Married To The Mad Vampire Lord-Chapter 49: Treasures

She did not stop until she reached her chamber and slammed the door shut behind her as if to shut out whatever ghost had been following her. She was stepping away from the door backwards when she heard a voice from behind her that made her almost jump out of her cold skin.

"My Lady, are you all right?" came Farrah’s concerned voice as she stood by the bed, holding a folded set of underwear and a clean dress in her hands, and stared at the lady who had rushed into the room, looking as pale as a sheet.

Belle quickly composed herself and sighed in relief when she saw the maid in her room. Mustering back her senses, she nodded her head. "Yes, I am fine," she muttered as she walked further into the chamber, her dress leaving wet trails behind her.

She stood off to the side so she wouldn’t drench the rug in the middle of the chamber. She couldn’t help but wonder who had been in the corridor. Was there another person in the castle who wore a cloak apart from Rav?

Farrah smiled as she noticed the lady had avoided stepping on the rug and creating a mess that would take her more work to clean. But seeing the distressed look on the lady’s pale face, she spoke as she gestured toward the bath. "Your bath has been set according to his lordship’s orders. You will catch a cold if you don’t get out of the wet dress, my lady." She put the dress away on the bed and walked up to help Belle out of her wet dress.

Belle frowned, "His lordship? Where did you see him?" she asked as the girl walked behind her to help her remove the dress that had been half removed by Rohan.

"Sir Rav called me from the kitchen to come and attend to you, but I saw his lordship going towards the third-floor corridor on my way here," remarked Farrah as she pulled down the wet dress, leaving Belle in her petticoat.

"Is... is that where his chamber is located?" she asked, then bit her lower lip for asking.

"I do not know where his lordship’s chamber is in the castle, my lady. I barely even know the way to our quarters sometimes—it’s a very huge place! But my work is to be your handmaid from now on!" she remarked with an excited smile that made her green eyes brighten and her oval-shaped, beautiful face glow under the golden light of the chamber. "I have always wanted to serve a lady in a castle, and it will be an honor to serve you." She bowed her head, causing Belle to smile.

If Farrah had been in Aragonia, Belle thought, she would have had men swarming around her like bees for her beauty. It was reassuring to have a human with an innocent, kind face to serve her, she mused as she exchanged a few words with the girl.

As Farrah gathered her wet dress to take away, Belle walked toward the divider where her bath was waiting, not waiting for Farrah, as she was not used to being washed by maids.

But without Farrah’s jolly voice to distract her, Belle couldn’t help but wonder who the cloaked figure had been. If Farrah claimed that Rav had gone to the kitchen and Rohan had headed toward the third-floor corridor, nowhere near this one, then who had been standing there?

Deciding not to think so much about the cloaked person, she focused on getting herself warm when she suddenly sneezed. She took off her petticoat along with all the other layers and got into the hot water in the wooden bathtub.

She sighed in relief as the warmth of the water began to melt away the tension in her muscles from the cold and from the kiss that had ignited yet again another sinful flame in her body that seemed to burn with the thoughts of his lips against hers. He had touched her with his mouth so softly that she couldn’t help but be surprised by the softness of a cold man like him.

It was when Belle reached to touch the necklace on her neck out of habit and realized it was his diamond one that was there, that she clenched her teeth and cursed him. She shouldn’t think about his kiss and should only think about hating him for being a liar and a manipulator!

Belle, you are not to think about his kiss, you are not to think about him in any way that isn’t anger or fear. That kiss means nothing to you! Do you understand? He took away Jamie’s ring, think only about that and how to get it back!

When you love someone else, you do not think of carnal pleasure with another you do not love!

While Belle was scolding herself in the bath and taking longer than she should, in another part of the castle, Rohan and Rav walked into one of the many chambers in the castle with a lamp in each of their hands as the evening was approaching faster because of the rain.

The chamber was different, it had no bed, nor was it a furnished bedchamber. Instead, the walls were lined with shelves like a library, but there were no books. Instead, each shelf held a sealed black box. The boxes were arranged neatly in a row, with only a few empty spaces where boxes had yet to be placed.

