The Banished Prince

Chapter 27

Cassia

     Cassia stood in her father's bedroom. He was sitting behind his desk that had papers sprawled across it. His room was ginormous and it had a bed with red curtains and velvet bedsheets, a mirror table made of fine silver and the chestnut desk he sat at now. Her father wore thin framed glasses as he peered down at the papers in front of him.

     Cassia clasped her hands together as she stood there, waiting for her father to tell her the next step. It had been two days since they captured Hunter and she felt uneasy. With the boy she used to love in her home, tied up and in her power, she should feel powerful. She should be elated to see him suffer, but somehow Cassia felt like she was the one suffering.

     "So what's the plan?" Cassia asked, desperately wishing to keep her mind off Hunter.

     "His father must be coming to get him," her father said, eyes rising to meet hers. "Unless he's heartless, I'm sure they're plotting to ambush our castle to get him."

     "Wouldn't that be risky on their end?"

     "You forget Kain used to live here. He knows every entrance and secret passageway, and some of the guards may side with him because he is the original prince. I'm sure he'll come."

     Cassia's heart thumped against her chest. She could still remember Hunter's father - with his cold blue eyes and raven black hair. He had this fury in his eyes she'd never seen before - not even in herself and it was an expression that unnerved her.

     "So, we'll be prepared for the attack and then we'll capture him," Cassia said. "Then what?"

     "You already know then what." Her father frowned. "We make Kain spill everything he knows and capture anyone else who is plotting against us. And then, we will behead Kain and his son for what they did to us. Sweet and simple."

     Cassia smirked. She pictured Kain screaming and cursing at them as he was beheaded. She then tried to imagine Hunter being beheaded, screaming at her to have mercy, but it made her heart stutter. As his hazel eyes fell upon her, a pit in her stomach formed and Cassia hated it.

     She shook her head. She hated how he made her feel. She hated how even after everything, she could still feel him peeling off her armour to expose parts of her she desperately tried to keep stashed away.

     He was her weakness. Despite everything, he was the one thing that made her vulnerable, and that meant Cassia would do whatever she could to exterminate him.

*****

     Cassia paused and took a deep breath in before she opened the large wooden door that led to the room Hunter was in. She stepped inside and immediately, her eyes fell upon Hunter who was already staring at her, a serious expression on his face. There was a whirlwind of emotions in his eyes - emotions she couldn't swim through and distinguish, and the pit her in her stomach grew heavier.

     She should feel nothing but fury. She shouldn't notice the way he was paling - the way his body was weakening and the way his wrists bruised around the ropes tied to keep him stuck to the chair, but she noticed everything. And as his hazel eyes fastened on hers as if she was this masterpiece he wished to see before his death sentence, Cassia gulped.

     But she transformed that feeling into anger.

     "We need answers from you," Cassia said, slamming the door shut.

     The door closed with a loud thud and Cassia whirled on him, her eyes blazing as she strode over, dagger in hand until she was a foot away. His eyes were locked on hers and there was no fear in him. Just an exhaustion that Cassia faltered at before she glowered.