Married To The Mad Vampire Lord - Chapter 549

Chapter 549: Back Home_Part 1
Sixteen years later.

Home.

He was back home, at least. He thought as he stood over the mountain hill, looking down at Velmere town beneath the sunset, the houses small from this distance. He had been away from home for twelve years, and in all those years, he had only returned to Velmere twice.

One should feel accomplished after gathering the kind of knowledge he had gone away to learn and practice, yet he felt no such pride in his heart. Instead, there was only a hollow closeness to emptiness. Perhaps being home again, and finally accomplishing his life goal of saving the people on his list, would bring back the joy he had lost during his years at Asterfall Academy.

It felt good to be home, but the one thing he hated was the feeling lingering inside him. Still, perhaps if he pretended to be the person he had been before he left home, everything would feel okay, if not perfect, and he would enjoy this time with his family.

Being around them had always made him feel better, as though he possessed everything in the world. Especially his mama. He missed her more than he could ever put into words. Maxwell, who had removed the name Angel from himself while at the academy, thought this as he opened his wings and descended toward the ground.

He missed those days when happiness came to him so easily, when life had not yet left such heavy marks upon him. Looking now at the top of the Dagon house from a distance, Max didn’t feel the familiar urge to rush home, even though he knew his parents and siblings would be expecting him, waiting to welcome him after so many years apart.

He couldn’t wait to see them all, his sister and his baby brother, who he knew was no longer a baby. He missed them terribly. Yet many things had changed over the years, including himself. He was afraid they would see through him, see the changes, and no longer want him the way they once had. He felt like a coward, an impostor who wore the face of someone he was no longer. A deceiver… and a liar. Perhaps the biggest one of all.

He couldn’t let them see that. Not his beautiful family, the family he loved with everything inside him.

Thirsty after his travels, or more to delay his return, Max decided to stop and have a few glasses of blood at one of the many vampire eateries scattered around the town, a town that had expanded so much with each of his visits that, if he didn’t know better, he might have thought he had stepped into a different place altogether, so advanced were the Velmere mountainside settlements.

The years leading up to the time he was to leave for the academy had been the worst of his life in Velmere, a place where people had wanted to test his patience and provoke him at every turn. He hoped that many of them had since grown some sense and no longer remembered who he was, though he knew that was unlikely, especially with him being the very image, almost a carbon copy, of his father.

Max looked around for the least crowded blood-and-food restaurant, and upon spotting one with minimal noise drifting from within, he walked forward and opened the door. Immediately, the burst of voices and clamor inside made him regret his choice. He had forgotten that the world had advanced so much that establishments now had soundproof doors and walls.

Every eye immediately turned toward him as he stepped into the lamplight. He hated attention, especially in Velmere, because everyone knew exactly who he was.

The Dagon family was well known, the richest in Velmere, and everyone knew every member of the family, along with far too many of their private matters, which often became the subject of morning gossip around the mountainside. It was also widely known that the first son had been away for years, studying at a wealthy and prestigious academy.

Max decided to ignore the stares; he was too thirsty and needed urgent blood in his system. He would turn and leave as soon as he could get enough blood to make his itchy throat settled.

To the people inside, everything stopped. All movement halted, conversations paused, because the son of Lord Dagon had returned and had entered their space.

He had dark blue hair, neatly combed back on one side and falling down on the other, partially covering and hiding half of his face. His presence was impossible to ignore, not because he sought attention, but because his aura quietly demanded it.

Young vampire women sitting with their partners and friends whispered to one another, some openly staring and fixing their hair to catch his attention, because they all knew he was a man who had never been seen with any woman except his mother and sister, not that he was often home to be seen by anyone in Velmere.

He was simply too good-looking: the tiny freckles on his long nose, the perfectly bow-shaped pink lips, the wide shoulders, and the veins tracing his neck and corded lines of muscle. The Dagons were unique and unusual in their own way, and even without trying, they drew attention, especially their eldest son.

“Hell, I never knew he was this handsome!”

“Oh my God, he’s looking at our table!” Another excited female gushed, though Max was only scanning for an empty table at the back.

“I wish he would come here and say hi. I used to be Rosey’s friend before the bitch backstabbed me and took my man’s attention from me,” muttered a young woman, the daughter of one of the few wealthy vampire families in town. “Perhaps I should make up with Rosey, just to get introduced to her brother.”

A few men frowned, annoyed by the sudden attention the young man drew. They had been trying to attract the attention of the women all night, yet he did so effortlessly without even meaning to.

Max walked further inside, intent on finding a seat and placing an order, when a woman nearby accidentally dropped her spoon. It clattered loudly against the floor, drawing his attention.

Max stopped walking.

Without hesitation, and more out of self-discipline than instinct, he veered from his path and walked toward her. He bent down, picked up the spoon, and held it out with a polite bow.

“Ma’am, you dropped this.”

The young vampiress stared at him, momentarily stunned, too shocked even to breathe. Maxwell Dagon had never spoken to her before, and up close, he looked even more handsome, his features gentle, his expression warm and respectful.

There were many rumors that he was one of the kindest people anyone could ever meet, but few believed them, because his father was a devil incarnate, feared throughout the town.

“Th-thank you,” she said softly as she took the spoon from him.

He smiled faintly, bowed again, and made his way to a corner table, as though nothing unusual had happened, ignoring the other stares cast his way.

The woman whose spoon he had picked up turned to her friends immediately, cheeks flushed.

“You’re right, he’s so nice! I am not eating with this spoon because he touched it; I’m keeping it like a treasured jewel.” She pressed the spoon against her cheek with a dreamy expression.

“He’s nothing like Lord Dagon,” another whispered. “But he rarely comes back to Velmere. He’s always away at that academy in Asterfall. I don’t even know how he got into such a place, where only the best of the best are admitted, or how he could stay so far from his family. The last time he was here was on his brother’s birthday.”

“He is too good to be real.”

Across the room, a group of men who had been fuming since they first saw Max, men who had once tried to befriend him before he left for the academy but considered him too foolish to be in their circles, snorted loudly. It was hard not to scoff at the women’s words, overpraising someone they considered a coward.

“Handsome and too good?” one of them scoffed. “What use are good looks if one is stupid?”

They laughed. One woman rolled her eyes; it wasn’t a secret that many men in Velmere resented Max, jealous of him for being everything they were not.

“You’re just jealous because you don’t look like him, and your father isn’t a lord,” another muttered.

A man leaned back in his chair, raising his voice, clearly intending for Max to hear what he was about to say.

“Yeah, jealous. Jealous of a man who got robbed and practically kissed the robber’s feet just to be spared years ago before he went to that dump of an academy. A man who licks boots when he’s insulted. Do you know what he did the last time he came home?”

The women grew curious despite themselves and turned to look at the men.

“A thief stole his money,” the drunk man continued. “And the fool chased after him just to give him more coins. I even stepped on his foot once during his brother’s birthday ceremony to provoke him. He apologized to me. That’s how stupid he is, a coward who can’t even fight.”

Max, sitting at the corner table, continued drinking the refined blood served to him, his expression unreadable, posture calm and composed. Every insult passed over him without reaction. He didn’t like to fight, and he rarely got provoked, but the men of Velmere always liked to antagonize him by calling him names. Max had already sworn to himself that he would never allow himself to feel insulted enough to fight, never enough to reveal the monster he constantly tamed within.

Hence, just like always, he ignored them and gulped down his blood, focusing only on finishing his drink so he could leave.