Chapter 46 Caspian’s Heart
Caspian’s Heart
Elizabeth took a step forward, knowing that running was futile. She had been so careful, and he had found her anyway.
Caspian prowled towards her. His flared nostrils were the only indication that he was angry.
“Why hello, Elizabeth. Fancy seeing you here,” he growled.
“Hello, Caspian.”
“It’s been a while.”
“Yes, it has.”
“You’ve been a very hard woman to find.”
She clenched her jaw.
He tilted his head, his expression unreadable. “Let me take you for dinner in the city?”
She blinked. Of all the things he could have said, that was the last thing she expected.
He stood close to her, so close she could smell him. She loosed a shaky breath. Why was he asking to take her for dinner, instead of dragging her back to his castle?
She searched his eyes. “To what end?”
His gaze softened. “Please.”
She had never heard him utter that word once. “Alright.”
They wandered the city side by side till they arrived at a lavish restaurant of dark stone with ivy clinging to the walls. Bronze frames held oil paintings, and the tables were set with flickering candles and expensive-looking crystal goblets.
Looking around self-consciously, Elizabeth tugged her cloak around herself to hide her plain cotton dress.
Caspian snapped his fingers at a serving woman, demanding they be given a place by the window, where they could see the city street with rain-slicked cobblestones.
The serving woman ushered them to the table in question, and Caspian insisted on pulling out her chair. As she smoothed her skirts under her and sat down, she glanced up curiously, but his expression was wooden.
Caspian sat across from her and crossed his arms, looking away from her as though he still didn’t know what to say.
The serving woman came back, filled their goblets with wine, then left and returned to place a basket of bread on the table. The aroma of fresh bread wrapped around her, giving her a small comfort. Caspian scowled across from her. “Eat.”
Tentatively, she picked up a bun. It was still warm from the oven.
Elizabeth felt strange being out in the city with him, sharing a goblet of wine at a restaurant like they were two normal people.
Like he wasn’t a demon that drank blood, and she wasn’t his human mistress who had been hiding from him for the past few months.
After her day of practicing magic, her mother would have scolded her for the way she tore into the bread, nearly emptying the bowl. To his credit, Caspian said nothing and only raised a hand to ask the serving woman for more bread.
She smiled at him gratefully, and he only blinked in answer.
The candlelight flickered across his face, and the rain came down harder outside, sluicing down the windowpane in fat drops.
Finally, Caspian spoke. “You look well.”
Elizabeth smiled and raised an eyebrow. “You sound surprised.”
“No jewels or gowns anymore?” he inquired, gesturing at her form.
She was wearing a dark, homespun dress of dyed cotton.
She wore no silks or expensive fabrics, and her throat and ears were absent of any adornment.
Her hair was plaited, with a few strands escaping, and she wore no face paint.
She blended in with everyone else in the city and had sold nearly every expensive thing she had owned.
She no longer looked like a woman who dined with royalty—she looked like a commoner.
By selling her things, she acquired her own accommodations and a modest amount of gold, which she hoped would last for a while.
Instead of wandering the world in search of somewhere that felt like home, or trying to return to a place where she no longer felt like she belonged, she had made her own. It was small, and she wasn’t wealthy by any means, but she loved it more than she could put into words.
So, Elizabeth smiled and slowly shook her head. No. No jewels or fancy gowns anymore.
When the serving woman came over, she ordered a bowl of soup, and Caspian raised a hand to interrupt.
“She will have the venison, as will I. Another round of wine, and I want three orders of this to bring home.” Caspian tapped the menu, not letting her see.
“For mine, please have the meat undercooked, raw in the middle. No vegetables.”
“Very good, sir.” It was a mark of how good the restaurant was that the server didn't even blink at the strange requests and took the menus from them.
Her gaze narrowed in irritation. “I was going to order the soup.”
She did not like being told what to do or spoken over like a child or someone incapable of making her own decisions.
“You ordered from the cheaper side of the menu, I assume because you were either planning to pay for yourself or to spare my feelings and coffers. I will be paying, of course, and I will insist you eat something more filling.”
Elizabeth couldn’t find room to argue, so she admitted defeat. “Thank you,” she said stiffly. Her pride was saved from admitting that she had been looking at the cheaper side of the menu. His insistence was irritating, but it was not coming from an unkind place, so she relented.