Rohan walked to one side of the room and retrieved a new box, then placed it on the desk in the room before he looked towards Rav. freewebnσvel.cѳm

"Where is it?" he asked, and the other man silently walked forward, placing a bowl on the desk. Inside, something oval and darkish lay still, its surface unnaturally dull.

Rohan stared at the contents of the bowl and clicked his tongue in disappointment. "It’s turning darker faster than I thought. I should have simply let him be and returned him to Edmond’s house; there would have been the next house of Hathaway who died tragically," he said as he tucked his hand into his coat pocket and retrieved a small bottle containing a black liquid. He then unhooked the cap and poured it into the bowl where the heart of Joshua was, and immediately, as the black liquid touched the heart, it turned red and began to beat softly.

Rohan’s lips pulled up. "It seems it is not beyond rescue with the potion." He picked up the beating heart and carefully placed it into the black box like one would a treasure, and then he watched it with fascinated amusement, his head crooked to the side. He had known Joshua was not guilty of the crime he was brought in for, but the man was guilty of hiding the fact that he was in the process of turning rogue and was starting to crave flesh instead of blood.

Rohan had sensed it the moment the man was pulled into his study, and he had wanted to pretend he had not sensed anything so Lord Edmond would go back with him and end up dying tragically at the hands of his butler when he turned into a savage being. But Joshua had gone on to upset him by touching him when he hated it.

Rav, who was used to seeing his master collect hearts like treasures, did not say a word when Rohan admired his new treasure and then carefully placed the box lid back on it and covered it. He then tied a black ribbon around it and made a bow at the top. With a smiling face, he picked up the box and walked to one of the empty shelves, placing the box on it gently, then stepped back to admire it.

"Very soon, my collection will fill the shelves. What do you think? Isn’t it beautiful, Kuhn?" Rohan spoke, not to Rav, who stood at his right side, but at the empty space at his left where Rav saw nothing but did not question.

"I knew you would find it beautiful." He chuckled softly and shook his head as if whatever he was talking to had answered him back.

The first time Rav had found his master talking to himself, he had been a little terrified that the rumors were true that he was mad, but with time he had grown to accept that this man was different from any person he had ever set eyes on. He was connected to the master as he was the one to turn him, which was why they also shared a mind link that made them able to communicate telepathically and also made Rav able to feel that whatever he spoke to in the empty space was not nothing, only that he could not see it.

"You have saved the Edmonds’ house and many others, my Lord. Had the butler turned, he would have killed and infected many with the corruption," Rav said quietly as he stared at the boxes, where many of the hearts that lay in them were from people he did not know and his master brought back with him sometimes.

When a vampire turned rogue, he could infect another vampire with just a bite, making them lose their mind and hunger for flesh, and they would hunt for it in any way possible.

Rohan scowled at those words before turning his dark eyes to Rav. "I didn’t save anyone. I don’t do saving. I only killed the bastard because he offended me—and because I refuse to give the king a reason to question my competence as a duke and send me back to that shithole asylum."

The thought of the asylum made him suddenly mad.

The endless days he’d spent in darkness and the endless torture were not something he wanted to endure again. Though the pain and torture had not been enough to break him, as he was already a broken man inside and out, he hated hearing the annoying shouts and screams of the other lunatics in the madhouse. For someone who did not like loud noises, it was hell living in it for years.

The king would do anything to send him back to the madhouse to get rid of him completely, and Rohan would try his best to avoid it as much as possible by being a ’good’ duke to Nightbrook.

"I’m going out tonight. Have the servants bring my wife dinner in her chamber. I’ll join her for breakfast in the morning," Rohan instructed Rav, his tone leaving no room for discussion. "I have something important to take care of."

Rav bowed curtly before turning to carry out his orders. The moment the door closed behind him, Rohan was enclosed in a silence that seemed to ease the heavy, invisible tension around his temples. It was like enduring sweltering heat all day and finally stepping into a cool breeze. He breathed in the silence, drawing strength from it as one would from someone dear to them.

He stared fixedly at his treasures lined in a row on the shelves, then finally broke the peaceful stillness. "The plant is gone, Kuhn, and so are my chances of ever having it back."

A bitter smile came upon his face as he added, "I think I was never meant to have it, don’t you think?" He turned to the space. "I am to spend my life without ever knowing what it would feel like to have it again. It’s maddening to know I was so close to having it before it slipped away."