Married To The Mad Vampire Lord - Chapter 556

Chapter 556: “How did you meet?”
“Are you nervous?” her mother asked for the third time that day, as if she could somehow sense her feelings.

Nervous? Elle thought, feeling the walls of her throat turn rough like sandpaper as she swallowed. She didn’t truly know how she felt at this moment, another night away before her wedding day. If she had been asked this question yesterday, when excitement had still filled her chest, she would have replied no without hesitation. How could she be nervous when she was marrying Eryx, a man who made her curious about the outside world and eager to step into it?

But she dared not tell her mama what worried her now.

So she smiled at her through the mirror, where her mother was fixing and gently combing her hair for the night. “No. Am I supposed to be nervous, Mama? You’ve been asking me this every time your eyes meet mine,” Elle said softly, watching her mother’s beautiful face reflected behind her.

Evenly smiled, her gaze resting lovingly on her daughter’s reflection. It felt like only yesterday that she had given birth to her, and now she was preparing to watch her get married. Though her daughter was no longer a little girl and had grown into a woman of her own, she was still her little, delicate flower. And the fact that Elle still looked every bit as delicate as she always had was the reason Evenly fussed so much and wanted reassurance about her feelings before such a big day.

If it were up to her, she would never give her daughter off for marriage, but this was what Elle wanted. She wanted to be like every normal woman out there.

“Every bride gets nervous before her wedding day,” her mother said gently. “Though I can tell you’re happy about marrying Eryx, you’ve been awfully quiet this evening. You’ve seemed absentminded ever since you met with him this evening.” Her ever-observant mother pointed this out, and it made Elle wonder if there was anything her mother had ever failed to notice about her.

Elle watched her mother run the golden brush through the strands of her long red hair, which fell all the way below her hips, brushing the back of her knees. Wanting to mask the emotions and doubts rising within her, Elle asked quietly, “Mama… how did you know Papa was the right man for you? Were you nervous before your wedding day?”

Her mother’s eyes trembled at those questions, and the hand brushing Elle’s hair paused mid-motion.

For many years now, Elle had never truly been told where her father had gone or if he would ever come back. There were times she doubted she had even had a father at all. But the love and pain that filled her mother’s eyes whenever she gazed at his portrait on the wall of their hall was proof enough that there had been a man, one her mother had loved deeply. Loved enough that, even though he had left them and gone away to another land, she still clung to that love.

For years, Elle had also clung to her love for a father she had never seen. He had sent her letters, written to her as though he truly knew her. But when he suddenly stopped replying, stopped writing altogether, without any explanation, her love for him began to wane. It was hard to hold on to love for someone you had never met, someone whose existence now felt uncertain.

What kind of father abandoned his family and went away to another land? If he truly loved them, shouldn’t he have been here, standing by their mother’s side?

That feeling of abandonment had made Elle angry. Angry enough that she tried not to dwell on the fact that she was getting married and he wouldn’t be present to hand her over to her groom. She also tried not to think about how, once she left for her husband’s home, her mother would be left alone, because Aryen’s presence in the house was barely felt with how much he loved exploring and going around. When you see him at home, then something was wrong, for Aryen was a young man who didn’t like indoors.

Though Elle hated the thought of another man taking her father’s place, a father she barely knew yet still felt loyal to, she wished for her mother’s happiness.

Even though it hurt and tore at her heart, she wished her mother could find someone else, a companion, because being a vampire, her mother still looked as young as Elle herself and carried her youth so effortlessly.

If Elle ever had to choose whose happiness mattered most, it would always be her mother’s. Despite her unwavering loyalty to her absent father, Elle wanted to see her mother fully whole and truly happy.

But whenever she saw how much her mother still hoped for her father’s return, Elle knew she would never replace him.

And so, to keep her mother from feeling sorrow or reopening old wounds, Elle avoided asking about him or speaking of anything that concerned him. But now, as the days drew closer to her wedding, she didn’t know who else to ask about love and marriage except her mother, because she didn’t even have close friends to turn to. Her only friend was Rosey, and Rosey wasn’t close by nor was she an expert of marriage.

She doubted if Rosey knew the first thing about weddings and marriage, for her friend didn’t even seem interested in things like that.

Elle watched her mother’s expression as she resumed brushing her hair, a faint smile touching her lips as she finally said, “Your father and I were never married, Elle.”

Elle nearly shot up from the chair at that confession. Until now, she had always believed her parents had been married and that her papa had simply gone away and never returned. But to learn they had never been married at all—

“Then how come… you had us?” Elle asked quietly, her expression curious rather than judgmental. In their time and age, women who became pregnant without marriage were often shunned and scorned by society. But Elle had never been one to judge others, and she would certainly never begin with her own mother.

Evenly tried not to actually get emotional as she knew it was time she came clean to her daughter about her life with Rav and how they came to be. It was because she believed that Elle had been too young to understand for many years that she never talked to her about matters like this, but her daughter would soon be a wife, and if she didn’t talk to her about it now, there would never be a perfect time. She had already put it off for so long, longer than she ever should have.

“Your father wasn’t my first,” she finally said. “I was married before him, when I was young and foolish. The man was Mr. Clifton, Josh Clifton.”

Elle didn’t say anything and kept silent, knowing her mother wasn’t done yet. She only looked at her through the mirror, her eyes urging her to go on.

“Our marriage, I thought it was perfect at first, and I truly believed I loved him, but my assumptions were wrong…” Evenly told her everything about her first marriage and how it ended, and as she spoke, Elle’s face slowly turned red with anger.

“That’s awful, mama. It wasn’t your fault that you lost the baby. How could he blame you and hit you?” Elle remarked, feeling sick to her stomach over all the things her mother had been forced to endure, hating a man she had never met but already despised deeply.

“Josh had always been a man who never found fault in anything he did and instead blamed others, and most often, he blamed me. When we first got married and he misplaced things, he would blame me for it. I should have known then. I should have seen it coming from the beginning, but I was too young to understand what was best for me, and I believed it was nothing because he claimed he loved me and acted like a man in love. However, his love was only for my looks.”

She said this with a distant look in her eyes, one filled with old regret and quiet pain. “I hope you are not going to make the same mistakes I made in my time when choosing a man.”

Elle knew what her mother was referring to even without her being specific. It was Eryx. Though Elle liked him so much, enough to want to be his wife, her mother had always had some reservations about him. He liked to talk about himself, his travels, and the exotic things he had seen, and sometimes he would forget to ask her about herself. Elle didn’t blame him for that, because she was always the one asking about his travels and his journeys, listening eagerly as he spoke and imagining herself beside him.

He often promised that after their wedding, he would show her around the world and take her to places she had only ever dreamed of.

Elle loved him for that. She had always wanted to see the world, but being born a halfbreed made her unable to travel to many of the places she would have loved to go. Her mother, however, didn’t like him as much. She didn’t see what Elle saw in him. She only approved of him because Elle had chosen him, and because he made her laugh and smile whenever he was present.

“Eryx is different, mama,” Elle said quietly, before changing the topic so her mother wouldn’t make her see the flaws in the man she was about to marry. “How did you meet papa?”