Chapter 513: Manic
She’s there. She’s right there.
Cecilia stood in the moonlight like a vision he had conjured from his own desperate longing. Her blonde hair catching the silver glow, still slightly tangled from the wind, her dress was rumpled and dusted with the glittering remnants of the divine snow that had fallen across the city.
Her face was tired, her eyes rimmed with red, her cheeks flushed. And her belly rose before her like a promise to a future he had no part in.
She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
No. No, no. He did want to find her, but not like this. Not like this!
She shouldn’t see him with Ruby anymore!
"Arzhen...?" Ruby pulled his hand gently, trying to redirect him back on track to the medic tent.
Although Anton Vasiliev had returned from the dead, Ruby figured Arzhen was still his son. Blood was blood. Just like how she knew the Delanivis would rise again, since families like theirs always did, Arzhen too could rise again.
He could blame his mother. It was easy. All Arzhen had to do was play the victim, the manipulated son, and Ruby would be there to comfort him, to guide him back to power, to—
Suddenly, Arzhen turned to her.
But something was wrong. His expression—no, his eyes... they were dead.
Cold.
Malicious.
The dark irises she had spent years learning to read, learning to please and manipulate, held nothing now but a flat, hollow emptiness that made her blood freeze.
"It’s all because of you." Arzhen’s voice was flat. Cold. Barely above a murmur.
Huh?
"Now you even try to touch me in front of her..." he whispered, as though Ruby were a stain he had just noticed on his sleeve.
What was this man—
GRAB!
"AHH!" Ruby screeched as Arzhen’s hand shot out and fisted into her hair, yanking her scalp with brutal force.
"Cecilia—!" Arzhen called out, his voice thundering across the medical area, dragging Ruby behind him like a broken doll.
Cecilia, who hadn’t even noticed him until his voice cut through the noise, finally turned. Her eyes widened in horror when he saw them. Her foot faltered backward, her shoulder bumping against Oathran’s chest.
Arzhen, his eyes wild and wet and desperate, dragging Ruby by the hair. Ruby’s priestess robes tangled around her legs, her hands clawed uselessly at Arzhen’s grip and her mouth was open in a scream that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than her throat.
"ARZHEN! Aaaahhh—what are you DOING?! IT HURTS! STOP!"
"Cecilia, don’t misunderstand, okay? This... this is not what you think it is!" Arzhen’s voice cracked pleadingly. His smile was manic and apologetic, yet he framed it all like trying to explain a simple misunderstanding.
"LET ME GO! Arzhen! WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU—"
"She touched me first, Cecilia. You... you need to understand, it’s all her. She’s the one who’s been trying to seduce me all this time, alright?" Arzhen’s words tumbled out in a frantic rush, his eyes fixed on Cecilia’s horrified face.
"Please help! HELP!" Ruby’s eyes were wide now, truly wide, the performative tears replaced by real ones. Real terror, real pain—
Her face, usually so perfectly arranged, was full of pure animal fear as she begged the surrounding crowd for mercy.
"Ruby! Ruby! Stop! People, hel—" Isabeau, Ruby’s priestess partner, lunged forward and grabbed at Arzhen’s wrist with both hands. Arzhen flicked his other arm at her without even looking, and the girl went tumbling to the ground.
"AH!"
"He’s on a rampage—back away!" someone in the crowd shouted.
The hunters who had been managing the de-evacuation began to circle, their weapons drawn, their beast forms rippling beneath their skin. But they hesitated.
Wasn’t that... Arzhen Vasiliev? Even now, after everything that had happened to his empire, the name still carried weight.
The tiger who had once funded their operations, whose company had supplied their gear, whose family had been synonymous with power... Could they really raise a blade against him? Could they really—
"Ruby! RUBY!" Isabeau scrambled to her feet, her priestess robes torn at the knee, her face streaked with dirt. She lunged forward again, hands outstretched, but a burly werebear hunter caught her around the waist and hauled her backward. "No! Let me go! She needs help! RUBY!"
"Stay back, priestess," the werebear growled. "You can’t help her like this. You’ll only get yourself killed!"
Isabeau thrashed against his grip, her fingers clawing at the air. "Someone do something! PLEASE!"
"Cecilia... how do I explain this...? I really..." Arzhen breathed, his manic eyes starting to glisten with unshed tears. His free hand came up and pressed against his chest, over his heart. "I... she’s just a whore compared to you, alright? This bitch is worth nothing, and I just realized that, thanks to you!"
He grasped his chest harder, his claws dimpling the fabric of his suit. "Cecilia... it hurts so bad when you’re not with me... It hurts so bad here..."
Cecilia froze in place. Her eyes faltered, trembling at the scene before her.
"How do I prove that I love you?" Arzhen took a step closer, dragging Ruby’s stumbling, sobbing form with him. "H-how do I prove that no woman is worth more than you? How do I get you back?"
"AAAHHH! It hurts—please—please help! Please! ARZHEN!" Ruby fell, her lower body hitting the ground, her scalp still locked in Arzhen’s grip. Her fingers scrabbled at the dirt and her voice was going hoarse.
"You still don’t believe me, Cecilia...?" Arzhen asked, his eyes filled with pain now. Real pain. His body started to be covered in more and more striped fur—
Cecilia breathed. But her eyes reflected the hollowness of his words to her ears.
Arzhen’s face hardened. Then, slowly, gently, he smiled. "Even... if I do this?"
In a motion that felt like a blur for how fast it was, yet like slow motion for how visceral it was, Arzhen grasped Ruby’s head harder, pulling her up by the hair until her tear-streaked face was level with his.
Now her eyes, wide and wet, met his dark ones, and whatever she saw there made her go silent.
He grabbed the base of her neck and pulled.
CRACK—
RIIIIIIP—