Chapter 25 - Choose A Better Nightmare

Abel stood on the side of the bed. He had been standing in the same spot for some time now, staring at her lying on the bed. He tilted his head slightly when she turned her head, facing his direction. His eyes glinted menacingly.

"Darling, why do you always sleep in my presence?" he asked, but the response he received was her deep breaths. He lifted his chin up, a little irked for some reason. "After bothering me so much... you sleep peacefully as if you did nothing wrong."

Slowly and carefully, he reached his hand to her neck. He should kill her so she could stop appearing in his head when he was alone. Out of sight, out of mind.

But just as his fingertips were an inch away from her neck, Aries hummed. He stopped, watching the space between her brows furrow.

"No... not them... stop..."

There she goes again, he thought. She was having a nightmare again, and yet, she kept sleeping! Aries should just wake up to him instead of coming back to those nightmares.

A shallow breath slipped past his lips, withdrawing his hand away from her. Instead of suffocating her to death, Abel slipped under the sheet and carefully laid beside her. With his hand propped against his temple, he stared at her countenance.

"I have lost count of how many times I thought of killing you, but didn't," he whispered, brushing her forehead with his fingertips. "If you claim you live for me, then why don't you dream of me?"

His brow arched, lips pressed into a thin line. "I'm curious. Let me take a peek at your nightmares, darling." He tapped her forehead slightly, closing his eyes to see what kind of nightmare she had every night.

As soon as he did, Abel opened his eyes, only to see an execution platform. He turned to his left, seeing Aries gaze at the people tainting the scaffold deep red, wide-eyed.

"Alaric..." she whispered while he shifted his eyes back at the execution platform. There, a little girl, around thirteen, had this dazed look in her eyes. The little girl, Alaric, was obviously traumatized in the face of death.

"No... not her..." Aries's lips quivered as she sprang up to the railings where she was watching with the crown prince of Maganti. Alaric gazed up, locking eyes with Aries before someone put a sack on her head.

"No!" Aries hollered as she watched her little sister get dragged to the step up. The executioner aggressively put the noose around her neck while Aries yelled and begged, 'not her!'

But alas... no one answered her plea. Because in the next second, Alaric struggled to live before her feet stopped kicking the air and she was... gone. Just like that.

"No..." Aries staggered, but tears didn't roll down her cheek as she slumped to her knees. Abel arched a brow, watching the man squat down in front of her from the settee leisurely.

The crown prince had this vicious smirk plastered on his face, staring at Aries, who looked back at him blankly. He spoke, but Abel didn't listen to his voice because his attention was on her. From a blank expression, her pupils soon constricted until it pooled with contempt and hatred that was deep to the bone.

The side of her lips curled up, laughing mockingly. "You... is this the best you can do? You've been doing this for days now. Aren't you quite boring? Hah..."

"Boring...?" the crown prince laughed. "My Aries, you're just a bird with broken wings and yet, you still don't acknowledge that?"

"Uh... what now? You'll drag me with you and violate me as much as you please?" Her pain slowly took shape into hatred, numbing her that refrained her from crying. "How predictable. And yet, you wonder why I didn't fancy a boring man like you?"

Abel didn't have a change of expression, even though Aries acted differently than the current Aries. She was fierce, not afraid of what would come after. He didn't know if fierce was even the correct term, because it could also mean stupidity. But by the looks of it, Aries would rather challenge that man, even if it meant death.

He then averted his eyes when the crown prince pulled her up, pushing her at the railings while lifting her skirt. Here in the open... that man disgraced her while Abel was forced to listen to her muffled retaliation.

"You see, my darling, this is the reason I dislike humans," he spoke calmly as if he wasn't just an intruder inside this nightmare of a memory. His eyes remained on the platform where the execution continued without delay. "Humans are weak and yet capable of being so vicious. They are ambitious and greedy. In the face of something they don't know or unsure, they would rather succumb to their primal instincts than understand."

His eyes narrowed, recalling a distant memory of the past. He could relate to her after seeing a glimpse of her life, but he couldn't sympathize. This already happened and he couldn't reverse the time. If only he could, he would've marched to this place and used this crown prince's head to decorate the gates of Rikhill.

"How unsightly…"

Finally, Abel shifted his eyes on Aries, and the crown prince before he blinked. Once he did, he slowly opened his eyes, and he was back to the current lapse. He gazed down and saw her still wincing, clutching the sheet tightly.

"Just wake up to me," he muttered, eyes glinting. Abel then bent over, tilting his head to bite her shoulder as hard as he could.

GASP!

"Ah!" Aries gasped for air, but then winced at the sudden pain on her shoulder. She couldn't dwell on the pain longer because her eyes dilated, seeing Abel draw his head back. Her breath hitched the second her emerald orbs met his deep red eyes.

"Stop going back to him," he uttered under his breath, sending a chill down her spine. "Be wise like you always do and choose a better nightmare."

Her already dilated eyes widened even more as her entire body froze when he bent over to claim her lips.. "I am a better nightmare, Aries," he whispered into her mouth, moving carefully until he was on top of her.