had kept the peace for so long.

Caspian couldn’t tell the truth to his wife. But he did try to indirectly hint to her that Ruby was a tough woman who wouldn’t die that easily.

“The punishment might look brutal from your perspective. But trust me, Anna, she can take much more than that. She is not your average girl. So, don’t worry about her. Just know that she is getting what she deserves.”

However, Anastasia wasn’t going to be satisfied with that vague answer.

So she asked again, “Then tell me what she did to deserve that? She looked like a nice person when I met her that day. I simply cannot accept that someone so polite can do something so bad that she had to be punished until she is almost unrecognizable.”

Caspian couldn’t give her any answer. His mouth was sealed by the pact.

“Fine. I will ask her myself.” Anastasia turned around to go back inside the cell to question Ruby herself.

And Caspian finally told the half-truth, “She is protecting an intruder. I am trying to make her reveal information about that criminal. We will have to catch that criminal before it goes around harming my people.”

Anastasia couldn’t take Caspian’s answer seriously at all. When she heard the word ‘intruder’, she thought that it was a human who had illegally entered Sorvando. She hadn’t heard of the vampires who lived in Kingdoms other than Sorvando, at least not permanently.

So, she scoffed and mockingly said to Caspian, “I haven’t heard of a human who can go around harming the vampires.”

She grimaced in pain when she suddenly felt a shrilling pain in her head. She took a deep breath in and slowly turned to look at her husband.

And she bitterly said, without caring if her words hurt her husband, “Even if that person had illegally entered the territory of Sorvando, they might have already run back to their own home after realizing how scary this Kingdom is.”

“Anastasia...” Caspian sighed at his own situation. He wanted to make her understand that there were other beings on Earth that could actually harm the vampires. But he was unable to do so.

Anastasia was already feeling as if her legs would give up on her soon. But she still kept on speaking her mind out as though she wasn’t already in pain.

“You are wasting your time by torturing an innocent woman whose only crime was protecting another human from getting killed for such a trivial reason as trespassing. I don’t think that person can take anything valuable from here. The only thing that they can take is the secret that vampires do exist. But I doubt that their story will be taken as anything more than a fantasy story.”

‘What can I do to make her understand my situation?’ Caspian racked his brain but he couldn’t think of any excuse.

Anastasia was now feeling lightheaded because of the stressful situation that she was in. Her fever was now as high as it was yesterday.

But she still forced herself to speak, “Why don’t you let that poor woman go? She doesn’t deserve what you are doing to her. And even if she had any information on that intruder, I doubt that she will be able to say anything if you torture her like that. You are just going to kill an innocent who had the misfortune of coming across a trespasser.”

“Okay, okay, I will let her go. Now, will you come with me?” Caspian said with haste because he was seeing Anastasia’s eyes getting heavy. He felt like she would lose consciousness if she kept on standing for a second longer.

Caspian held out his arms to hold Anastasia. But she was still being stubborn. “First unchain her.”

She breathed in with great difficulty and said while shivering, “And I will go to my room once I see her out of those shackles. Also, get her wounds treated at Doctor Carl’s clinic. I will check up on her once I get better.”

Caspian couldn’t think of arguing with his wife when she already looked pale like a ghost. And to add to that, she was now shivering as if she was possessed by some spirit.

So he glanced at his guards who were still standing in front of Ruby’s cell with their heads lowered, and ordered them, “You heard the Queen. Unchain that woman.”

The guards immediately rushed inside to do as they were told.

It was now a well-known fact that Ruby didn’t need to get attended to by the doctors.

But for the sake of keeping his wife’s heart, he looked at Vincent and said, “Take her to Carl. And ask him to treat her wounds.”