Married To The Mad Vampire Lord
Chapter 188: Awake_Part 2

Chapter 188: Awake_Part 2

It hurt so badly that breathing was difficult.

The sensation of the heart. The weight of it. The burn in his throat. The moisture that suddenly stung his eyes and rolled down his burning cheeks. What was this?

Why couldn’t he breathe?

He looked down at his hands and they were shaking.

His dark-veined fingertips trembled like they didn’t belong to him.

Tears blurred his vision as his unfamiliar heart tightened inside his chest with emotions he had forgotten what they felt like. Sorrow, loss, and loneliness—and he didn’t understand why it consumed him whole.

It wasn’t even a single emotion. It was everything.

Everything at once.

And it was too much.

He pressed his back to the wall and drew his knees in. His body hunched as he tried to silence the sound of that terrible heart that had suddenly come alive inside him. It refused to stop. It wouldn’t calm.

He didn’t even hear her at first.

The soft shift of the bed. Her quiet steps and her familiar scent—because he could not control himself and his damned emotions. He was too buried deep inside them when her soft, panicked voice flowed into his small cage, penetrating into his mind.

"Rohan...?"

He flinched back as he felt her fingers against his arm.

She was kneeling before him before he could stop her. Her eyes wide, her lips parted, her expression caught between relief and horror. He couldn’t meet her gaze.

He didn’t want her to see him this vulnerable and stupid. Whatever this was inside him, he didn’t want her to see him.

But she saw anyway.

Her hands reached for his face and he turned it away from her.

"I can’t... I can’t breathe," he rasped with a hoarse voice. "It won’t stop... it’s beating, it’s beating like it wants to break me—"

She didn’t speak. She just touched him, softly at first, like if she pressed too hard, he would vanish. And then she wrapped her hand around his bicep and moved closer to him, a presence he did not know he needed until he felt her lips pressed against his arm, causing him to look at her in the dimness.

"I don’t know how to hold it," he admitted in a whisper as the emotions and the beating of the heart was growing inside him. He had lived for many years without the heart, that now that it was back inside him, he did not recognize the feeling and the pressure of it all.

"I don’t know how to feel like this again, I don’t want it anymore..."

He did not understand how it happened, and how he got the heart back. Or why. And maybe he did not want it back and was fighting the emotions now because a part of him was scared to have it back, because having something means you could lose it again.

"Why does it hurt so much?" It wasn’t a physical pain. Emotional. The weight of past memories. Regret. Love. All crashing down at once.

"Because it’s meant to hurt and make you feel," she whispered back, her forehead touching his, her thumbs wiping away the tears that had spilled without his permission on his flushed cheeks. "Let me hold it with you. Let me teach you how to be one with it again."

He looked into her eyes, and the first thing he felt clearly was love. For her. Unfiltered. Overwhelming. The kind of love he once believed himself incapable of.

"Isa..." he whispered softly as he pressed out his tears to clear his vision.

"Yes, my love?" she answered him as she moved closer to him.

Rohan could not make sense of many things, but he could make sense of her and feel that she was real amidst the chaos in his chest and head. A memory slipped into his head of her holding his heart out for him in the forest, of her coming back for him despite the fact that she knew what he was.

And right at this very moment, he did not need to look to see that he looked like his demon self—with dark veins and little horns on his head. However, she did not run from him and kept her clear eyes on him.

"They say I am a devil..." came his quiet voice.

"Yes, I know, and I still want you like that," she whispered, cupping his cheeks in her palms gently. His eyes were so dark one couldn’t see them in the dimness of the chamber. But if only he knew how much relief she felt at the fact that he was awake, and how much he meant to her no matter what he was.

"Do you even know what a devil is?" he questioned.

"An angel filled with pain. Come here, let me hold you."

She reached out and pulled his head towards her chest, and he willingly came into her arms, resting his head against her breasts. She began to gently rub his hair, and then, suddenly, the roaring emotions and every single one of his demons seemed to fall asleep as his head touched the softness of her bosom and he listened to her heartbeat instead of his.

He let out a breath that shuddered through him like wind through shattered glass. His arms clung to her like she was the only thing anchoring him to this world.

Because maybe she was.

Belle watched her husband’s head resting on her chest, and she closed her eyes and muttered a silent prayer for having him back. She had never expected to see this day, where he was awake, when she had lived a month having him in that dead state.

For a moment, when she woke up to a sudden movement beside her, she had almost gone crazy when he wasn’t laying next to her, looking almost dead like he had been all this while. She had begun to panic when she caught sight of him curled up in the corner, with tears streaming down his face—a sight she had never associated with him.

"Stay with me..." came his voice, and as Belle looked down, she realized he had closed his eyes and fallen asleep. He was breathing, and... his heart was beating against the arm she had near his chest.

Everything almost felt like a dream, and she smiled for the very first time in months, her eyes blurring with tears of joy.

"I will. I will never leave you again." She pressed her lips to the top of his head and laid her chin against it.

She stayed like that for more minutes until her arms that supported his weight began to grow numb, and as if right on time, Rav came running into the chamber without even knocking.

"My lady, I can feel my link with—" he stopped short in his tracks at what he saw. "He’s awake!" he exclaimed, with a laughter that carried disbelief and excitement.

He had run here when he suddenly felt the link in his mind, the one connected to his master, opening. He had wanted to come and tell the lady in case she wasn’t aware of the improvement, but then, he hadn’t expected to find that he was indeed awake, and his heart was beating, as Rav could sense it even from where he stood.

"Lower your voice, Rav. He’s gone back to sleep. Help me put him back on the bed without disturbing his sleep," she said, and Rav nodded quickly as he rushed into the chamber, smiling in relief.

Though the lady had seemed every bit confident that His Lordship would come back someday, Rav had always carried doubt, as he had been motionless for almost two months now. But seeing how things had turned, he couldn’t help but hold far greater respect for this petite woman who seemed to have made the impossible possible for her husband.

They managed to put Rohan back on the bed, and he did not even stir from his sleep. It was like he was finally getting to have that sleep after all this long. His breathing was steady, and so was his heartbeat, and Belle kept checking on him every single second after she had laid beside him and Rav had left them.

It was midnight, but the lamp post outside glowed into the chamber through the glass French windows, along with the fireplace that illuminated the room.

The tiny vein-like root had disappeared into his chest, and it had closed completely without leaving any scar behind. She ran her hand around the smooth skin and smiled when she noticed that his skin had turned bronze and warm, just like he was before all this chaos.

And for the first time in a long time, Belle closed her eyes and fell asleep without any fear in her heart. It was a sleep so peaceful she did not wake up until mid-afternoon the next day.

And when she opened her eyes to find the space beside her empty, the first thing she felt was the grip of panic. But before the panic could settle in completely on her, she heard it.

A melody flowing in from within the closed door, causing her brows to draw together in confusion.