Married To The Mad Vampire Lord - Chapter 429

Chapter 429: Where the dead belong_Part 1
Belle wanted to tell him she wasn’t weak, that she could handle herself, but in the end, she let him fuss over her. If it eased his mind, then so be it.

Madame Rachael shook her head. “We can’t let the morning wane before we start with the rituals, Your Grace. Morning is for my kind, and night belongs to the black witches. It’s best if we begin now and finish before the night descends.”

Belle exchanged a glance with Rohan. He gave her a reassuring nod. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right by your side through the whole process,” he promised, fully aware of how uneasy she was.

Belle managed a small, brave smile and agreed for the witch to begin. Madame Rachael immediately got to work, instructing that every window and door in the house be sealed shut.

Evenly and Rav moved through the house together to close everything. While they were shutting the back door, Evenly turned to Rav. His usually calm features were pale, and his expression distant, as though his mind were somewhere else entirely. He had been like that since this morning.

When she spoke, he flinched slightly, startled out of his thoughts.

“Are you all right?” she asked softly.

Rav blinked, then forced a smile. “Yes, I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” Evenly replied, stepping closer and raising her hand to his forehead. “You’re sweating… and your temperature feels off. Are you sick?” she asked again, her concern deepening as she brushed her hand over his face, moving strands of black hair away from his cheek to feel the temperature that felt cold and warm at the same time.

Rav gently caught her wrist, his cool fingers tender against her skin. “No. Vampires don’t get sick. Don’t worry about me, it because I didn’t sleep well last night,” he said. Then, without letting go, he lowered her hand and intertwined his fingers with hers, pulling her along as he continued closing the other windows.

“Why didn’t you sleep well?” Evenly pressed, staring at the back of his head as he closed a window with one hand while still holding her with the other.

Rav didn’t miss a beat as he half lied to her for the first time. “Because I was thinking and making plans.” He had been in so much pain he hadn’t been able to sleep through the night, and he had been thinking indeed, and regretting as well.

“About what?” she pressed on curiously as he walked her to the next window. Had he been thinking about a life with her, just as she had been thinking about him? Sleep had deserted her last night because she couldn’t get him, or the thought of marrying him, out of her mind.

Before he could answer her, Evenly said, “How about I come and sleep in your room tonight? Perhaps we can—”

“No, you don’t have to,” he said a bit too quickly. Feeling her stop walking, Rav quickly amended, “I mean, if I let you sleep in my bed again, I want it to be on our first night of marriage… how it should have been in the first place.”

Evenly pursed her lips as she stared into his eyes. She didn’t actually care about whether they shared a bed now or after marriage, but then she didn’t press on and simply nodded her head.

“Will you take an evening stroll with me tonight in the castle grounds?” Rav requested, giving her hand, still held in his, a gentle squeeze, his eyes warming as they locked into hers that smiled softly at his request.

They had once taken a stroll in Aragonia the night they stayed to burn Belle’s belongings, and he recalled how she had liked gazing at the night sky.

“Certainly!” she beamed at him, seeing again how he was everything her former husband wasn’t. He knew she liked night strolls and wanted to share one with her.

“Though I don’t like that you look too pale this morning. Hmm, perhaps I should do something else to make you blush in that adorable way. Crimson.” She teased him, and without giving him time to think, Evenly pulled at his collar, stood on the tips of her shoes, and rained kisses on every corner of his face, causing Rav to smile and blush embarrassingly in spite of himself.

He couldn’t laugh, though, because it would trigger a painful cough.

Inside the drawing room, Belle sat nervously on the couch, her palms clasped tightly together as her eyes followed Rohan’s movements. He moved around the room with controlled precision, lighting many red candles Madame Rachael had brought with her.

Each one, she had explained, was crafted with spells and rare ingredients, powerful enough to ward off spirits that don’t belong in this world. The room slowly filled with the warm, earthy scent of the wax.

The room almost looked like it was evening from how tightly the windows had been shut and with only the candles burning softly around the space.

“Many souls would never rest if they have unfinished business in our world. If the one in your wife’s body has something she hasn’t completed, she won’t leave yet. That is why we will have to get her to either talk to us or show us what she desires, or preferably, send her where she should be,” the white witch informed, her voice calm as she began setting out the things from the bag she had brought with her while explaining to the curious Rohan who was asking her different questions.

“But I would like to warn you that there is a possibility of the soul having equal possession of your wife’s body, as she has been there for many years. All the memories and feelings your wife carries might be shared. If the soul leaves, it will be like splitting a person into two. With time, your wife might regain full control, but in some cases, she might never, and you would have to make her remember the memories that were taken with the soul, or she will remain a half-empty shell.”

“Have you done something like this before?” Rohan asked.

The witch nodded slowly. “It was many years ago, but that case was different. The girl then was possessed fully by the spirit, and when I sent the spirit back, the girl became another person entirely. Every moment she had lived before then was taken away with the spirit, because it had been the one in full possession of the body. But since your wife’s soul is only half shared, the split will be in half.”

Belle’s eyes shifted to her husband, who had finished lighting the candles and was now leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest as he listened to what the woman was saying. She noticed how his brows drew together at the weight of the information.

“You mean to say what shapes my wife into who she is now has something to do with the soul attached to her?” he asked, uncrossing his arms and thrusting his hands into his pockets, a dark scowl tightening his features.

He had not imagined Isabelle held such equal rights in Belle’s body, though he wouldn’t lie to himself, there was that time in the Dawson old mansion when he had felt drawn to Isabelle’s possessions just the way he did to his wife. He didn’t want to think she was part of what he loved about Isa.

“Yes. But like I said, she has the chance to recover and feel whole again. However, since I have not yet come close to the spirit, I don’t know for sure how much claim she has to that body. If you may please come lay down here, Your Grace,” the woman’s blue eyes moved to Belle as she gestured for her to come and lie in the middle of the candles and the intricate spell she had drawn on the floor.

Rohan pushed himself away from the wall and walked toward Belle, taking her hand and helping her stand to her feet. But he didn’t lead her to the circle immediately. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her. “Do you want to do this?” he asked softly.

If Isabelle wasn’t a threat to her life, he wouldn’t have risked her losing the memories they had built together or the terrifying possibility of her becoming someone entirely different. But living with a dead soul carried far more risks than not having it at all. She wouldn’t be able to be turned into a vampire with that connection to the dead, and there was the constant danger of her being pulled into the land of the dead, possibly forever.

But what mattered most to him now was hearing what she wanted.