CHAPTER 382: IT’S A BLOODY MESS!-I

The brutal thuds of fist against flesh made Arabella’s ears ring. She turned away, unable to stomach the sight, but the sound alone scraped against her nerves like claws. Only when the blows ceased did she dare to look back. Xavier’s cheek was swollen, mottled purple, and his body curled weakly around the fresh bruises along his ribs and stomach.

"You went too far," she murmured, hurrying to his side. Kneeling, she lifted her hands and gently pressed them over his chest, mending the fractures with a whisper of magic.

"I thought I went too easy," Cassius countered flatly. He flexed his bloodied knuckles, then drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket, dabbing them clean as if swiping away dirt rather than blood. "For what he tried to do, breathing is already a luxury."

Arabella’s lips parted, words faltering. He wasn’t wrong. Xavier’s attack had been lethal, one mistake, and she would have been the one lying lifeless beside the baron. Still, watching Cassius punish him with such calm ruthlessness made her chest ache.

"Such precious ability..." Xavier’s voice rasped. His hand clutched at his chest as he struggled to breathe. "It shouldn’t be wasted on me."

Cassius let his handkerchief fall, his mouth curling into a sharp scoff. "So you do understand."

"Cas." Arabella sighed, her tone carrying both reproach and weariness. She turned back to Xavier, her voice gentler now. "Power without limit isn’t wasted. It exists to save lives, whether great or small."

Xavier’s crimson eyes widened, trembling as he fixed them on her face. The sincerity in her words disarmed him more than Cassius’s fists ever had. Awe, tinged with something dangerously close to reverence, lit his features.

"As they said," he whispered, wonder threading his voice. "You are truly a good soul, Princess."

"Princess." Arabella’s brows twitched at the word. It struck her like an echo as it was the same rank Morpheus always used. Her gaze narrowed. "Why do you call me that?"

Xavier, still pale and wheezing, propped himself up on one elbow and pressed a trembling hand to his stomach. "Isn’t that what everyone calls you?"

"I don’t know who this everyone is," Arabella shot back, her voice edged with suspicion. "But no one calls me a princess, except an evil sorcerer."

Her answer seemed to sink deep into him. Xavier fell silent, lips pursed as though tasting something bitter. "So it hasn’t happened yet," he muttered under his breath. "I knew you would come to me eventually... but not like this. Not today."

Cassius’s voice cut through the air, sharp with impatience. "Speak clearly." He leaned against the wall, his long fingers tapping an unhurried rhythm that only made his annoyance more palpable. "If you want to leave this room alive, start explaining how you know about us. About her. About the future. From the way you speak, you are convinced you can see it."

Xavier flinched under the weight of Cassius’s stare. Instinctively, he shifted closer to Arabella, his voice dropping small, almost childlike. "I can’t. I swear, I’m no witch. Vampires can’t use magic. Not like you, Your Majesty." His eyes flicked nervously toward Cassius. "What I know... it didn’t come from me."

Arabella leaned in, her tone softer but pressing. "Then it was told to you, wasn’t it? By someone else?"

Hesitating, Xavier nodded. "A sorceress. Once, she was Morpheus’s most trusted subordinate. She had immense power... and she could see the threads of the future as if they were written before her."

Cassius’s eyes sharpened, his voice slicing in. "Where is she now?" His tone carried a ruthless finality, he would rather cut to the source than waste time with a middleman.

But Xavier’s gaze dropped to the floor. His teeth sank into his lip as though to keep the words from spilling. When he finally spoke, it was with a hollow weight. "Dead."

Arabella stiffened, shock flashing across her face. Xavier noticed, and added quickly, "It happened almost ten years ago. I was seventeen when she died. But her gift, her sight into the future, it couldn’t be allowed to end with her. So I made a choice. I turned myself into a vampire."

Arabella’s green eyes studied him closely, catching details she had half-suspected. "That explains it. You’re no pureblood. I saw it in your eyes before, your color is... faded." She drew in a slow breath. "So once, you were human."

Xavier’s head turned down as he stared at the wooden ground almost as though it had reflected him the past that he had gone through as he muttered his own story, "I once lived in a village a forest away from you, Lady Arabella."

"We have met before?" she narrowed her eyes as she couldn’t recall ever seeing this face before.

"We have, but my face isn’t far too memorable so I don’t blame you for forgetting who I am," Xavier let out a faint chuckle, "Beside my face didn’t look like this before. Things happened and well, now my appearance changed."

"How?"

"A witch’s power," Xavier began, his voice low. "Far from here, deep inside a forest where snow never melts, there lives a witch who grants wishes, but only in exchange for something precious. She took the bracelet my mother gave me, said it was beautiful, and in return, she reshaped my appearance into the one that struck her most."

Arabella’s eyes widened. "And that’s why... you look like Cassius." It all made sense now. That uncanny resemblance, it wasn’t blood or lineage. It was the witch’s whim. By the mention of the forest, it seems the witch Xavier had met was the same exact witch that Lastor had gone to see.

"I don’t look like that bum," Cassius clicked his tongue sharply. "But if you went so far as to change your face, then it must have been because you feared the one chasing you would find you."

"Indeed," Xavier admitted, rubbing his arms as though a sudden chill ran through him. His gaze shifted uneasily to the unconscious body of Baron Mitch sprawled nearby.

Arabella rose to her feet. "How about we leave this place? Somewhere with more light."

Cassius’s crimson eyes narrowed, pinning Xavier in place. Xavier swallowed hard and quickly nodded, not daring to resist. He knew all too well what happened to those who opposed the Crown Prince, none of them lived to tell the tale. But what they weren’t aware of was the dark cloaked person who had watched them carefully from the window, forming a sheepish smile when she eyed Arabella’s existence.

Then opening the scroll on her hand, the woman’s green eyes etched the letter written by Morpheus to her head again.

"We have no more chance. Take her life, even if it means destroying Versailles for good."