To His Hell and Back-Chapter 135: Foolishly Little

Danielle flicked her gaze toward Morpheus, who stood still as stone, his silver eyes narrowed, fixated on Cassius’s face as if trying to peel it apart layer by layer. His jaw clenched. A single breath passed. Then, a click of the tongue rang.

"Tch." Morpheus looked dow on his own hands that had began to stiffened. He clicked his tongue again and turned sharply to Danielle. "The magic’s wearing thin. Kill the Crown Prince tonight."

"Oh?" Cassius tilted his head, lips twitching into a grin though it wasn’t enough to hide the seething anger that he could barely contained. "A sudden change of plans? How impulsive of you."

Morpheus didn’t entertain the mockery with a full reply. For a moment his golden gaze lingered on Cassius, narrowed now not with the arrogance that he showed earlier but something close to unease.

"If you really are what I suspect-" Morpheus muttered with his eyebrows furrowed tight, "-then eliminating you takes priority."

"How very flattering," Cassius replied, voice taut in anger as he was going to make sure that every one of them were going to pay for what they had done to Arabella. But just before he could enact his rage to these people, Morpheus’s body collapsed forward. His limbs suddenly lost all its energy as though his life had been sucked out from him in a matter of a blink. His body fell motionless as though a puppet whose strings were cut off. His figure crumpled to the ground, lifeless.

As it hit the floor, Morpheus’s form began to shift. His pale skin turn paler, almost blue even. But that wasn’t the only obvious changes. His bones restructured, shrinking, his body thinning, and curves began to appear.

What lays before Cassius now wasn’t Morpheus at all, but an unfamiliar woman. Her brown eyes stared lifelessly up at the cold ground, and she was still dressed in the olive gown that clung tightly over her body. She was perhaps one of the brothel’s girls, one who was killed, one who was then taken by Morpheus to be used as a puppet in place of him using his twisted magic.

Cassius’s eyes narrowed, something cold flickering in their depths. Demon magic... of course. Just like someone he is so familiar of. Before he could ruminate further the air beside him was sliced clean by something cold like a blade.

Cassius sided his head briefly and a sickle whirred past his cheek, embedding itself in the stone wall behind him with a reverberating thud. The blade stopped right beside the body of the man who Cassius had pinned with his blade earlier, one who had been unmoving throughout the entire fight but Cassius was aware that he’s alive, only that he decided not to move all this time as if it’s some kind of a joke.

Danielle was pissed off, the second pair of hand attached near her chest crossed itself at her bosom, while the other hands moved to gesture her exhaustion, "For heaven’s sake, Matheo," she drawled, voice annoyed, "Must you always be so dramatic?"

Behind Cassius was the same man he had run through earlier. His body had collapsed in a growing pool of blood but it had began to twitch again.

"I thought I did a convincing job," Matheo groaned, slowly lifting his head with the weary grace of a man waking from a nap. "I even died without a single fight. That should’ve sold it."

Cassius didn’t turn. His smirk remained.

"Next time, try holding your breath longer," he said plainly. "The dead tend not to whisper."

"Oh dear," Matheo muttered with exaggerated sorrow, pushing himself up from the ground. He wrenched the sickle from his chest with a wet sloppy sound, the noise accompanied by an exhale. Turning to Cassius, he twirled the bloodied blade lazily in one hand.

"You know," he said, voice was full of curiosity as he continued his words, "This would be the part where the hero starts panicking. One against two, and both of us very much in the mood for blood. Shouldn’t you be terrified? No maybe even shocked at least?"

Cassius stared at him, eyes unblinking, red and gleaming like embers. He was no mood to entertain them, only doing it so he could make sure that they won’t suddenly run away which would make Arabella’s safety in a peril.

"I don’t follow written scripts," he returned, "Unlike you, I live my life not a fairytale. Now which one of you have the antidote? Seeing that bastard earlier is only using a fake body means that one of you have an antidote."

Danielle laughed at that. A soft, honeyed laugh that didn’t reach her eyes. "Ouch, Matheo hear that? Even this vampire could tell in less than a glance how you love fairytales far too much," she lifted her lips higher, placing her fingers gently over her lower lips, slipping her pinky between them, before dragging it downward along her chin, smearing the crimson trail.

"But pray tell this curious mind of ours, what makes you so certain one of us has the antidote?"

Cassius didn’t smile, but his expression curled with quiet cruelty.

"No fool uses poison as a weapon without carrying the antidote." He took a step forward, gaze raking over them. "Unless you’re suicidal or just an idiot."

Danielle’s lips twitched and she rolled her green eyes as she pulled her cloak slowly from her chest. She then pulled out a vial that was milky in color, shaking it before Cassius’s eyes, "This? This is what you want isn’t it? Well let me tell you this, Crown Prince, this potion can diminish the effect that is running wild in her but it won’t stop what it was made to do."

Cassius played with them as he knew that Arabella herself was unaware of what she is and what power she could possess, "And what was it that the potion was made to do to her?"

"Well what else? Activate what her mother had buried inside her of course," answered Danielle happily, "She’s one of us, but more special. We are made and created but she was born the way she is. But oddly she doesn’t share our hatred towards you which made her broken to His Majesty Morpheus’s eyes. But that should be alright now as we have found a method."

Cassius quirked one side of his eyebrows, "A method with that potion?"

"It’s called an awakening potion. Morpheus realized mid way that she was going to protect you no matter what so he was so clever and had used that potion to inject it to her instead. How surprising isn’t it? Morpheus, our king, has always been a step ahead anyone else."

Cassius gritted his teeth. He now realized though the potion was also purple it wasn’t meant to be injected to him in the first place. Morpheus’s target had always been Arabella and that was clear to achieve his own purpose and goal.

Realizing it now was too late. Regretting it now was even later.

"That potion will awaken what’s in her but it will hurt a lot," Danielle answered, "She won’t die but she could be in a brink of it and well this potion can help her," sang the woman, pushing the said potion and dangling it before Cassius’s eyes, "So if you want this, you have to do one thing for me, Your Highness."

"This isn’t a good idea," Matheo warned and she snapped her glare at him,

"I’m here to kill him, don’t ask how I will do it, and don’t dictate what I have to do. Don’t you have your own business to take care of, Matheo?" Danielle said, annoyed as she wasn’t someone who liked her prey stolen from her.

Matheo clicked his tongue.

"Suit yourself but if you die I’ll make sure to step and dance on your grave."

"You wish," chuckled Danielle as Matheo turned and rushed up the staircase toward the brothel but Cassius didn’t move. He knew he should prevent Matheo from leaving but if he does leave now, Arabella’s antidote would be gone for good. It’s clear whatever potion that had been forced to be injected in his birdie was harmful enough to make her squirm and agonize in pain.

He didn’t want to see that sight of her.

So he had to do what he had to do now.

"Oh," Danielle chuckled seeing Cassius’s smile that had disappeared and his eyes that were fixed to the potion before him, "So you choose her even above your responsibility as the Crown Prince. How touching. You should tell this to Bella maybe she would fully open her entire heart for you."