To His Hell and Back-Chapter 187: Three Way Mirror-I

Eugh! What was this man on? Was he drunk?

Arabella was aware how all drunk people tend to act weirdly so she suspected that this was such a case but she couldn’t smell any alcohol from him and could see his grin from one side that was wider though his eyes seemed somehow... upset?

Was he teasing her to hide the fact that he was feeling a little upset?

"...know each other?"

"They do look close."

"How could that be? Maybe she’s a princess who had known His Highness even before us?"

"We would have known her name if that’s the case!"

"Then you mean to say that they got closer after just a single night? That’s impossible!"

Arabella could hear the ladies’s whisper that was louder than even the meowing white cat that had once made trouble and now slowly slithered toward her feet, rubbing its neck to her ankle which momentarily took her attention.

She bent down and humphed at the cat, "Do you know what kind of trouble you had started earlier?"

Cassius with his arms crossed stared at the white cat who had mellowed as Arabella gently rubbed under its neck. It even began to purr and seeing how delighted the cat was with Arabella’s touches, his eyebrows slowly knit together into a frown.

"I didn’t know you raised a cat," said Cassius to her, the obvious tone of teasing.

"Of course I didn’t," she sighed as she stood up, scooping the white cat to her arms as it docilely warmed up to her into a ball of fluffy white fur. "Isn’t this cat yours? Or maybe someone else’s from the castle?"

"That couldn’t be," answered Cassius, "It’s of a high bred, it’s not some wildcat but then if it is owned by someone in this castle it would have been either me, my father, Morgana, and Malvo."

"What about Princess Marissa?" she asked as he had skipped one person from his family.

"She is scared of cat," answered Cassius plainly with a shrug, "Then again this doesn’t seem to be abandoned. Considering how round its tummy is, it’s well fed." fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

The cat who seemed offended by this statement turned at him with a scrunched pink nose, "Meow."

Cassius scoffed lightly at the cat, his gloved hand stretching forward, his finger brimming with his demonic power. But before he could so much as brush the creature’s fur, a new presence descended upon the garden like the shift of wind before a storm.

Arabella turned at the same time he did, and there, at the edge of the floral path framed by roses and the purple wisteria flowers, stood Princess Isabelle.

The world seemed to still around her.

She had came back from leaving Arabella’s side due to her servant’s request and didn’t knew that Cassius would be there or expected to see him. But the moment her gaze landed on him, something within her cracked wide open.

Her crimson eyes, normally so full of love and stars, widened, stunned, as if she’d seen an impossible vision. The fingers that were holding to a shawl seem to tremble slighty. Her breath caught audibly, and in that fragile pause, Arabella could almost hear her heartbeat stutter.

All this because he had just seen Cassius. All this because she was awed by him.

Sunlight broke through the trees then, catching the golden threads in his black cloak and the cruel cut angle of his jaw. Everything that he has seemed to turn even more mesmerizing, so much so that Arabella hated for once of how charming he appeared.

But the man in question who had became a flower to all the ladies in this garden kept his eyes at the cat, narrowing it. Only when he lifted his gaze and saw her eyes looking somewhere that wasn’t him did he moved his gaze and his red eyes flicked toward Isabelle.

Arabella’s heart thumped but she could see the disinterested glance, as sharp as a needle but to Isabelle, it must have felt like being chosen by the gods.

A blush bloomed across Isabelle’s cheeks, so vivid it rivaled the roses behind her. Her lips parted not in greeting, but in awe. She was falling, and not in the literal sense.

It was the fall of a girl who had spent her life dreaming of courtly love, of dangerous men with those grim red eyes, of fairytales where beasts turned to kings and queens tamed monsters with nothing but grace.

And Cassius was every inch the monster prince in her storybook fantasy.

Arabella saw it clearly. The way Isabelle’s fingers curled tighter around the shawl as if to pull herself together. The way her body angled toward him, subtly, instinctively. The way her smile rose not the practiced kind, but the kind that bloomed unbidden, trying to charm.

It was the look of a girl who had been struck through the heart by her very first real emotion.

Love.

Cassius, however, blinked once. Then turned back to the cat.

"Don’t you think that this cat is weird? You should put it back to where it belongs. Who knows what kind of things that dirty paws have touched." He asked dryly to her and this made Arabella’s eyes to gather back at him. There was a puzzled look on her face as if questioning why he hadn’t left her side yet when there is someone there who needs his attention even more than she does. But he continued to focus his attention at her even sighing, "What is it? You like the cat so much that you refuse to hear my advice?"

Arabella shook her head, "No, there’s Princess Isabelle."

"Who?"

He asked with such a disinterested tone that even Arabella started to feel rather embarrassed.

"No, I mean," she didn’t know what to say. Should she direct the attention to Princess Isabelle who seemed to now want his gaze and attention so much? Or should she simply pretend as if she hadn’t notice anything at all?

Why is it that both choice feels terrible to her?

"Your Highness Cassius," Isabelle came toward them, her shoes that were crimson in color appeared right before her eyes, making a mark between them. "Grateful to see you, Your Highness. May I introduce myself?"

Cassius turned, though he seemed as if he was going to say an insult he instead asked, "You may."

Blinking Arabella wondered what was going on as her heart that had once felt relieved now felt rather shaken once again.

Is he... interested in the princess?