Married To The Mad Vampire Lord
Chapter 179: Step one down

Chapter 179: Step one down

Back in the living world, where it was still raining. Inside the castle and inside Belle’s chamber, Rav stood before the bed with worried lines forming on his forehead as he watched the the lady on the bed, who had strangely gone still, with her heartbeat turning faint and shallow with each passing minute.

He had been sitting next to the bed after she had fallen asleep, but a few minutes later, he noticed sweat breaking out on her forehead, and blood began to form on the back of her hand. She had groaned in pain a few times, and at first, he thought it might pass.

But as more time went by and the signs worsened, his worry began to grow. It was then he noticed something terribly wrong, her heartbeat had become faint, and her breathing turned shallow, almost nonexistent.

Now, he moved closer to the bed and tried to wake her up, gently at first, then more urgently when she didn’t move. But no matter how many times he patted the space beside her head to wake her, she wouldn’t stir. Her skin was turning ghostly pale, and her lips were taking on the gray-blue hue of a corpse.

"My lady?" he called loudly. He knew how his master didn’t like him touching his wife, even when it was simply to take off her coat. Because of that, Rav had never touched any part of her until now. However, seeing how she wasn’t waking up, he had no choice but to quickly grip her shoulders and shake them as he called for her to wake.

But when there was still no movement, he ran his fingers through his hair and muttered a curse.

He shouldn’t have allowed her to go; he should have talked her out of it. His Lordship would never forgive him for this if anything were to go wrong, especially when he had given his word to protect the lady in his absence through their mind link that had now shut down.

Rav knew exactly why he hadn’t tried to stop her, it was because he, too, had hoped and wished for a way to help his master. But now... now he was losing the lady as well.

"My lady..." he called again, voice lower, just as he heard her heartbeat stop completely. She was no longer breathing. Her body had turned as white as the nightdress she wore, and Rav didn’t even realize when he began to tremble, his hands shaking as terrible emotions wracked through him. He had failed his master and let his wife fall into her death...

"You cannot die..." he whispered hoarsely, shaking her shoulders more firmly now, as if the force of his desperation might somehow bring her back.

"Where the hell are you?" Rav gritted as he looked around the empty space of the chamber for the creature the lady had said would help her. Though Rav had not been able to see what she had introduced to him as Kuhn, he knew the name, as he’d heard it from his master a few times before and had believed it was a living thing.

The lady had said the creature would go with her to the other world and Rav shouldn’t worry, but now he had no way of telling if the creature was there or here. Thus, he looked around the chamber, speaking,

"Are you in here? If you are, show me a damn sign!" he demanded. And when there were no signs of the creature, Rav decided perhaps this Kuhn had not returned and was still in that other world, which left everything to him here.

He turned back to the lady and resumed trying to wake her. He shook her shoulders and began to tell her why she couldn’t let herself die.

"His Lordship needs you. You cannot die. If you die... nobody will be able to help him. Only you can."

Rav was still shaking her when he drew back all of a sudden as his hands, which were shaking her shoulders, came in contact with something like water. Looking closely at her in the dim light of the room, where the candles illuminated her form, he noticed her hair was slowly getting wet, and her dress began to stick to her body, drenched like she had been soaked in water.

He saw water dripping from her nose like a nosebleed, only it wasn’t blood, it was water. The mattress beneath her began to soak through, growing wetter with each passing second as more of it continued to pour out of her.

He could only stare, not knowing what to do, as he had never seen anything like this before. He recalled Rohan telling him that the lady was different, that she could step into the world beyond what any human could reach. Could it be that she was drowning in the other world?

Women were never taught to swim, especially noble ladies. If she was in water, then... she was drowning to her death.

How could he help her?

Rav was still thinking of how to help the lady when he noticed something strange, and he stared at it, wide-eyed. Her hands had been resting against each other on her stomach, unmoving, but right before his eyes, something began to grow between them.

First, a single black leaf popped out from between her fingers, followed by another. Then came something strangely shaped, and his eyes widened even more as he began to recognize it, the black, precious plant of his master.

A plant that had been planted for years—and the lady had claimed it was the only thing that could bring back the master.

She had found the plant! he realized, but she wasn’t waking up, which only deepened his worry and dampened the flicker of excitement he’d felt about the plant.

He was still staring at her, clinging to a quiet hope in his chest that the lady would wake. But with each passing second that her heart remained still, that hope sank deeper. He turned away, defeated, slumped-shouldered, burdened by the crushing thought that he had lost both his Lordship and his wife—

—when he had the shock of his life.

She suddenly gasped awake, choking on water and trying desperately to catch her breath all at once.

Rav’s vampire heart almost leapt out of his ribs at the sight of her waking up. She turned her head sideways on the bed as she vomited water and coughed until her eyes turned teary and red.

She stayed like that for a long moment before she turned to him with teary eyes and a faint smile.

"I survived..." she muttered, as though she couldn’t believe it herself. Rav stared at her, equally stunned, unable to understand how she was alive when her heart had stopped and her breathing had ceased completely.

While Rav struggled to make sense of it, Belle was grappling with her own astonishment at being back in the land of the living.

The reaper had clearly told her that falling into the River of Souls would end her, that it would wipe her out of existence. But somehow, that hadn’t happened. Had he been wrong? Or was it because she was different? She didn’t know the answer, but in that moment, the fact that she had survived mattered far more than the reason why.

Then, as the memory of what she’d just endured surfaced, a shudder ran through her. The water had been dark, so dark, and freezing cold. The chill had seeped deep into her bones and burned through her lungs when she couldn’t swim back up. The darkness had felt alive, like it was swallowing her whole.

Until... something.

She frowned slightly. She couldn’t remember exactly what happened before she woke. Something had startled her, something she had touched. That moment was blurry, unreachable, but it had pulled her out of the void and back here.

She shivered at the memory, but this wasn’t the time to dwell on it. There was something far more important she needed to focus on. She looked down at the steadily beating heart in her hand, and smiled.

"I finally did it!" she said, and then lifted her gaze to the shocked man standing before her, staring at her like he had seen a ghost.

"Step one down, Rav. Step two would be going into Grimvale to get back my husband."

Rav snapped out of his shock. "I think you should rest for now. You haven’t—"

"I can’t rest. Not now. I can only rest when I know I have him back home and safe. Get me Gwen. I told her to wash that attire I wore back from the hunt. I need it now."

She said as she moved down the wet bed to stand up, but then a bolt of dizziness washed over her, and she sat back down on the edge of the bed, moaning into her palms that covered her face. Not just dizziness, her stomach was aching slightly.

"My lady, you don’t look alright. You—"

"Do as I say, Rav. Don’t question my orders. I need those attires now," she commanded, her voice firm and laced with authority, a voice so unlike her usual soft, innocent tone that always warmed the hearts of those who heard it.

She couldn’t afford to waste time resting when she only had until tomorrow’s sunset when the king would send men here. If she dared waste time to eat, when she knew her stomach wouldn’t welcome anything while she was this restless, it would be a waste of precious time. She would eat and rest only when everything was over, when she had her husband safe and sound.

Rav did not say a word again and bowed to the lady before he left the chamber.

He couldn’t point out exactly what, but something about her had changed again after her return now.

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