Married To The Mad Vampire Lord - Chapter 506

Chapter 506: Home_Part 3
The winter was growing stronger, a single snowflake making a soft descent from the heavens to join the thick blanket covering the ground. Long pine trees were draped in white, their branches heavy with snow, and high mountains loomed in the distance, partially hidden by the haziness of the cold. Behind those mountains, a cottage could be seen, its roof and surrounding grounds completely covered in snow. The creek that had once flowed with water was now frozen stiff, encased in ice.

In one of the windows of the cottage, a woman stood, her palm resting against the cold frame as she looked out at the winter landscape blanketing the mountainside. White stretched endlessly before her, stirring something deep within her chest.

The entire place felt familiar in a way that hurt her head to remember. It was as if she had walked the rooms of the house and breathed this air before… yet no memories came with it. Only an ache remained whenever she tried to force herself to remember whether this place had been her home once, for it felt so much like it, only half complete in a way she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

She kept her eyes fixed on the view outside despite the cold. Her golden-blonde hair fell down her back in soft waves, spilling over the fluffy white coat she wore, the same coat the man she had woken up to find had given her, along with a few dresses. She had been frightened last night, seeing that stranger standing in the shadows of the room, watching her.

She had been terrified at having not a single memory, not even of her own name, until he told her. Then he had said,

“Don’t worry, Isabelle. I am not here to hurt you, for you are now my forced-to-accept daughter-in-law.”

Daughter-in-law? That meant she was married? To whom, and what did he look like? And why wasn’t he here when she had woken up? Those questions swirled through her mind, leaving her even more confused. She had asked him where this husband was, and he had told her she would meet her family soon.

Family. The word sounded warm, but inside her, it only ached painfully, because she didn’t know who they were or what they looked like. At least she would not feel entirely lost if they came to tell her what had happened to her and why she couldn’t remember them.

She didn’t know anything about the life she had lived until now. Her hazel eyes carried the weight of that emptiness, the quiet fear of holding no memories at all. The emptiness was terrifying even now as she waited for this family to arrive and fill in the gaps in her memories.

She wondered what was taking them so long when the person who, she had woken up to see here had told her they would meet her soon.

While she stood before the window, sounds of footsteps suddenly came from behind her.

Belle turned, startled, and froze at the same time at what she saw.

A man stepped into the room, his tall frame filling the doorway. A baby was secured against his chest in a sling, arms tucked close, while another boy stood just beside him, holding tightly onto his hand. The sight of them made her heart skip a sudden beat.

Belle’s eyes took them in slowly. The man was tall, with unusually blue hair that fell down his shoulders. He wore a brown, knee-length coat with the collar up and sleeves rolled, one gloved hand pressed flat at the baby’s back, supporting it, while the other gloved hand held the boy’s small hand.

The man’s presence filled the entire room at once, and he stared at her without blinking with those pure black eyes, just as she stared back at him In curiousity.

His eyes were like storms, dark, intense, fixed on her in a way that made her feel suddenly warm and flushed.

Her fingers tightened nervously around the edges of her coat as she stood there, not knowing what to do or say. Were these people… her family? Her gaze shifted to the boy, whose shimmering dark eyes were already filled with tears. Something about their presence made her heart twist with unease, and a longing she could not name.

The silence between them grew so heavy she could hear the howling wind outside.

“Hello,” Belle said finally, her voice soft and unsure. She tried a small smile. “I was told my family will come and meet me here…”

She didn’t get to finish, though, or introduce herself properly.

The man moved suddenly, crossing the distance between them in one fierce stride. His arm wrapped around her back, pulling her against him with a force that made her gasp. His other hand held her head gently but firmly, his fingers sinking into her hair as he buried his face against the curve of her neck, as if he had been aching for this moment his whole life. She felt him inhale, his mouth brushing her neck as he moved them to form words.

“You’re really back, Isa.”

