Conquering His Cold Heart

“Hmm?” Anastasia didn’t know what he meant by that.

Caspian tapped one of his feet and said while pointing his brows there, “Step on my shoes. Don’t worry about them getting dirty.”

Anastasia did just as she was asked. She carefully adjusted both of her feet on his shoes while also making sure to hold him tightly with her hands.

Caspian smirked in amusement when his short wife became relatively taller and her face was closer to his. After making sure that Anastasia wasn’t going to slip off from his shoes, he whispered again, “Here we go then.”

Anastasia took a deep breath and braced herself for the flight. This time though, she kept her eyes open, and instead, gazed at her husband’s perfect face as the two of them slowly began hovering in the air.

Caspian was careful enough to fly as slowly as he could so that he wouldn’t end up making his wife feel dizzy or cold.

A few strands of hair fell on Anastasia’s face and got stuck on her lashes as they kept flying higher. She closed her eyes and tried shaking her head, but it wasn’t working.

“Let me.” Caspian softly blew on her face. His heart skipped a beat when she gave an appreciative bright smile. “Have I ever told you?” he asked.

.....

“Told me what?” Anastasia slightly raised her brows, and the smile hadn’t left her lips yet.

“That your smile is too captivating?” Caspian gave her a compliment, finally coming to a halt.

Anastasia smiled even happily and said in her enchanting voice, “Thank you! I like your smile as well.”

“I only smile for you,” came the simple reply. Then he teasingly said, “Now stop looking at me for a second and look at the moon.”

Anastasia giggled and turned her head to the side. The moon looked so close that she thought she could reach it if she extended her hand. “Whoa! It looks so bright and pretty from up here.”

Caspian smiled and replied without moving his gaze away from his wife’s face, “Yes, it looks really bright and pretty.”

He then slowly began to sway his shoulders from side to side; she also automatically began to sway along with him.

Though there were no live musical instruments playing for them, the whooshing sound of the wind, the soft rustling of the tree branches and leaves, the low chirping of the crickets, and the distant flapping and cooing of the birds were more than the perfect combination of sounds for them to dance to.

Caspian skillfully twirled around, shook his hips, and every now and then, he would lift themselves higher only to freefall for a brief second.

At first, Anastasia was at her wits’ end when he did that freefall move. However, she gradually got used to it and even liked the rush of adrenaline that she would feel at those exact moments.

“I see that you are enjoying it,” Caspian commented when his wife’s grip around his neck wasn’t stiff anymore, and the expression on her face went from being concerned and scared to being jolly and excited.

Anastasia wriggled her body, somehow making that wriggle look really elegant, and then gave a nod. “Yes! I’ve always wanted to do adventurous things but never could.” The pitch of her voice kept on increasing as she spoke, “And this is the most daring, exciting, and the romantic thing that I have done until now. So, yes! I am enjoying this dance to my core.”

“And so am I.” Caspian remembered his wife once mentioning how she loved hearing adventure stories. He had seen her drowning herself in adventure novels more than in romance ones. He also recalled the time when he had made her a promise to take her on little adventures every now and then.

He hadn’t been able to do that with all the unfortunate things that kept happening to his wife and his Kingdom. He hoped that their bad time had passed now.

Caspian lovingly looked deep into his wife’s emerald eyes and then renewed his promise again, “Let’s do this more often. And I don’t mean just this dance. Let’s go on adventures. Let’s travel together. You can try different foods, I can try you in different ways.”

Anastasia tilted her head backward and giggled. Caspian couldn’t resist that slender neck of his wife, so he leaned and went in to give a wet kiss on the hollow of her neck.

“Mmm...” Anastasia grabbed Caspian’s hair and quickly picked herself up.

For a split second, she was reminded of the nightmare that she had a long time ago. She had seen Caspian sucking her dry and snapping her neck right under the moonlight. She recalled how she used to be scared of her husband.

But now, there was love and only love for him in her heart.

She gazed at her husband with love-filled eyes and thought, ‘It’s amazing how my worst nightmare mended itself and became my best reality.’

Caspian stole a kiss from her lips and resumed to excitedly recite all the things that he wanted to do with his wife. “We can enjoy warm sunrise and beautiful sunset. We can enjoy the views from the mountains and enjoy the vastness of the oceans. I will teach you how to ride the horses, and I will teach you how to play in the snow.”

He inhaled deeply and sighed, “Oh! There are so many things that I want to do with you that even an eternity won’t be enough.”

Caspian looked at his wife’s face and suddenly paused, his eyes almost looking moist.

Anastasia could guess what her husband might have been thinking at the moment. So, before he got sad and the night turned sour, she tightened her hold around his neck and said with a smile, “I wouldn’t want anything more from this life. Let’s do all those things that you mentioned. I want to see what this world has to offer along with you.”

Caspian quickly moved his hands from grabbing her waist to folding them around her hips, and swiftly picking her up. Anastasia was also quick to wrap her legs around his waist. Their eyes were on the same level now.

“Yes, let’s do all those things,” he whispered in her ear.

He then gazed at his wife’s soft lips. He bent forward and closed his eyes.

Both of them allowed themselves to melt in each other’s warm embrace and tender kiss.

—

While the King and the Queen were having the time of their lives, it was only fair that the soldiers were also doing the same.

“Hey! Look what we have here!” one of the soldiers was looking back at his friends and shouting.

“What? A dead deer?” the other soldier sarcastically shouted from quite afar.

“No, you fucking idiot!” the first soldier shouted back in an agitated voice. He turned to look at the tired young couple who were on the ground, covered in sweat and dirt, hugging each other while glaring at him at the same time. “It looks like we found ourselves some rats!”

“We are the villagers!” the young man assertively shouted at the vampire, unhinged pride being reflected in his voice.

The vampire soldier cackled like a maniac and then spat on the ground near that young man’s feet. “If you were villagers, what would you do here in the middle of the forest that is also incidentally very close to the border?”

“We-”

“Uh-uh!” The soldier crouched down in front of the couple and glared at them with his hungry red eyes. And he said in a voice that slowly crept under that couple’s skin, “And if you were the villagers, why were you running away? Why were you raising your voice just a while ago? Villagers know better.”

He further protruded his fangs and smirked. And he scared them even more because he was enjoying the look on their faces. “The villagers don’t raise their voices on a vampire who can suck them dry.”

He abruptly grabbed the woman by her neck.

That woman immediately began to choke and struggle. The man tried to fight the vampire, but he was no match. He got slapped right on the face so hard that he thought his cheek fell off.

The vampire then snarled at that man while still choking that woman, “I know that the two of you are rats from Xanmar, I can smell your filthy scent, although very subtle. Now tell me before I finish off your partner in crime. Who sent the two of you rats here?”