(The contents of this Chapter can be triggering to sensitive readers. Kindly keep your mental health in check before reading this one. Reader discretion is advised if you have ’Choking’ triggers. Thank you.)
His words sent chills skidding down her skin, and not in a good way. Cassandra understood he was going to hurt her, badly.
Slowly, he rose and removed the blindfold from around her eyes; he wished to see the terror there, the inexplicable fear that must have birthed in her beautiful violet eyes because of his words.
To his disappointment, all he found was defiance and disgust directed at him as she blinked several times, letting her eyes adjust to the low red light in the room and the light amber glow from the crackling fire in the fireplace.
The place was cold, unlike her land.
He leaned in and removed the piece of cloth he had stuffed into her mouth so she could speak.
Cassandra gulped in the saliva that had accumulated in her mouth and threw him a revulsion-coated look before spitting out.
"Who are you? What do you want from me?"
The vampire lifted his head and swiped his long pink tongue over his crimson lips and chin. Slurping away any remains of the red nectar.
Amusedly he moved from between her legs and towered over her for a few seconds.
His lust-filled took in her beautiful face, the first of a kind which attracted him. Down to her long neck where a few prominent veins had ample blood to sate him.
The further slid down to her full breasts which rose and fell under the white gown she wore. Cassandra’s leg itched to rise and knee him into his balls but she was shackled.
After drinking her in with his eyes, he lowered himself towards the side of the bed he had tied Cassandra to.
He elegantly draped himself on the single armchair with a red velvet cushion. Propping his elbow on the armrest he let his head rest on his hand and amusedly watched Cassandra.
His ruby-red lips puckered to her annoyance as he spoke.
"Can’t you guess? I heard you were smart."
Cassandra had never seen him before but he had an uncanny resemblance to someone. She raked her brain and finally realised who he must be.
They had the same shade of midnight black hair except he had a red streak running through them. There was this unearthly alluring charm about him as well which set him apart from his brother.
The shock made her gulp air in abundance, making his smirk widen. That’s what he wished, to make her afraid.
"I can see you got there," he blatantly teased, revealing his extremely white fangs to her. The very ones he had just plunged into her skin.
"Is this about revenge? Prince Kanyon?" Cassandra asked, still trying to jerk herself free from these shackles, feeling extremely vulnerable and frustrated under his ravenous gaze.
Kanyon did not attempt to delay the answer.
"Yes! Your mate took my brother. It’s only fair I took what he loved the most. What he was trying to protect when he burnt my brother alive."
His long index finger, with a sharp nail, drummed his temple in rhythm. His viper-like bloody eyes focused entirely on Cassandra as he tried not to take in more of her inviting scent, or he would drain her.
He had never been so attracted to a scent or a woman before. Something about her was hauntingly captivating.
Charming. Enticing. Intriguing.
Cassandra shook her head, her fears were correct. Vampires didn’t forget they always formed their own ridiculous rules. She knew the moment Siroos burnt Kamyn alive that they would retaliate.
"He lost fair and square in the arena. He knew the rules, you win, or you die if you don’t yield," Cassandra tried speaking sense with Kanyon. But his unsettling gaze was nerve-wracking. She could feel that predator in him, the one who wanted to hurt her and yet he sat there suppressing it for now.
For the right moment to strike her.
"Sadly, I beg to differ. That mate of yours never gave him the chance to yield. I heard the complete details of the incident and he deliberately choked him so he wouldn’t be able to speak. Don’t you think that was unfair? To choke someone?"
He paused and blinked at Cassandra, hoping for her answer. That creepy smile, the one found on a ventriloquist doll, remained on the corners of his lips.
She didn’t know what to even say to him. Seeing her blankly stare at him, Kanyon creepily said.
"Let’s test it out."
He leaned in, and her ambrosial scent hit him like a sudden pattering of rain. No woman had stirred the chords of his dead heart like this supposed enemy was doing. He wished to rip her apart and, at the same time, invade her physically and emotionally.
To kiss and bite–every bit of her delicate skin and leave his marks.
The emotions she was stirring inside of him were very contradictory to him. All these new bubbling feelings were foreign to Kanyon. He didn’t do gentle, all he did was suck blood and kill.
His cold hand went around her throat and as much as she tried to hide the lingering fear, it crept in from the corners and lined the circles in her eyes.
"No!" She firmly cried out but to no avail.
She tried to shift away, but her head thrashed.
His slim and nimble fingers with long, pointed nails squeezed around her soft neck, and then he tightened his hold, bit by bit, further and further, until Cassandra could no longer breathe.
She began to thrash her eyes now coated in fear and fully blown wide in shock as he completely cut off her oxygen supply.
The nail of his thumb pricked the vein on the side of her neck, making her vermilion liquid ooze out and flow down the smooth slope of her neck collecting in the dip of her shoulder, making a pool of the ambrosial liquid.
His other hand held her head still so she wouldn’t be able to move as he drank from the well.
’He is going to kill me,’ Cassandra’s numbing mind thought to herself as she struggled to breathe and her face began to turn slightly blue. Her brain began to conjure images of Siroos’s smiling face, preparing her to watch her mate in case Kanyon ended her life.
He slightly relaxed his grip, and Cassandra snaked in gulps of air, filling her burning lungs before he tightened it again and continued repeating the process.
Every time he took a gulp of her blood, he would squeeze her throat.
The fear, the racing pulse, the warmth of her blood and the choking sounds she made for her survival sated his twisted mind.
He continued until he had his fill of this sadistic torture.
Kanyon finally pulled back and Cassandra violently coughed, her chest heaving so rapidly, her heartbeat berserk.
She was trying not to wheeze from the experience, but the water seeped out of her eyes as her neck ached from his brutal torture. His fingers left red prints there as if blood had been spilt on snow.
Kanyon relaxedly leaned back and watched her as if she was a piece of art he was creating according to his demented mind. She had turned him on, his manhood throbbed painfully under his black attire.
How he wished to rip this flimsy gown off and invade her every hole and fill her up with his cum.
His tongue poked out and licked his lower lip which was covered in her red nectar, a drop trickled on his chin.
"You are a monster," Cassandra seethed out, her face distorted in pain and revulsion as her watered eyes flickered at him.
"So is your mate, in the literal sense. He turns into a dragon and burns people. Do you call him that too?" Kanyon amusedly asked, watching Cassandra battle tears.
He was met with silence and hateful looks.
"Doesn’t it feel good to be choked?" Kanyon then wiped the drop of blood on his chin with the pad of his thumb and placed it in his mouth.
"You are sick in the head," Cassandra blurted out without being able to stop herself.
"You have no clue, Broken Butterfly. Your sister wanted you dead after being tortured but I think I am going to keep you around and play. No one will find you or us here. It’s my sanctuary." He smiled like a twisted lunatic while Cassandra’s heart drowned in a river of pain.
It was true then, her sister had sealed her fate.
Kanyon then extended his hand and began to softly caress her gold-hued locks. They lay all around her head like wisps of gold streaks left behind by the sun.
His pointer finger twisted around one of the locks and he moved forward to sniff it. She smelled like summer days.
And then, without warning, he yanked the lock with such force that it was rooted out of her head and left on his finger.
A brutal cry of pain left Cassandra’s mouth as the vampire slowly smiled and placed her precious hair inside a small pocket of his attire.