Chapter 39

39 Intoxicating Smell

“I need you.”

The gloomy Vampire King chuckled all of a sudden after hearing that desperate reply from his wife.

He ruffled Anastasia’s already messy dark ginger hair and teased her, “I knew you were bold but I never knew to what extent.”

“No, I just...” Anastasia struggled to complete her sentence and make Caspian understand that all she wanted was to sleep by his side. She thought that her husband would laugh at her if she was to say that out loud.

Caspian took a deep breath in and pursed his lips. He, of course, understood that his wife wanted him to continue giving pleasure to her.

He tucked her hair that was covering her face behind her ears. And he said in a dejected voice again, “I would have loved to please my wife for the whole night but I don’t want to risk it again. You saw what happened to me earlier, didn’t you? I could hurt you.”

Anastasia violently shook her head and tried to clarify, “No, I didn’t mean that when I said I needed you. It’s just that... I don’t want to have nightmares again. I would have asked Tilla to sleep with me. But since she hasn’t recovered yet, I don’t have anyone else whom I can ask to sleep with me.”

The innocent face of Anastasia melted away Caspian’s resolve to stay away from his wife. ‘I should be fine as long as I don’t try to get intimate with her. My hunger for her seems to grow when I do so,’ he thought to himself and then gave a loving gaze to his wife.

He lightly caressed her hair and asked, “Let’s sleep together in my room then.” He knew that his wife was still not fully comfortable with him seeing her naked frame. So he understandingly said, “I will wait in the antechamber. Get changed and come outside.”

.....

He noticed how her downturned lips suddenly curled upward and widened to form a grin. She then agreed in her softest voice which sounded like music to his ears, “Sure. I will change quickly and come outside.”

Caspian left the room with a soft smile on his face.

Anastasia also smiled while looking at the door and she didn’t waste a second more. She quickly got out of her bedgown and slipped into the robe that Caspian had brought for her.

She looked down to check out the robe and thought, ‘Er... this is his robe... but I just have to sleep for half the night in this. It should be no problem.’

When Anastasia walked out of her bedchamber, Caspian couldn’t help but feel something warm spreading across his heart.

Anastasia was drowned in his black and golden robe. The sleeves were longer than her arms and the robe was trailing behind her feet like a train of the gown. She had managed to tightly secure the robe by tying the lace around her waist. But the neckline rested a bit low, revealing just the right amount of her cleavage.

Caspian curved the corner of his lips to form a smirk. And he thought to himself while his red eyes were glued to Anastasia, ‘She looks like a kitten. Fiercely cute.’

“Let’s go,” Anastasia trotted towards Caspian and he found her even cuter when she walked like she was taking baby steps.

He would have loved to see her walk all the way to his room but he also feared that she would trip on that long robe. “Let me carry you.”

“No, I can wa-” Before Anastasia could complete her sentence, he briskly picked her in his arms and began walking down the gallery that connected their rooms.

Anastasia had never been to the west side of that building, and obviously, she had never been to Caspian’s room either. So she carefully looked around to try and memorize the path to her husband’s room.

After about a minute or two, Caspian came to a halt and pushed a huge door open. Anastasia stared at the paintings that were hanging on the walls of Caspian’s antechamber and thought to herself, ‘So all I need to do is walk straight in this direction...’

Caspian then took her inside his bedchamber. His chamber was bigger than Anastasia’s and was probably the most extravagant room in the whole castle.

The ceiling of that room had plasterworks with intricate designs that were painted in white and gold. The walls were covered with plywood that had beautiful carvings. And the huge bed in the middle of the room also had baldachin above it which added beauty to the lonely bed.

Caspian gently lay her down on the right side of his bed because that was where she was sleeping in her bed earlier. He tucked Anastasia inside the blanket and blew out all the lanterns that were lighting up the room.

Anastasia turned her back at the empty side of the bed and curled up. She could hear Caspian taking off his clothes and wondered, ‘What is he going to wear? I bet this robe was the one that his maids had prepared for him for the night...’

Suddenly, she imagined him without his clothes, which sent a tingling sensation all over her body again. And she had to pinch herself to snap out of such immodest and wild thoughts.

It didn’t take long for her to feel the dip in the mattress behind her. She felt him tugging the blanket and preparing to lie down beside her. ‘Please don’t be naked,’ she silently hoped.

‘But does it matter?’ She knew that there was a huge gap between the two of them. ‘It’s not like he’s going to come any closer to me after what happened earlier. All I need to do now is sleep and then run to my room early in the morning before my maids come to wake me up.’

However, as if to prove her wrong, she felt Caspian wriggling closer and closer to her. She also wanted to wriggle, but away from Caspian and not towards him. However, there was no space left for her to shift.

Her heart was already starting to act up from anticipation and she hated it that her body was reacting that way – desperate.

She drew in a sharp breath when she felt Caspian’s cold hand around her waist and his cold frame aligned perfectly against her back. He was naked!

“Goodnight wife,” she heard his low voice followed by a kiss at the back of her head.

Anastasia held his palm that was caressing her belly and whispered back, “Goodnight Caspian.” And she closed her eyes hoping that her nightmare wouldn’t catch her now that her husband was by her side.

She took a deep breath in and the corners of her lips pulled up a little.

Until now, she had never really given much thought to his scent. But now that she was so close to him, she couldn’t help but appreciate the intoxicating fragrance that was emanating from him.

He smelled like a garden in spring.

To be more precise, he had that petrichor smell – the pleasant smell of the first rain that drizzles after long and dry weather. And she liked it a lot.

—

A big black creature was running across the forest and woods of Sorvando at a great speed. It was crushing and breaking anything and everything that came in its way, from the tree branches to a few small trees.

Every once in a while, it would turn to the moon and howl as if it was in agonizing pain.

After running for hours, that creature entered the territory of the neighboring Kingdom of Sorvando called Xanmar.

It entered an old and large castle. The servants and maids of the castle stepped away from the path and bowed to that gigantic black wolf as it passed by.

That wolf crashed inside one of the rooms of the castle and destroyed everything that came in its sight. Loud growls along with the sounds of items smashing and shattering on the ground could be heard outside the room.

Nobody dared to enter that room to stop that mad wolf, not even his father. “Let him be,” was the order his father gave to everyone in the castle.

After destroying everything that was destroyable in that room, the wolf calmed down a little.

A series of cracking and breaking sounds were heard from the room and after a while, a naked man sat on the heaps of torn papers and broken furniture.

He had an enormous build even as a man. His tight and toned muscles were glistening with sweat and smeared with dirt. But if a woman was to look at him, they would only see how handsome he was.

His raven black hair fell just below his neck. His sharp nose and kissable lips added to his beauty. And his amber eyes were majestic enough to enchant any woman.

His amber eyes caught sight of a painting that was resting not too far away from his hand. He reached out for it and intently gazed at the portrait in the painting.

And he whispered in a betrayed tone, “How could you marry someone else, Anna?”