"How could that be!?" Grace spoke uncharacteristically loudly, yet still held her ground. "You can contact me at any time! I will always be on the other end to answer! That is the least I can do after you saved… my life…" She sniffled a little as her ears drooped.
She recalled the terrible condition he was in after pushing her out of the way of that large truck. The memory made her feel terrible.
*Pat, Pat.*
Grace: "???"
Cassius's pats came down softer and more caring as his already kind smile became even kinder. "Adorable you are; a burden you are not," he said in a voice mimicking a certain green-colored wizened master. "Silly you are being; Not silly you should be."
Grace's beautiful face cracked into a wide smile, then outright laughter as she found what he said to be both sweet and unbelievably funny given the serious atmosphere. "...Hah… Yo-You… I-I think I might really like you…! I might like you a lot, a lot!"
Under the peal of uncontrollable laughter and the vexed ramblings of the women still watching him, Cassius was unable to catch what exactly she said.
"I think I might really fight you?" he parroted as best he could. "Is that what you said? But why would you want to fight me…? Maybe it's because of the sword?"
Flustered, Grace nervously waved her hands in front of his face. "N-No, that isn't what I said…! J-Just forget all about it! All about it!" Her skin turned as red as a beet as she clasped his mouth with her hands, utterly unaware of their seemingly intimate skin contact.
However, even if Grace herself hadn't realized what she was doing, the owner of a pair of unusually swirling black eyes discreetly honed in on the hand movements of the meek brown-haired girl.
Bella's grip on the staircase tightened considerably, nearly shattering it, while her blackened eyes became even darker. Unknown thoughts bounced around inside her head as she put an index finger to her chin.
Unbeknownst to all the die-hard fans gathered around Bella, an evilness tugged at her lips, briefly morphing her face into something overflowing with long-since concealed obsession and possession.
'...I had assumed the seal placed on his body to degrade his appearance and decrease his ability to lose weight would have lasted until adulthood, but… it seems that is no longer the case… The seal is weakening, which likely means that he will soon regain the unearthly charm that he had as an infant…'
Bella's eyes swirled dangerously as a black miasma seeped out of her seemingly benign visage. She secretly grated her teeth in anger, her frustration and killing intent growing the more Cassius interacted with Grace.
'It's bad enough that the seal I asked my father to place on him is beginning to break, but to also have all these f*ing bitches tainting his presence with their cow tits…!! Damn it!!! My Cassius, near those bitches!! I won't allow it!!!'
Bella had meticulously planned everything out from the very beginning, even going so far as to conceal her true age and secretly repeat grades. She ensured that not even women with the lowest standards would fall in love with her man. And just as she had followed him to this bookstore and pulled some strings to get a job here, all in hopes of prematurely finalizing their soon-to-be marriage, Cassius's seal had to go and start cracking!
'Daddy had promised me that my Cass's seal would last until he turns 18, but it seems that was all a big fat lie!! Goshdammit!!!'
Bella wanted to race over to the bothersome bitches—especially the cutesy brown-haired one—and slaughter them all. But she knew very well that, even if she used her family's power to cover up the legal consequences, her husband would begin to see her as some sort of monster. She wasn't a monster! She just loved him so, so, so much!!
Bella had been stalkin— protecting her husband since he was in diapers, making extra sure that no whores could slip through the net and see the true him. Yet, during the few weeks that she had important business to attend to and couldn't actively stal— protect him, he had somehow become closely acquainted with a damn vixen!
'How could this have happened!? When!? I don't understand why!! After all that I have done to ensure that he becomes mine through marriage and our family's blood ritual, something like this occurs mere months before he turns 18!?'
Since the very first moment Bella caught sight of baby Cassius when she was but five years old—during a meeting his real father held with hers—she immediately knew that there would be no one else in the world for her. His looks, even as a baby in diapers, were at the level of the gods. Just a flutter of one of his baby eyelashes was capable of inciting mass indoctrination.
It was also because of his appearance that everyone else Bella met in the world looked exactly the same to her—bland and plain.
The only one for her had always been Cassius, so she pleaded with her father to do away with his appearance, potential power, and anything else that could make him seem appealing. And after the mysterious Adam Steele suddenly disappeared one night, she was finally able to get her wish with the help of her father.
Then came all the many years of planning, which should have led to a happily ever after—
'Yet, what is all this shit!?' Bella's expression became explosively livid as she watched some dumb bitch fawning all over her Cassius. 'I want to kill her…! He's mine, he's mine! I want to kill her! I want to kill her! HE'S MINE!!!'
She was nearly on the verge of losing it!
Her dangerously sharp fangs gleamed under the bookstore's romantic glow. Yet, before she exploded before the watchful eyes of so many people, she took a deep breath and calmed her twitching face.