Under the vampire Lord's protection-Chapter 567: Painted red

No hesitation lived in the soldier’s hand as it gripped the handle on the platform. No trembling or a sign of conflict in him.

It was as though taking lives was simply a small part of his daily routine instead of the tragedy and crime that it was.

Just like that, he pulled the lever towards himself, prompting the trapdoor underneath her father’s feet to open and... rob the only thing that kept him from choking to his death.

He hung by the neck, his legs kicking and flailing as his arms remained tied behind his back.

Arabella lacked the words, the air, the colors... All of it was gone, swiped out of her mind, leaving it utterly blank.

The sound of him suffocating and convulsing did not help either. The whole thing only lasted for seconds, but to her, it dragged on for... Ever.

Because forever she was to watch the color drain from his face, to witness the light leave his eyes and his body go limp for the last time. Forever was his voice to grow hoarser and grittier until nothing but desperate huffs for air remained.

The cheering of the crowd below the scaffoldings was drowned. Hell, her own screams and cries were muted, but only in her ears.

The pain of being tossed to the floor and kicked were also cast into the backdrop, minimized by the horror they forced her to spectate.

Cedric, null doubt, wanted her to shut up, but of course, a master such as him in the art of psychological torment should have known that the physical pain he had caused wouldn’t amount to much. Not After the blow that was dealt to her psyche.

The sun was there, but its light, its warmth forsook her at once, abandoning her to the perpetual dark that followed her senses as consciousness too deserted.

However, the screaming did not stop. The only proof of it was the searing agony that clawed at her vocal cords.

When the light finally came back, the rear court was no more. The scaffolding had vanished and everyone on it too. The prince, the Generals as well as the dukes were nowhere to be seen. Not even the sun remained.

Instead, a mattress of green lay all around her as a pair of hands grasped her from behind by the arms.

"Arabella! Please! Calm down!" his voice came muffled at first, feeble, but grew stronger and closer with every word uttered, "Arabella," he attempted to soothe her.

"They killed him! They murdered him!" finally something other than raw, heart wrenching shrieking left her lips, "They killed him!" her hands wrapped over her own chest.

"Who? What happened?" he gently turned her figure around to face him.

His eyes widened at the sight of the additional bruises and injuries her face had brought along that time around.

When he caressed those delicate areas on her, Arabella did not as much as wince. No, she was too busy bawling her eyes out.

"He’s going to kill all of them, and he wants me to watch as it happens," more coherent words followed as her head fell, "I can’t," it shook from left to right, "I can’t take any more of this. I am sorry," there was barely an inch on her face that hadn’t been fully drenched in her own tears and snot, "And it is all my fault! All I had to do was be good and stay where I belonged. That was all I had to do!"

"You know that isn’t true, Arabella!" he tried to hold her face between his hands, but her eyes just wouldn’t meet his.

"Yes, it is!" she screamed, pushing herself out of his grasp, "Look at me! Look at you! You would have been just fine if I had never come into your life! Had you never laid eyes on me, you would have... You would have been back home with your family, living through yet another peaceful, normal day," she backed away even more when he moved closer, "I brought this curse upon you, upon everyone!"

As if her heart did not suffer enough, the instant her eyes fell upon her hands, it went into overdrive... Painted red they were. Red with the blood of all the people she caused the downfall.

Even in limbo there wasn’t enough air to compensate for the need of her lungs. Her eyes refused to blink, glued to her soiled hands...

"Do you... Do you see it?" the hyper ventilation did not allow her to speak as freely as she wished to, "Do you see the blood? It is all theirs! It is yours! I did this! I caused all of this! Everyone would have been just fine if I was never even born! It is all my fa-"

Silas cut her off at once. Not with words but with actions. In the blink of an eye, he’d pulled his wife into a tight embrace. The tightest he’d ever given her.

"I see no blood on your hands," he whispered right in her ear, "I wouldn’t have my life any other way but with you. You have done your part well enough. I believe that now, my turn to give back has come,"

The metal collar around her neck stood no chance in front of the wrath of his returning fangs.

Silas waited not a second after connecting with her skin and dove in, syphoning to his heart’s desire.

He did not stop, even when her body went fully still, growing heavier between his arms.

Arabella did not protest and allowed him to take as much as he needed. At the very least, she could do that for him. At the very least, if she could be good at one thing before dying would be to grant the man the life she had stolen from him back.

She could do that at least, right?

Nothing was expected of her except to just lay there and let it happen. It would be over in a flash and hopefully, both her parents waited for her in the beyond.