by Marian Tee
He was popular like Julian.
He was handsome like Julian.
But everyone knew he was never going to be king because he was too weak, unlike Julian, who was strong.
As the elders spoke of his many flaws within earshot, the hatred he felt grew and grew.
One day, he would kill Julian.
One day, he would be king.
And when that happened, the world would suffer for thinking he was not enough for them.
But before then he would pretend. With every instance that the world chose Julian over him, he would smile during the day but at the night he hunted, taking his anger out on a hapless victim, whether it be animal or human, old or young.
The world knew him as the prince from the House of Rodrigo.
Cass knew him as Mr. Darkness.
Julian knew him as Jose.
****
Minutes after Jose left, a call from Manolo’s wife came through. The whole time she spoke, Julian struggled with his disbelief. The woman had done the impossible, managing to convince her husband that his decision to wage war would only tear the kingdom apart. If Julian were to ask Manolo to be one of his advisers, even if it was to be a nominal position, Manolo would back down.
It was a fair exchange, and Julian did not hesitate to strike a deal.
The entire office erupted into cheers when he made the announcement. He shook his hands with Raoul and the two other princes who had come to his aid.
“You look like there’s somewhere you’d rather be,” Prince Crispin said knowingly.
Julian flushed. “Am I that obvious?”
“Only because I am in love like you,” the prince answered.
The words stung, but Julian couldn’t make himself deny or acknowledge them. It was futile, he thought grimly, to label his feelings for Cass, knowing that their relationship could never end in marriage.
“You did well, Julian,” Rico, an older widowed prince, said warmly as he clapped Julian on the back. “It would be my honor to serve you when you are king. But for now, go home to your woman. We can take care of the rest. Your presence is no longer needed and you deserve to celebrate.”
Wise words, and since Julian was always in the habit of following words of wisdom, he took his leave.
He was only a short distance away from the hotel when his phone rang. “Cass?”
“Where are you? I need you to come!”
Unbidden, the memory of Jose’s words came to him.
She will be demanding that you drop everything for her…
Julian shook the thought away. No. He refused to believe Cass would be so manipulative. Jose simply didn’t know her. He would change his mind once he did. “I’m still at work,” he lied, wanting to surprise Cass. “I’ll be there in an hour—”
But in an hour, she might not be alive anymore.
The terrifying thought had Cass gripping the phone’s receiver hard. “Listen to me, Julian. I don’t know h-how to tell you this. The man who killed my parents. He’s coming for me.” Sucking her breath, she whispered, “It’s your cousin, Jose.”
And in his mind, he heard Jose’s words.
She would be poisoning you against everyone you used to trust.
Julian’s hand curled into a fist as a cold sense of betrayal pierced his heart. “This feels like a case of déjà vu, sweetheart.” It was a struggle to keep his voice light. “You’re either crazy or on drugs. Which one is it?”
“No! I’m not. I swear!” She started to sob. “Please, Julian, please believe me—”
“How can you fucking think I’m going to believe you?” Julian grated out. “You must be insane—”
“Julian, please.”
Dark.
It was starting to get dark.
Mr. Darkness was coming.
She started to cry harder. “Please, Julian, please, I’m not lying. You must believe me. You know me—”
Julian snapped, “Do I? Because Jose’s the one I’ve known for years. I’ve grown up with him. While you…” He managed not to say the words, knowing it would hurt her. But then, he didn’t have to. For even though they were separated physically, their connection was strong enough for Cass to read his mind.
While you are only someone I fuck.
Cass cried out, unable to believe Julian could think something so vile.
The sound Cass made told Julian that she knew what he had almost said. Fuck! “Cass—”
The rest of what he had to say was drowned by her scream.
Cass couldn’t stop screaming.
She screamed as she heard necks snapping outside her door.
She screamed as she saw the darkness growing.
And she could not stop screaming when Mr. Darkness came knocking.
There was no escape now.
No escape.
Not when Julian didn’t believe her.
Not when Julian was not the prince who was meant to rescue her.
She was all alone.
Always had been.
****
“Cass?” The sound of her scream made Julian pale. He had heard screams like that before, and they had come from soldiers who were about to die.
Panic immobilized him at the realization. “Cass! What’s happening?”
But all she did was scream and scream.
There was no way for her to fake the sound.
Literally no way, Julian realized with a frantic leap of his heartbeat a second later, because he had forgotten one thing.
His Cass could not lie.
His Cass could not fucking lie to save her life. Hadn’t he thought of that very thing in the past?
Terror clamped around his heart.
Cass could not lie, and it only meant two things.
Jose was the one who killed his parents – and now he was after Cass.
Julian leaned forward and told his driver to drive like the devil was after them…because it was true.
As his driver started overtaking other vehicles, Julian clutched the phone, desperate to hear anything to let him know that Cass was still alive. She was no longer screaming, but he could hear her breathing hard. His heartbeat raced, his chest filled with helpless rage and self-loathing. He wanted to call out her name but feared it would give her away. Cass might be hiding from Jose, and one word from him might mean her death.
