To His Hell and Back-Chapter 108: Returning Where They Belong

Morpheus wasn’t deterred by her cold refusal. He never was.

After all, their mother had been the same as her. She was a distant, unapproachable, and far too proud of a woman. And yet, for all her coldness, she had been a woman who made one mistake while trying to fix another, weaving herself into a trap of her own making. A foolish, naive creature who thought she could outmaneuver fate.

Ariel hadn’t just inherited her mother’s features. She had inherited her illusions too.

Morpheus tapped his finger lightly against the rim of the teacup, his touch slow and deliberate, as if testing the fragility of the porcelain. His hum was soft, almost indulgent, a prelude to words that carried the weight of inevitability.

"I suppose you aren’t ready to face reality," he mused, his voice wrapped in velvet, smooth and unhurried. "And that is understandable. Your mother always did try to raise you as if you were something... ordinary. A simple- nothing out of the ordinary- village girl. But no matter how much you pretend, you cannot betray your bloodline. The past has a way of reclaiming what belongs to it."

Ariel stiffened, her fingers gripping the folds of her dress. Why was it that they couldn’t live their normal life? She doesn’t know what they had in their bloodline but her instinct tells her she shouldn’t try to pry further. If she tries, she would only face something she couldn’t bear. But it was his next words that sent a slow chill down her spine.

"I had considered coming for you and Arabella much sooner," Morpheus continued, idly tracing the lip of the cup, "When I heard of your mother’s passing, I knew I should have fetch you two either by force or not. If not for the circumstances, I would have."

Ariel’s breath caught in her throat. The room blurred for a fraction of a second.

"My mother died?" she whispered.

Morpheus studied her, his golden eyes unblinking, the hint of a smile playing at his lips. "Of course, dear," he murmured, tilting his head slightly. "You didn’t know?"

Ariel swallowed hard. "The last thing I had heard about her was when... she ran away with a man."

Morpheus let out a quiet hum, his expression unreadable, as if turning over her words like a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit.

She hesitated before forcing out the question. "When did she—"

"Years ago," he interrupted, his tone evasive, slipping through the cracks of her inquiry like smoke. "But does it matter? Your mother has always been a runner, running away when things get too tough for her, that’s her shameful speciality."

Ariel felt as if she were being led somewhere by his words without her realizing it, each step dictated by his pace, the conversation bending to his will.

She wasn’t speaking to him. No. Instead, she was playing into his tune, dancing when he told her to.

The realization curled in her stomach like something rotten. It was unsettling how effortlessly he wove her into the rhythm of his words, how his voice turned her to question into the truth she knew she shouldn’t try to pry open. A deep, creeping dread slithered beneath her skin, tightening around her ribs. She needed to leave. Now.

Ariel swallowed, waiting, praying, for Courtez to return, but Morpheus wasn’t done with her yet.

"Do you still refuse to face the truth about your birth?"

Something sharp twisted inside her, her fingers flinching as she darted her eyes from the teacup to his eyes and then back to the table.

"It’s not that," she bite down her lips, the words barely stable. Her hands clenched against her lap. "Arabella suffered because of you. You wanted her dead. I remember it."

The memory was vivid like it was yesterday’s. The cold water, struggling limbs, her mother’s panicked scream and how Morpheus only chuckled at the entire scene. A soft, amused sound that sent an ice pick of fury through her veins.

Her glare sharpened, but he remained relaxed, shaking his head as if indulging a foolish child.

"Calm down, Ariel." His voice was a patient sigh. "Why would I want our Princess to die?"

Ariel flinched, as if a wave of cold water had washed over her heart, she felt drained immediately.

"Prince.. ss?"

"Princess, indeed."

Morpheus lifted the teacup to his lips, taking an unhurried sip. Silence stretched, thick and suffocating, while Ariel sat frozen, her mind scrambling to piece together the implications.

Princess? Who? Arabella? Me? Us?

She felt her heart hammering against her ribs, wild and desperate, as if trying to escape the cage of her chest.

Morpheus placed the cup down with a soft click, his golden eyes gleaming with satisfaction at her distress. "What you have seen back then was a misunderstanding. You were young so I suppose you didn’t remember it quite well," he murmured, watching her unravel. "I didn’t want to drown your sister. I would never. I have always protected the royal bloodline."

