Chương 7: Deer and Tiger

‘Do you really want to get married to a beast like me?’ This sentence kept on echoing in Anastasia’s mind.

She tightened her grip on her gown. Caspian was sending chills to her body with his cold touch and his cold words.

She stepped back again in fear but her lips were telling something completely opposite, “I am not going to run away from you just because you are a little different from me.” And her eyes reflected her desperation to stay when she whispered, “Everyone deserves to be loved, even a Vampire like you.”

Caspian’s face suddenly turned softer upon hearing the word ‘love’.

Even though it was a fleeting expression, Anastasia had already noticed it. And she knew that she had just stroked the right chord.

Thus, she softly spoke in an attempt to convince him to let her stay, “I am already here, and technically, I am already engaged to you. So rather than insisting on sending me away, why don’t you give this marriage a chance? Maybe we will fall in love. Everything could work out between us.”

Frustrated with his fruitless attempts at chasing her away, he ran his fingers through his blonde hair and shouted, “Nothing will work out between us, Anastasia. Nothing! You are a human with fleeting life. And I am a vampire with centuries ahead of me. I am a predator and you are a prey, my prey!”

“I could easily kill you in the blindness of my hunger. I could twist your neck like a twig. Hell, I could just kill you by accident and you wouldn’t even know what killed you.”

Suddenly, he grabbed her by her shoulders and gently shook her as if to wake her up from her fantasy land. “So tell me, how are things going to work out between us?”

Anastasia was feeling breathless because of all the truth bombs that Caspian dropped on her.

But she was still adamant about her intention of marrying him, “You are doing fine till now, aren’t you? You haven’t killed me yet. So I am going to trust that you can control your hunger when you are around me. Everything else will work out eventually.”

Anastasia was doing everything in her power to convince him to let her stay.

Caspian intensified his glare on that foolish woman and spoke in his low and threatening voice, “I haven’t killed you yet because you haven’t met me when I am hungry, Princess. Meet me when I am hungry and you will know how many seconds you will last before I lose my control.”

“Then I will give you a reason not to lose your control. I will make you fall in love with me,” Anastasia blurted out her actual intention in the heat of the moment.

As her mother had asked her, she was going to make him fall in love with her. She needed to.

Caspian could not believe how a lady could be so stubborn.

He let out a frustrated sigh and tried to make her understand for a final time, “A deer and a tiger can never fall in love! And you would be the greatest fool in history if you are thinking that something as hollow as love could restrain my desire to rip out your throat and drink your blood.”

It would be a lie to say that the Princess wasn’t scared. Her legs were shaking underneath the several layers of her gown. She was barely managing to stand still.

However, she was not giving up on her cure so easily. She had to stay in Sorvando, anyhow.

Anastasia was filled with a sudden zeal. She looked Caspian in the eyes and asked, “Have you ever fallen in love with a human?”

Caspian was caught off-guard when she asked a personal question out of the blue. He knitted his brows in tune and denied, “No.”

Anastasia slightly raised her brows and asked, “Then how do you know that you wouldn’t be able to resist your urges to kill the person you love… when you’ve never been in love?”

And she even daringly challenged the King, “Maybe if you have something that is more important than your hunger, then you will learn how to resist. Give me some time to make you fall in love with me. And if I still fail, and if I just make it hard for you, then I will leave on my own.”

Caspian was a little moved by how persistent she was. But he didn’t like the defiance from her. He was trying to send her back for her own good. So to scare her even more, he used his telekinesis power to pull her towards him.

Anastasia was startled when some unseen force pulled her towards Caspian. Before she knew it, her body slammed against his, sending literal chills all over her body.

A soft gasp escaped her dry lips. She instantly tried to get away from him. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how I…” she gasped again when he put his arm around her tiny waist and pressed her body against his.

Anastasia gave a questioning glance to Caspian but she was lost in the depth of his eyes when she saw that he was gazing back at her. He wasn’t looking as scary as he did a while ago.

Anastasia was flustered by that extreme closeness with a man. She could feel her heart skipping a beat and thought, ‘At this rate, I will fall for him before I can make him fall for me.’

Caspian slowly trailed his other arm down her hand, making her shudder because of the touch from his cold fingers. Anastasia’s heart began to race because of his ticklish touch.

He gently grabbed her wrist and raised it close to his eyes while Anastasia curiously stared at his face. He was going to ask her why she was insisting on staying when she was ready to inflict harm upon herself. But the ‘claw’ marks on her wrist had magically disappeared already.

However, he noticed something else and finally asked in a soft tone, “You are trembling! How can you make me fall for you when you are so scared of me?”

She smiled out of nowhere and apologized, “I’m sorry. I am not used to being around vampires yet. But I will try not to be scared of you anymore.”

‘This woman! How can someone look this innocent?’ It was the first time Caspian had seen her smile. And she looked so beautiful when she smiled that he couldn’t resist her anymore.

Though he was still unsure if she had some ulterior motive or not, he could feel the warmth from her that he had been longing for.

It was not that he had never met women who were willing to throw themselves at him. Countless women had tried to win him over in his long lifetime. But they were all after his money and power.

However, in the case of Anastasia, he felt that something was different. Or it was just him who wanted to believe that this stubborn little woman was different than the rest, he didn’t know.

What he knew was that he wanted her… to try and make him fall in love with her.

Caspian abruptly let go of Anastasia’s hand and reverted back to his intimidating self. And then he spoke as though he was doing a charity to the Princess, “Alright! I will give you a year’s time then.”

Anastasia was so lost in his gem-like eyes that she didn’t quite get what he was talking about. She raised her brows and asked in a baffled tone, “A year?”

Caspian put his hands behind his back and replied while exuding a regal aura, “Yes, a year. That is what I give you to make me fall in love with you.”

“Really? Thank you, Your Majesty. I will spare no efforts from my side.” The Princess’ eyes lit up after hearing that the King finally agreed to give their marriage a chance.

However, Caspian being Caspian, he narrowed his eyes at Anastasia and then added a clause to their bet. “Oh, don’t be so excited yet, love. Because if you fail to make me fall for you by the end of a year then…” he narrowed his eyes and continued in his dramatic tone, “your life will be forfeit.”

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