Belle froze, startled by the heat seeping through her body from the sensation of his breath against her neck, and the ache she heard in his voice, and the way he held her to him. His arm tightened around her waist to the point her heels were lifted slightly off the ground. He was warm, so warm like a bear, and his hold felt as if he were holding something precious that he had lost once and finally regained.

The baby between them moved slightly as if coming awake, pressed safely against their bodies, but all Belle felt was the confusion of the emotions in her heart from his hold, yet no memories came back to her.

“We were separated for only a week, love, but it felt like an eternity to me. I hurt every second of those times apart from you. I missed you more than breath itself. I thought I’d never hold your alive and warm body again,” Rohan groaned into her neck, holding and pressing her to him as much as the baby between them would allow.

Through their entire journey here through the portal, he had feared he would come in here to find someone else who wasn’t his wife, and that the demon had only tricked him. Rohan had carried doubt all through the way, even though he felt it somewhere in his heart that she was back. Fear and anxiety were the only feelings he carried here, because he didn’t want to find anything changed about her.

He had never been washed by such relief in his whole life as when he heard the beat of her heart having the same rhythm. She looked the same, she smelled the same. Seeing her standing there in a white fluffy coat, her hair cascading over her shoulders, with uncertain hazel eyes as she watched him, Rohan couldn’t hold back or make any introduction before he enclosed her into his embrace.

Memories were something they could make again for as long as she was still the same person and still had life in her; it didn’t actually matter much to him, as along with the happy memories she had carried before, there were a lot of painful ones he would like her to never remember. Rohan thought this as he inhaled her scent and pressed his mouth against her warm neck, moving it side to side to feel the realness of her against him.

But noticing that she had gone stiff as a rock and wasn’t hugging him back as she normally would, her hands stayed at her sides, not wrapping around his waist and interlocking against his spine. Rohan slowly moved back, not completely, just enough to look into her eyes, his hands gently gripping her shoulders.

Her face carried uncertainty, her hazel eyes slightly narrowed as if she were trying to study him or search for memories that were no longer there. Her cheeks were flushed red, dusted with the freckles he so much adored against her ivory skin.

Rohan’s heart jumped, warmth flooding him from within. He removed one hand from her shoulder and raised it to her face, using his index finger to delicately tuck the strands of hair hovering over her eyes behind her ear, but not before letting his thumb and index finger linger on the soft strands, feeling their texture as she watched him unblinkingly, curiously.

“Are… are you my husband?” she finally parted her lips to ask, feeling unsure. When he had hugged her just now, she had felt a sense of home and warmth, and fear…

Rohan, who despite knowing she didn’t hold a memory of him, was still taken by her question. It seemed that without any memories, he would have to start from the beginning, he would have to introduce himself all over again.

He could only nod his head to her question, captivated and spellbound by those luminous hazel eyes that glistened and caught the brightness that came from the window behind him. They were so big he had forgotten just how much they sparked when she was getting emotional; they were so expressive he had forgotten how easily he could read them; and they were so beautiful he had forgotten how much they pulled at his heartstrings and made him want to bow at her feet and worship her to please her.

Her next question broke him from the spell her eyes had cast on him.

“What is your name?” she asked.

Rohan’s lips pulled up at the side, though his heart knotted achingly that she didn’t remember his name. He told her, “Rohan Dagon.” His eyes trailed to her pale pink lips as she muttered the name under her breath as if tasting it, and then she raised her eyes to him.

“For how long… have we been married?” she asked again, frowning as not a single memory stirred in her mind of their marriage.

“Two years…” Rohan whispered, cupping his hand against her neck, rubbing his thumb against the beating pulse there. He saw her eyes widen slightly as they trailed down to the boy, who was still staring at her with tear-filled eyes, but waiting patiently for his turn to great his mother.

“Is… he our son?” Belle asked, feeling strange and nervous. Apart from her heart feeling warmth toward these people, they were strangers to her, she knew nothing about them. They had been married for two years, yet the boy looked as though he would be six or seven years old. How was that possible?