CHAPTER 442: BIRTH RIGHT

Arabella folded the piece of paper before Liriel could catch a word from it. With a determined look on her, she turned to Cassanda who flinched at how sudden the motion was.

"I’d like to send a word back to the prince," she started, "But let Carlton deliver it. Tell him that the only way I will meet him is if he comes to find me at the main balcony giving view towards the front of the manor where I will await his arrival,"

As Cassandra rushed away with the message to deliver, Liriel’s eyes flickered between Arabella and the departing maid, "Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked.

"I won’t be alone so, don’t you worry for me, Liriel,"

That didn’t seem to quell the fairy’s concerns, but Arabella waited for no longer and excused herself to stand at the rendez-vous point as promised.

The same place she once stood to face her father for the first time after her desertion.

That time around, she cried and shivered but it didn’t have to be that way anymore. It was a good place to start re-writing her story.

The vampire guards stood behind her as she leaned on the concrete railing, taking deep breaths of the fresh air that came with the night.

The sky had stopped crying very early in that morning but the aroma of damp soil and grass lingered.

"I hoped the words we exchange would stay just between the two of us," sweet as honey with a sizzling after taste his voice came.

"If your highness agrees to shed their guard, I will shed mine," she retorted, barely glimpsing his way before bringing her eyes back onto the moon above.

"Everything for those beautiful eyes of yours," Cedric hesitated not a second and nodded at his guards to go on.

Arabella gave hers a warm smile as well as a solemn nod. The two vampires that had followed in her tracks all night long hesitated, prompting the prince to make a comment.

"I am quite offended," he chuckled, "Besides, I am sure you won’t miss a crumb of our conversation with those ears of yours," he gently tapped his own right ear.

"Why bother sending them away at all then?" Arabella brought the attention onto herself, once more.

"The illusion of privacy," he grinned.

In the end, the guards did grant them the... Illusion of privacy as he called it. The first thirty seconds of their tete-a-tete were spent on a staring contest. Arabella returned no warmth whereas the prince displayed a smile that refused to touch his eyes.

"You know, I am a bit disappointed," he puffed, "I did not imagine our reunion today to be this... Anti-climactic,"

"Your highness," she sighed, "I am afraid there was hardly any union between us in the first place in order to speak of a reunion,"

The man took a step forward at which point, Arabella immediately stepped back. She only stopped when he did.

"No, you are absolutely right. We never truly got the time to build a bond so... Why?" his smirk shifted somewhat. The smugness was still there but it was weaker as though it stood an inch away from turning to a glare.

Her eyes narrowed momentarily, delivering her response without words.

"Why did you leave before giving me... Us a chance?" he clarified.

But by then, he was done pretending. There was not the hint of a snicker to tug at the corner of his lips. He looked her straight in the eyes, his features hard, frozen in place.

us? A chance? What in the world was he raving about? She was to be shipped and delivered to his doorstep like nothing more than a package to unravel and toy with to his heart’s desire.

"Pardon my words, but I had seen enough of you to know the sort of miserable life I would lead under your thumb,"

Those once hard features twisted, earning him the face she knew him so capable of donning.

"Did my words offend his highness?"

Offend? she was rubbing salt into the wound, wasn’t she? But that mattered very little as his eyes were an open portal to his soul.

Cedric probably wished for nothing but to relish her screams and cries as he dragged her helpless body behind him by the hair.

Because how dare she stand tall, look into his eyes without averting her gaze and speak her true mind in front of him?

In reply, Cedric took a deep breath and cracked the most strained of smiles, "I had every intention of making you queen. Did your father not express that when you met?"

"Only women that carry royal blood can ever rise to the throne. Not a drop of it courses my veins, your grace," it turned out, she too was good at smiling without involving her eyes.

And for once, no guilt consumed her over that action.

"A king has all the power to change any rule or law that governs the kingdom," he added.

"You forgot your crown and cape then,"

Indeed, at that moment, the prince donned neither for he was yet to be crowned king and as for the cape, it always seemed too big for him anyways.

"One should always remember from whence they came for that remains their forever place," his smile vanished once more, "It should have been an honor for you to serve your prince. To serve your sole purpose," he pressed a little harder when pronouncing every word, "But you had to be dramatic and for that heads had to roll,"

Arabella did not care about the first half of his statement as much as she did about the last part.

When her eyebrows furrowed, he smirked again, "Now, I do have your full attention, don’t I?"

"What have you done?" she practically hissed.

"What has always been my birth right to do," he chuckled, "To cast punishment upon those who deceived and disobeyed my word,"

The realization struck like a slap across the face; that whole time, his hands had been held behind his back.

It only became noticeable when his arms finally moved to reveal what had been concealed until then.