Do it again!"
Belle gritted angrily at those words she had heard more than she could take in the span of the days the vampiress had been training—or more precisely, torturing—her with the excuse of it being part of their training.
The first day had been a nightmare to Belle, who had been made to run around the large castle grounds for warm-up before the shooting started. She had worn a training gear that was fitted for her own body size. Though comfortable, she had felt exposed because it wasn’t a dress but trousers. Now it barely bothered her, as days had passed and she had beco accustod to the attire—but not to the training that had left her legs and muscles sore for days.
The first day, she could barely move when she woke up in the morning, but then she had to rise by dawn to run around. She had wanted to feign sick and not leave her bed, but the vampiress had stord into her chamber and pulled the sheet from her body, smiling that sweet smile of hers as she said,
"You will only feel the soreness more if you decide to take a day’s break by pretending, Lady Dagon. Your body will get used to it. Let’s go. There’s no need to waste both our ti."
If she could strangle the vampiress, she would have that day.
She had thought that Rohan would tell his crazy cousin to go easy on her when she was struggling the next day to walk down the stairs, but as typical of him, he had teased and said words that unnerved, and sotis even angered her. The training was like she was being trained for war rather than hunting!
The third day, Rohan had watched from one of the chamber’s balconies while he ate his lunch and she ran around, shooting down running servants with fake practice arrows, with a board tied to their backs with marked targets she would have to shoot.
She had been breathless and so annoyed that when his voice ca—laughing and hinting at the direction of where her target was—she had shot him what she believed was a deadly glare.
But then the darn man had thrown his head back and roared with laughter, calling out, "Acting fierce, are we, my wife? I like that. Keep it up. There’s your target escaping."
The two crazy vampires were hellbent on killing her before her ti with such insane training! She had thought that day, seething with frustration, as he laughed heartily at her glare and continued to eat his food with dark amusent dancing in his eyes at her suffering. She had been furious—mad, angry beyond words that day.
And to make matters worse, he had not touched her nor initiated any intimacy between them. Not that she wanted him to—at least, that was what she kept telling herself. But there was a part of her, dark and shaless, that ached for him every night.
A part that wanted his hands on her skin, on her breasts, his mouth claiming hers, his voice rough with desire as he whispered wicked things in her ear and did even worse to her body. But to that part’s bitter disappointnt, there were no more touches, no teasing on the bed, no midnight gas where he used every sinful way he knew to unravel her.
She barely saw him sotis, and he would suddenly appear at the balcony to watch her train. At night, though he did not co while she was awake, the mont she began to drift into sleep, she would feel his presence in the room, and it would soothe her heart and put her mind to rest about the fear of being thrust into the other world.
His presence was that reassuring to her sleeping mind.
It had been a great relief not to find herself in that world, and she had begun to sleep more, being at ease now. She couldn’t even stay awake to think at night, as she would have beco so exhausted by the ti she finally lay on the bed.
She did not know why Rohan no longer ca to her bed when she was awake to do what he promised he would do every night of their marriage, but she could barely even dwell on it, as the gloomy thought of the next day’s training took its toll on her mind.
Today marked the third week of their practice, and the vampiress seed to be making the shooting range increasingly harder.
Though Belle would admit the woman might be twisted in the head, she was undeniably a skilled shooter—and from what Rav had told her a few days ago, Cordelia had been the female winner of last year’s hunting gas, which was why His Majesty had assigned her to train Belle.
Cordelia could shoot with her eyes closed and still hit the target dead center. Belle had started to catch up with the training, but the more she thought she was getting the hang of it, the more the woman seed to push the difficulty—and today, Belle’s mood was far from its best.
Rohan hadn’t co to watch her train for four days now, and she hadn’t seen a glimpse of him, not even his shadow. His absence was distracting her, pulling her thoughts away from her target.
"Shoot it again!" ca Cordelia’s strict voice, as Belle’s eyes wandered up to the balcony where he usually stood or sat to watch her—and ended up missing her target again for the seventh ti today.
Why hadn’t he co to watch her lately? Was he angry about what happened the other day?
She had been tempted to ask Rav or soone else about him, but she had been pretending to be mad at him for all those days he ca to watch her, teasing her when she struggled to walk down the stairs. She had ignored his presence, paid no mind to his words or his teasing anymore. She had tried so hard to act indifferent to his presence—and now that he wasn’t here, now that he was truly gone, she was restless.
She recalled the day he had teased her that had led to him not being here now.
"Tsk, my sweetheart," he had said, waiting at the mouth of the staircase, his eyes glinting with dark amusent. "You really should let your muscles get used to this soreness, hmm? Because it’ll be the sa once I finally decide it’s ti we do it properly in bed. The first ti always aches a little—like training. But if your body’s too soft, too tight, you might not be able to take all of ."
He had smirked, leaning in just enough to brush his fingers through her blonde hair, the touch light and slow as he added, "You rember what I said about stretching and taking in, don’t you?"
Belle had flushed in embarrassnt, recalling the day in the carriage, then stepped away from his touch. And to make him stop talking—to make him stop teasing her like that in a place where servants were moving around—she had said, "I wish you would stop bothering for a change. If you can’t make my discomfort stop, at least don’t add to it, my Lord. Leave alone, please..."
She hadn’t ant those words—or at least she had at that ti as she was mad at him—but not later when it seed he had taken her words and left her. Rohan was not a man who listened to soone, especially not when she told him to leave, but he seed to have taken her words for it and made himself scarce in the castle.
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