“It is my pleasure.” He said, making the word sound vaguely obscene. “We can't have you off on your adventures with an empty stomach now, can we?”
He cocked his head to the side and added, “The extra is for you to take with you, wherever it is that you are, by the way.”
“And here I thought you were worried Asmodeus would need to be fed when you got home.”
He smiled slowly. “Because he is my pet?”
“You said it, not me.”
Caspian laughed, the sound booming. His expression quickly fell, and he surveyed her seriously once more. “I missed you.”
Elizabeth’s fingers tensed in her lap. The intensity of his gaze on hers made her uncomfortable. “Why have you come?”
Softly, he said, “Why did you leave?”
A hundred reasons. But she didn’t want to list them all and ruin the evening, so she only said, “Because I could not stay.”
An awkward silence stretched while the server brought their meals.
She cut a piece of venison with her knife and speared it with her fork.
She sighed as the fatty cut of meat nearly melted in her mouth.
The food was much better fare than she would have had at home, where she typically ate meals of bread, cheeses, and whatever bland stews she was able to put together in the small fireplace in her townhouse.
She muttered her thanks for the meal, and he crossed his arms, brooding across the table.
Neither spoke until her attention was caught by several white flakes falling outside.
She gasped in delight. “Oh! Is that snow?”
He glanced outside. “Yes,” he said dismissively. “We get it every winter.”
She propped her chin on her fist, staring in wonder at the snowflakes drifting down and landing on the cobblestones. “I’ve always wanted to see snow,” she said happily.
“It’s nothing special,” he said gruffly. “It’s just snow.”
Noticing his derisive look, as if he found it silly that she enjoyed something so trivial, she turned to him and raised her brows, words coming out sharp. “So why did you come? Besides belittling things I enjoy.”
He took a large swig of wine, as if it were an elixir that strengthened him against the awkwardness that filled the air. “It is difficult to begin.”
She hadn’t even known he could drink real wine.
His eyes searched hers, looking for some sign she returned his affections, but she remained cold and expressionless before him. “Elizabeth, I sought you out because there’s something you need to know about why I chose to bring you to my castle.”
Her stomach dropped to the floor. She leaned forward, expecting him to say something to the effect of the prophecy. Ambriel had said that was why she was chosen, because Caspian had been hunting for the woman who it described.
She waited with bated breath to have it confirmed: he had never picked her because she was special, but because she fit the markers of the mysterious prophecy.
“I picked you because of your father’s name. Nothing more.”
Her eyes widened in surprise, and she blurted, “What—not—” She paused. “Wait, my father’s name?”
Caspian gave a hollow laugh. “I wanted to make you fall in love with me, then kill you. The Ashcroft line was meant to end with you—to die with you—heartbroken and alone.” His face was unapologetic and grave.
The words hit her like physical blows. “How could you possibly be so cruel?” Elizabeth’s lips curled in revulsion. “You wanted to kill—me?”
“I wanted to end your family. They wronged mine, several centuries ago. And for several centuries I have waited.”
Her gaze narrowed. “But I don’t understand. You haven’t hurt me at all.”
Caspian smiled grimly. “I trapped you in a contract so that you would be mine. So I would own you for three months and glut myself on your blood. If you’d left early, I would have killed you for breaking our contract.
” He paused. “And if you had stayed the full three months, I would have killed you, anyway, as soon as it was over. On the last day of the contract, as soon as it was midnight.”
“Why did you want me to fall for you?” Her voice came out in a horrified whisper. “The walks in the garden, the gifts, the kind gestures? All of it—why?”
Caspian glanced at the snow falling outside before returning his gaze to her.
His expression was wooden. “I wanted the pleasure of watching you, and the others, fall in love with me, worship me, adore me, feel completely safe with me, so that it would be all the more sweeter when you realized I was going to kill you.”
Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “That is a sick thing to want. To want to hurt people you don’t even know and bring their heart into it, only to stomp on it.
To want to torture their feelings, and kill them?
And for what crime?” Her nostrils flared in solidarity with the women whom he had hurt before.
“You’ve killed them all?” Her voice shook. “Every last one?”
“Yes,” he said dismissively, as if the women before her had meant nothing.