His words coiled around her throat like a noose. She didn’t want to hear the rest, feeling as if his words were going to open something that should have always been kept a secret.

"For now, I have been deemed King," he continued his words patiently, "but the blood in my veins could never compare to yours or Arabella’s. You two-"

"No. Stop."

Ariel shot up from her chair, knocking it over as she quickly made her way to her back, closing to the wall. Her breath came too fast, too shallow. She raised a trembling hand, as if she could physically push his words away, shove them back down his throat before they could root themselves in her mind.

"Don’t continue," she whispered, her voice uneven, almost pleading. "I don’t want to hear it. Leave now, we don’t want to be a part of your games."

Morpheus only smiled knowingly. He took her distress with a calm gaze, "And? Will you really be sure that one day you won’t come to regret everything? Even after you have seen your sister’s corpse?"

The air was sucked from her lungs, his words shot her like a quick arrow.

Ariel palled, her legs weak beneath her, her vision narrowing into something dark and suffocating. The world tilted, not from the weight of his words, but from the terrifying, gut wrenching possibility that they might be true.

She snapped her head back at him, "What do you mean?"

"Your sister is in the castle isn’t she?" Morpheus asked at once, his eyes narrowing, "It was the only one place you and your sister should have never stepped to. It’s distressing how fate would always ties you back to the one place that could bring you misery isn’t it?"

"Stop speaking in a puzzle!" She yelled at him, "What do you mean- what are we? What do you want from us?! How could this affect Bella’s safety?"

"Do you know the origin of Versailles?" Morpheus asked her and his innocent smile turn wicked as he tapped his heart. The question carried a weight, sinking into her bones like ice. It wasn’t just the way he said it, casual, almost amused, it was the way the room itself seemed to darken, the flickering candlelight casting longer, sharper shadows.

Morpheus leaned forward, tapping his chest again, right over his heart, as if he expected her to hear something inside, something ancient, something monstrous. fгeewebnovёl.com

"This kingdom was never human owned," he continued, his voice laced with something cruel, "It was carved from nothing by sorcerers, built with their magic, their will, and blood." He let the last word hang, letting its weight settle before he smiled. "We are human, sure we appear so, but at the same time we are more than humans. Our flesh and blood have a certain power that could make other creatures to grow stronger. And do you know what creature would get the strongest by drinking and feasting from our blood and flesh?

Ariel didn’t need him to say it. The answer was already clawing its way through her mind.

Still, Morpheus obliged, his voice a velvet whisper of inevitability.

"Vampires."

The word slithered through the air, coiling tight around her throat. She hitched, her blood draining as she understood that her sister and her were a part of the sorcerers. She had heard it before and thought it was all to be a tale. The late human king himself seems to be searching for sorcerer but she thought it was all a rumor... but what if it was true?

What if they really do have the blood of a sorcerer, meaning their flesh and blood would be something so delightful for those vampires... and now... and now her sister is in the castle filled with them!

"And now Arabella who shares our blood is in the very place filled with those power hungry creatures. A royal blood like her could do many things that would even seem like a miracle. Just a drop of her blood would make any vampires four times stronger than they were before and if by accident any of those blood sucking creature ever drank her blood, they would begin to tear her apart," Morpheus narrowed his eyes and smiled upon seeing Ariel who was completely swept by his words.

He continued with a thoughtful tone, "I know you don’t want to be involved any longer with anything chaotic Ariel, nor do I want to bring you two from your normal life into one full of blood and chaos. However things have changed and I know you also want to save your sister from the castle. So let’s save her, Ariel. I promise I would bring you two back to safety."

But Ariel clenched on her eagerness, narrowing her eyes.

"You’re going to save us for nothing in exchange? I hardly believe so," Ariel looked at him despite the fear crawling to her vein, "What do you want?"

And Morpheus smiled, answering her as his words were brought away by the strong gust of wind that had suddenly open the window to the room. In exchange, after hearing his words, Ariel’s face turn pale and she met to Morpheus who had strode from his chair toward her, reaching out his hands and offering her a kind and loyal smile, "Princess," he sang, "Have you made up your mind yet?"