Married To The Mad Vampire Lord - Chapter 552

Chapter 552: Who she’s marrying
“And you still dress like a man,” Max replied to his sister, deflecting the moment. His eyes then trailed toward his parents, who were giving the siblings time to bond, standing off to the side and watching them with soft smiles.

“Mama,” he said quietly as he moved away from his siblings and strode toward her.

In no time, he was hugging her, holding her tight.

“Angel, God, you’ve grown even bigger and taller. What have they been feeding you in that school?” she chuckled as he swiftly lifted her off the floor and swirled her around, just as he had done with his sister.

“I missed you so much, Mama,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. He felt like crying when she stroked her hand through his hair the way she always had when he was just a boy. He wished, more than anything, that he were still that boy.

“I missed you too, my son.”

They held each other for a while before they finally pulled apart, and then he turned to his father, who was standing to the side with a wide grin, his hands tucked casually into his pockets.

“Papa,” Max said, reaching out a hand for a handshake like a man would. But his father removed his hands from his pockets and instead pulled him into a firm embrace.

“Tsk. Are you forgetting the family motto, Max?” his father said. “You are never too big to be babied or held. Now put your arms around me and give me a good hug.”

He clapped a hand against Max’s back, and Max, laughing despite himself, wrapped his arms around his father. Both of them were too tall and too heavily muscled for the hug to fit properly, and the awkwardness of it made Rosey and Finn burst out laughing.

By the time they were seated together in the dining hall as a family, Max felt himself beginning to settle into the familiar environment. Yet the inner peace he had sought was still not coming to him or filling the emptiness inside. Even so, he tried not to let it ruin his time with his family as he listened to his mother complain about each of his siblings in turn to him after he asked her how she was coping with them.

“…your sister dresses like a man, while your brother knows every single brothel in this town and even outside it,” his mother said as she sipped her tea.

“Mama, at least I’m better than Finn. I don’t go to brothels. My case shouldn’t be reported to my brother,” Rosey pouted.

Finn quickly defended himself when his brother’s eyes met his. “I just go to watch. I don’t do the things the people there do in the brothel. You can ask Aryen when we go to their place.”

“Aha! I knew it!” Rosey exclaimed. “Mama, I told you he goes there along with Aryen, who never stays in one place and always uses Finn’s portal to go around visiting brothels. The last time I saw Aunt Evenly, she told me Aryen and Finn go out a lot and asked if I knew where they always went. You just exposed yourself, pighead!”

She slapped the back of Finn’s head, causing him to almost choke on his blood tea. Before they could launch into another full argument and fight, Max quickly changed the topic.

“How is Enny coping still?” he asked, directing the question to his father, who was fixing their mother’s dinner plates for her.

Though he had been away for years, his father had remained in charge of looking after Uncle Rav’s family. While Max was at the academy, he had kept his link mostly closed, opening it only a few times each month to speak to his family.

“She’s coping just fine,” Rohan replied as he set down the plate in front of his wife. “Though I always try to avoid her questions about why she no longer receives letters from Rav. She tries to be strong for her children, especially now that Elle is getting married. I had hoped it would be possible for Rav to be there before the wedding.”

Max’s fingers tightened around his glass, but he was well-practiced at hiding his reactions, and no one noticed how deeply those words affected him. A few years ago, while he was still at the academy, his father had connected with him and told him that Rav’s heart had finished rotting, that the rogue was no longer turning back to his normal form. They had no choice but to put him to sleep in a coffin, the way exhausted vampires were laid to rest when they wished to sleep for decades, or even centuries.

His grandfather had performed the procedure himself, sealing the rogue into his rest. Since then, Rav had remained in that coffin, waiting for the day Angel would perfect what he had gone away to learn for more than a decade.

But Uncle Rav was not the true reason for the sharp prick in his heart at that moment.

That pain belonged to another reason entirely, one he refused to acknowledge. Elle.

“I didn’t know about the wedding in time. I would have begun working on the operation sooner. He might not be there for the wedding, but I will make sure he will be there before she has a child.”

He felt a bitter taste rise in his throat, but Angel could not understand why that bitterness existed or why his heart felt so heavy when it should have been filled with joy. His little Red was grown now, a woman about to be married, and he should have felt elated.

“We wanted to tell you about her wedding,” Belle said gently, watching her son closely and trying to read the expression on his face. It revealed nothing of how he truly felt about the girl he had practically helped raise and quietly cherished now belonging to someone else. “But your school doesn’t receive letters, and your mind link is always closed.”

In the past, Belle had always believed her son would end up with her best friend’s daughter, but it seemed destiny had chosen another path for them.

“Do you know the man she’s marrying?” Angel asked, his voice calm, almost curious.

His younger brother, who was always at the Hathaway residence due to his ability to travel quickly, bobbed his head.

“I know him. He is the son of a vampire lord in the land they live in. Eryx McKay. Elle met him through me and Aryen when we brought him to their house for a quick drink of blood,” Finn said proudly. “He was smitten immediately and even gave us his first letter to deliver to her. Elle was blushing while she read it, and I figured she’d fallen in love just from whatever he wrote in that letter.”

Finn grinned as he popped a grape into his mouth, clearly pleased with himself, believing he had done something admirable by introducing his cousin, because that was how he saw Elle and Aryen, to the man who would become her husband.

If it hadn’t been for him and Aryen, Elle might never have found her other half when she rarely went out to mingle with people. That was what he boasted about now, unaware of how deeply his words tore at his elder brother. For somewhere in the quiet corner of his heart, from the very moment he had held Elle as a newborn, Angel had felt an unexplainable connection to her. For a long time, even while he was away, he had believed she might one day be his.

That illusion had been shattered years ago by time and distance. Now, it was broken completely by the knowledge that she was marrying a man his own brother had brought into her life.

Still, he showed none of his unhappiness.

Angel never showed his true emotions. He knew it would do no one any good. He had been named an Angel because he was meant to be kind, understanding, someone who made others feel safe and happy. His mother loved him for that. Allowing the darkness that gnawed at him to surface, or laying claim to a young woman who perhaps no longer even remembered him, was not something expected of an Angel.

Angel smiled. “I see. Before I leave Velmere again, Mama, Finn and I will have a conversation about what he plans to do with his life rather than spending it in brothels. Don’t you think, little brother?”

He turned to Finn, who promptly choked on his wine and began coughing violently. The last thing Finn wanted was responsibility or any discussion about his future. He wanted to live like a free bird!