When the limousine screeched to a stop in front of the hotel’s main doors, Julian tersely demanded for his driver to give him his gun before scrambling out. Temporarily covering the mouthpiece of his phone as he headed to the elevator, he shouted at the employees to call for the police and for security to get to the penthouse.
The elevator ride only took seconds, but it felt like an eternity. He couldn’t believe dpg Jose would do something as stupid as attacking Cass in such a public setting, but killers also tended to have a superiority complex. They believed they could get away with anything, and most of the time boldness alone ensured it was so.
But not this time.
Not his Cass.
Fear had him in a chokehold when he reached the penthouse floor and saw the corpses of his guards on the floor. Quietly, he made his way inside the suite, his every instinct as a soldier coming to life like it had only been yesterday he had come home from battle.
In that moment, he knew.
Every year he had suffered in training, every moment he had spent in battle, all of it had been in preparation for this. For him to have a fighting chance to save Cass…the woman he loved. The woman he would die for.
Julian caught sight of Jose and Cass through their reflections on the hallway mirror, which was across the bedroom’s door. His cousin’s face was a twisted mask, made unrecognizable by the evil in his soul. He held Cass by the hair, and Julian’s rage took a murderous edge as he saw how her face had already started to swell with the bruises Jose had given her.
The movies always made it seem easy to sneak up on a person, to hone the necessary skills that turned stealth into a deadly art f
orm.
But in reality, making noiseless steps took years of blood and sweat to master. Jose might be a killer by nature, but Julian was a killer by choice – a killer who had bled and toiled those necessary years in order to survive.
Stealth was about harnessing fear through courage.
One wrong move and Cass would die.
Doubts like that were insidious. It could make him breathe a little too loudly, make his finger shake a little too hard on the trigger, make him hesitate at the wrong moment.
There was only one way to conquer those doubts.
Julian took one, two, three steps to position himself by the doorway, love for Cass making him believe he could save her.
He took aim.
He fired.
And Jose died, his last thought consisting of a horrible realization as his eyes met the cold gaze of his cousin’s. Even in the last moment of his life, Julian had still gotten the better of him.
Chapter Eleven
On her fifth day at the hospital, Cass woke up to find Julian seated next to her bed, holding her hand. He had repeatedly asked for permission to visit her, and she had repeatedly said no. But she knew there would come a time he would tire of asking.
With them connected, Cass was able to see him with painful clarity. He was dressed in a pinstriped suit, every inch the powerful prince that he was. His gorgeous face was unreadable, as was his hazel eyes, when he asked in a formal tone, “How do you feel?”
She tried to read his mind but found it completely closed to her. She knew she could try to dig deeper, but she refused. If he did not want her to know his thoughts, she would certainly not beg for it.
Julian was looking at her with a patient expression on his face this time. He wanted an answer, and a vindictive part of her wanted to ask why. Why did he have to know when he only thought of her as a woman he fucked?
But she couldn’t, for far too many reasons, most of them she didn’t want to think about. If she did, it would only make her cry, and she had already cried too much in the past few days.
“I’m feeling better.” Her voice only shook at the end. She should be proud of that.
Julian nodded.
Silence gnawed between them.
Julian knew he should speak, but he did not know what to say. Was there any right thing to say, considering how much he had failed her?
Looking at her was an exercise in agony. Now that he knew he loved her – and now, loving Cass came as easy to him as breathing – her beauty shone even more greatly in his eyes. He loved the way her hair curled the wrong way at the end; loved the way her large vague eyes gave her character. He thought every damn part of her was perfect like an angel, actually, and because it was so, Julian knew that he did not deserve her.
He would never deserve her.
Cass started when Julian abruptly withdrew his hand. “I know it does not mean much, but I want to say how…” Cass heard him inhale hard. “I’m fucking sorry that my cousin killed your parents and tried to kidnap you for the second time. It’s my fault that he had a reason to look for you—”
Despite everything, she couldn’t bear him blaming himself for something that was not his fault at all, and Cass cut him off. “You didn’t make him kill my parents. It was all him. I’ve…I’ve seen through his soul and he’s…”
So, so dark—
Pushing the nightmarish memory away, she said tightly, “He was evil. Even before he started becoming jealous of you, he was evil.”
“I am also sorry for doubting you.”
The words caught her unaware. Julian was sorry for doubting her. She waited to feel furious. She waited for the need to lash out at him, to tell him that his doubts had almost killed her. But she did not feel anything, her heart hollow. It had been so since she learned that for Julian, she was just a woman he fucked.
When Cass didn’t say a word, Julian knew that was his cue to leave. He was dead to her, and if he had an ounce of dignity left in him, he should never even have come. Seeing him would only make her feel worse – make her feel like the greatest idiot in the world for ever loving him.
