Stone Cold

Chapter 62

Everything happened in slow motion as she watched Felix retract his hand from Cyrus’ torn ribcage and drop down to his knees. As he slid down, he took Cyrus’ corpse to the floor with him. He had one of his hands under Cyrus’ sprawled body in which he held Cyrus’ slowly beating heart and with the other hand he was gingerly stroking his father’s paler than usual cheeks.

“Father…”

The shocked look on his face slowly melted away as the realization of the situation dawned on him making him go into a trance like state. He didn’t want to kill his father but the loyalty he had sworn to Ares had overridden his senses, making him move faster than he could think. Before he was even able to register what he was doing, his hand had already crushed his father’s heart.

“I’m so sorry, father… so sorry…”

He was rocking his body back and forth, his silver hair swaying to match his motion, barely able to conceal the agonized expression engraved on his face. Blood had collected into the rim of his crimson eyes, but no drop had been able to escape successfully from there due to his lack of blinking.

“Father… Father…”

His trembling lips were continuously letting out small painful cries as his slender pale fingers tapped the jaw of his dead father.

“Imi... pare rau, Tată...”

She couldn’t understand the language he was speaking, probably Romanian, but his disoriented condition was enough to portray that he was still seeking forgiveness for the grave sin he had committed.

He had taken the life of the same person who had travelled seas to bring him back to life.

“Felix.”

Unable to control her urge to comfort the disheveled vampire prince, she moved past Ares to place a hand on Felix’s shoulder.

“It’s alright, Felix. It was not your fault.”

Hearing her voice, Felix’s to and fro movements came to a halt as he slowly turned his head to look at her small figure kneeling beside him.

She felt her breathing stop for a second as she saw how empty his eyes looked. His eyes had seemed cold before, indifferent, when he was facing her in his father’s presence but now they lacked any life to begin with. His frosty gaze was locked onto her gray irises but it appeared to be unfocused as if he were seeing right through her. His face was wiped off of any emotion, no longer showcasing the agony he had been exhibiting priorly. It felt as if she had witnessed another death in that moment.

“It is my fault.”

Putting emphasis on his words, he continued staring lifelessly at her. His impassiveness was pulling at the strings of her heart.

Without thinking it through, she took his face into her small hands, urging him to focus on her words not on the remains of Cyrus in his arms.

“It’s not, okay? It’s not.”

She wanted to make him feel better by any way possible. It was not because she was in love with him. She knew that her heart only belonged to Ares, she had never doubted that. Not even when he had refused to meet her while she was pregnant. She was aware that he had reasons to be suspicious of her credibility. He was betrayed by her and shackled as a stone for centuries. Getting chained for less than two months during her transformation had almost driven her insane. She could only guess what must’ve happened to Ares in that nothingness.

She was angry at him, and she was going to make sure that he faced her wrath for it. He had avoided her, been cold to her, refused to believe her but truthfully if she placed herself in his shoes, she knew she, too, would take her own words with a grain of salt.