Married To The Mad Vampire Lord-Chapter 232: Nightmare_The Death Date_Part 2

After their breakfast, Rohan led Belle to one of the empty chambers he had transformed into a painting room. He had stocked it with several canvases and various art supplies that lined the shelves along the wall. Once inside, Belle took in her surroundings and noticed how he had arranged a comfortable-looking couch with soft cushions. In front of the couch, a canvas was set on its stand, and behind it, the large window had been opened, with the red drapes pulled aside and hanging from the curtain rods to let the natural light and sunlight stream in.

She was still taking in the room while Rohan walked toward the shelf to gather brushes when a knock came at the door. Before she could turn to answer it, Rohan had already reached it and opened it. She heard him exchange a few quiet words with someone she suspected was Rav. Then, Rohan turned his head toward her and said,

"Make yourself comfortable on the couch. I need to attend to something real quick—I’ll be back in a moment." He smiled at her, and she nodded for him to go ahead before he stepped out, closing the door softly behind him.

She couldn’t help but wonder what Rav had come to whisper to him.

Not thinking too much about it, she turned her attention back to the room, taking in a few more canvases he had already painted and set in a neat line against the far end of the spacious room’s wall. She walked toward them to study and admire his work, a smile gracing her lips as she recognized the image he had captured on one of the canvases.

He had painted, quite accurately, a picture of the day they had gone to that fair on her birthday, where she was crouched down before a group of little boys, laughing at them as they told her silly stories—no doubt tales they had made up on the spot. His brushstrokes were perfect, and it almost looked like a living moment—the colors, the sky, even the stalls and the people were all captured in the picture with astonishing detail.

She ran her fingers gently over the brushstrokes and images. Such talent was rare to come across, especially in someone who had never been formally taught. The painting would look beautiful hung in the halls, Belle thought to herself with pride at the idea of showing off what her husband had done. She would ask him later if it would be all right to display it publicly.

The next canvas was another painting of her, but this time it was an image of her holding a glowing, flowing lantern, its golden hue illuminating her face and her wide smile. He had made her look beautiful in the painting, she thought—almost unbelievably so. She couldn’t imagine she looked that pretty if not for how his talented fingers had captured her.

It amazed her how he had caught every single detail, even the light reflecting in her hazel eyes made the scene feel alive. The smile, the delicate embroidery on her dress, the soft fur lining her coat, everything was there, painted with careful affection.

When she moved to the last canvas, after looking at three more that were also paintings of her, she was finally relieved that he had at least painted other subjects besides her. She studied this particular painting without feeling the awkwardness that came from constantly seeing herself as the muse. However, it was one of his strange pieces, one that required quiet studying and deep concentration.

It showed what appeared to be a doorway, bright light spilling inward and casting a tall figure into shadow. The silhouette stood still in the center of the light, with broad shoulders that resembled Rohan’s, but this one had long hair cascading down to his shoulders.

There was no face, only deep, shadowed strokes where a face should be, and the brushwork was chaotic, as if something was deliberately being hidden.

She leaned closer, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the darker layers. And that was when she noticed it, barely visible at first.

Two long shapes curving from the figure’s head.

Her breath hitched in surprise.

Horns...

Wanting to know what the painting was, she reached out her hand to touch it, thinking just like in Nightbrook when she had touched his painting, she would be sucked into it. But nothing happened, no glimpse of emotions or memories, and her hand fell back to her sides.

She wondered in curiosity what had made him paint this image and what had inspired him. This was not him, his horns, if she remembered clearly, were short and small on his head, while these were long and big. Just the sight of the shadowy figure alone sent a shiver down her spine. It unsettled her so deeply that she instinctively stepped back from it, feeling a coldness seep into her bones.

Feeling her legs grow heavy from standing too long while staring at the paintings, she slowly backed up toward the couch and sank down onto it with care, wondering what was taking Rohan so long to return. She sat there in silence, making sure not to let her eyes drift back toward the creepy painting again.

She laid her head on the soft cushion, and not long after, she felt herself drift into sleep. But the sleep wasn’t long, as a sound woke her up. She slowly opened her eyes and blinked in surprise—the sun that had been streaming in from the window when she closed her eyes was no longer there. Only a gloomy gray light surrounded her now.

She sat up on the couch but froze for a moment when she noticed she wasn’t sitting on the soft couch at all, but on a hard surface that felt like stone. Looking down, her eyes widened when she saw she was sitting on a grave, her back having been leaning against the tombstone.

Hastily, she got up and moved away from it as though she had been burned. Looking around at her surroundings, she belatedly noticed everything was covered in mist, and that she was no longer in the art room—but in a place where all she could see were the hazy outlines of tombstones.

Her heart began to frantically beat loud in her chest, the thudding ringing in her ears, and a cold shiver ran down her spine at the thought that she was in the land of the dead again, after not entering it for months now. But what she noticed next made her stop cold before she could even begin to panic about being thrust into the land of the dead.

People. There were people around her. She had not noticed them because of the mist, but the mist suddenly began to move to give her a view of the people standing around the grave she had woken up on. She calmed her frantic heartbeat and panic to pay attention to what was going on and how she had come to be here.

There were like twenty people, and they all wore black mourning attires, with wide-brim hats and flowers in hand as they looked down at the grave with sorrowful eyes. No one noticed her where she stood before the grave; they weren’t looking at her. And when she went to stand in front of a crying woman, whose weeping was so loud and sorrowful it tugged at her heart, she waved her hand in front of the woman to see if she could see her. But Belle only got another shock of her life seeing how her hand looked nothing like her hand.

With disbelieving eyes, she looked down at both her hands. Instead of seeing pale ivory skin, they were scorched black like burned tree bark with flick-like textures. Her fingers were unusually long and sunken like dried twigs—no nails, just black, long stick-like hands. Her eyes dropped to her body and she was terrified to see that just like her hands, her body was not hers. Her feet were hidden under the long black unfamiliar gown she wore, and when she stuck them out, she almost screamed in horror.

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