But the bad thing was, where Cass was concerned, he did not have a shred of dignity left. It would be so easy for Julian to beg for her forgiveness, to beg her to give him another chance. It would be so damn easy for him to fall to his knees and tell her that he would love her until the day he died, that when he almost lost her, everything had become clear – that being her husband would have been the best thing to happen to him, and he didn’t give a shit if marrying her meant giving up his bid for the throne.
All of those things would have been easy for him to do…and selfish. But he was done being selfish when it came to Cass. If he truly loved Cass, the best thing he could do for her was to disappear from her life completely.
The scraping sound of the chair against the floor was her only clue of Julian’s intention to leave. So this was it, Cass thought dully. It was over between them. And because she now accepted that he was not the prince she had wanted and that she was not the kind of woman Julian could marry, there was no chance for them to be together again.
Julian said curtly, “I must go.”
Don’t darken my doorstep ever again.
Go! Leave! Shoo!
What are you waiting for?
Other similar phrases came to her mind, all of them just to save face because she had a strong urge to cry. And that was stupid, right? Hadn’t she just decided that Julian Rivera, Prince of Ethereal, was no longer worthy of her tears?
But when Cass sensed him turning his back on her, she ended up blurting out, “Can I have a kiss goodbye?”
Julian froze, unable to believe what he had just heard Cass say.
Cass wanted to face-palm herself until she died.
“I don’t want bad blood between us.” It was a half-truth, which allowed Cass to say the words without choking.
Slowly, he turned to face her again. “No.” The word came out more harshly than he intended, but it was because he was barely hanging on to his control. If he kissed her, it would destroy the walls he had erected in his mind, something he instinctively knew would keep Cass from reading his mind. If Cass ever read his thoughts, he knew she would be soft-hearted enough to stay with him. But he didn’t want that. He did not deserve her pity, much less her love.
Cass deserved someone a lot better than him, someone who would never doubt her and would choose her above all else from the very start.
He was that man now, but it was too fucking late.
Julian’s rejection made Cass whiten in hurt. He had become so terribly cold to her. Why? It almost felt like he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.
Even knowing she would appear desperate and still stupidly in love with him – a humiliating truth that she had a feeling she’d betray sooner or later – Cass heard herself asking shakily, “How about a hug?”
Julian’s fists clenched against his sides. “No.”
The rejection again took her by surprise, like a whip striking her heart where it was most vulnerable.
“Oh.” She swallowed convulsively. “I…” Tears clogged her throat. “I see.”
The heartbroken expression on her face tore him apart. He gritted out, “I need to go. I don’t want to make you cry.”
“Do you hate me?”
The fact that he had made her ask nearly sent Julian to his knees. More goddamn proof that he did not deserve her. Every damn thing he did seemed destined to hurt her, and goddammit, she had already been hurt too much.
“No. I don’t hate you.” He looked at the door, wishing he could just get out of her life for good so he would stop causing her pain.
Julian’s restlessness communicated itself to her, and she choked, “You want to leave me now, don’t you?”
He closed his eyes. “Yes.”
She cried out.
He steeled himself against the sound. This was for her, he reminded himself hollowly. Everything he did now was for her to have
a better life, away from the danger and evil his own life represented.
Julian forced himself to say the words. “Goodbye, Cass.”
And then he was walking away.
Cass didn’t think. She just reacted. But for the second time in her life, her instincts failed her, and she fell out of the bed. She was blind, completely blind now, her eyes no longer working in any way. Silent tears streamed down her face at the stinging pain the fall caused her still-injured body, but she still forced herself to move, to crawl towards Julian.
She no longer cared if he was not the prince she thought him to be, no longer cared if he did not love her, if he would always think she was just a woman he fucked.
She just wanted to be with him, any way she could.
Julian felt so far away from her now.
“Please,” she sobbed. “Please come back—”
Julian whirled at the sound, and everything in him shattered at the sight of Cass on the floor, crying and begging for him.
Goddammit, no!
In a second he was kneeling in front of her, pulling her into his arms—
Cass gasped.
And she saw—
****
Wedding bells chimed in a joyous melody, a tinkling sound that blended in harmony with the cheers and laughter of the crowd as they celebrated the newlyweds.
Cass was a radiant bride, her face glowing as she lifted her head to receive the kiss of her groom – now, her husband.
Hidden in the shadows was a tall figure, dressed to blend in obscurity. He was an austere-looking man, his once strong body now noticeably thin. Once the prince of Ethereal from the House of Rivera, Julian had given up his bid for the throne and even his right as prince to live a life in the darkness.
Once, the darkness had threatened Cass’ life. But never again, every second of his life devoted to watching Cass from afar, turning the darkness into a shield that would protect her from harm.
Every day he gazed upon her face, her smile bringing wonder to his heart. But there were many times he would also see her laughing in the arms of another man, and though he wanted to close his eyes to it, he did not allow himself to. It was punishment for the time he had thought of her as a woman he only fucked.