She had to make it right and tell him she was sorry, that the past was in the past, and that she had forgiven him—and also ask him for his forgiveness.
He had fought to co and save her from those rogues despite looking broken himself. That was enough to make up for everything in the past. She had let those mories cloud her mind—the trauma from the past she had held onto. She had let it control her, even if it had been for just a mont. But that mont’s mistake had brought the heart-wrenching pain she last saw in Rohan’s eyes. She had to tell him she did not an to fear him.
She hurried to the door and pulled it open. She then ran down the long corridor, down the stairs, calling for Rav at the top of her lungs. Lightning flashes from the windows illuminated the space, and the sound of the rain drowned out the loudness with which she was calling for the man.
But despite that, before she made it down the long flight of stairs, he ca running to her with a worried look.
Belle grabbed his hand. "Has Rohan returned yet? I need to speak to him. Where is he?" she asked, her voice raw with desperate emotions.
Rav looked at the state the lady was in. She looked as pale as a ghost and even more fragile in the white nightdress. He did not know whether to tell her the truth about what had happened or to lie to her to make her go back inside and rest. She had only been unconscious for a few hours.
"My lady, you shouldn’t be out of the bed yet. You—"
"Answer , Rav! Where is my husband? Has he returned?" she demanded, coming to a stop at the staircase, her hazel eyes burning with tears and determination. She would never know a mont of peace until she explained to him why she had hesitated to go to him and watched him suffer.
She had to redy the mistakes she had made. She had let him down. She had been a fool. She wouldn’t be ho without him, and she had just realized, only a few minutes ago, that it was Rohan who made this dreadful castle feel more like a ho than the ancient building it was.
"My lady, if you would just—"
"I swear to God, if you tell to calm down, I will hit you, Rav. I don’t give a damn about anything. Tell where he is," she said through gritted teeth, glaring at him so furiously that even Rav took a step backwards from her.
At this very mont, she did not look like the delicate lady who had stepped into this castle looking fragile and curious, with innocence in her eyes. In fact, she sounded nothing like her. She looked like a woman who would kill to get to her husband, and the fierce look in her hazel eyes startled even him.
They burned with rage and determination.
The eyes of a she-devil.
"I do not intend to hide anything from you, my lady, since it has co to this. But please, would you at least find a place to sit while I tell you everything that—" Rav trailed off, taken aback as he watched the lady sit herself down on the stair and then look up at him with impatient eyes.
"I am sitting. Tell before I go mad. Where is he?"
Rav cleared his throat and sat himself down on the step as well, as it was utterly disrespectful to look down at the lady in his standing position.
"His Lordship won’t be coming back." He dropped the bomb, half-expecting her to lose her cool and go she-devil on him again, but then she rely stared at him and let out a little laugh.
"I am not in the mood to take any form of jokes. Tell the truth," she said calmly, her fingers trembling where she laid them on her lap, because even she wanted to believe this was so kind of cruel joke—sothing unreal, or a nightmare she would wake up from. But then, she suddenly recalled Rohan’s words:
’If things go well, I shall disappear for a couple of years and there will be no way to get hold of ... and if things go bad, this will be the last ti we’ll ever et again. You promised not to hate . Don’t go back on your promise. I sincerely apologize for bringing you into this dangerous world and not being able to stand with you until we see it through...
Farewell, my heart.’
She began to shake her head in denial as she fisted her hand and hit it against her lips. "It can’t be. He can’t be gone. He didn’t die. He just ran into the forest, it can’t be."
She kept shaking her head and then demanded, "Tell you are not being serious and that he will co back? He will, right?"
That was what she wanted to believe at the mont.
He’d said goodbye, but it was impossible. He was so strong and he’d fought...he fought for her...
She gazed up at Rav questioningly hoping to hear the answer she wanted, but the look in Rav’s eyes and how he turned to look away from her made her break down into a sob.
"No. My Rohan is alive. He is fine. We can go and find him and bring him back."
"We can’t, my lady. His Lordship is as good as dead in that state. He has turned rogue completely, and in no ti... he will rot away like the others," ca Rav’s quiet voice.
Belle shook her head and stood up to her feet. "He turned like that years ago when I was a little girl. What makes it different now? He can still return to normal just like he did years ago, right?"
She had recalled the mories, and she rembered clearly how she had seen his face change into a rogue’s. She had seen it, and since he had sohow turned rogue then and still turned back to Rohan, he could still do the sa now. She did not know why Rav would believe that he was lost forever.
"It’s different then. He wasn’t bitten years ago, he turned that way because his..." Rav caught himself short like he did not want to reveal the words, and Belle sat down beside him and grabbed his shoulder.
"What aren’t you telling ? Speak!"
"It was different then because he wasn’t bitten. He turned rogue because his heart was removed!" Rav let the words out, knowing that keeping it wasn’t going to help, since his Lordship had no way of ever returning back to himself again. And with each passing day he remained a rogue, he was becoming more of a living dead than a vampire.
Belle froze, blood seemingly draining from her face, and her hand on Rav’s shoulder limply fell back to her lap. "What do you an his heart was removed?" she questioned, unable to believe or understand that phrase when it was a known fact that purebloods were never born with a heart and that Rohan had none.
"I swore to never share his story with anyone, my lady," Rav said, but seeing the wretched eyes of the woman before him, who looked like she would die without her husband, he continued to say,
"But there is no point in keeping that from you when everything has co down to this. I will tell you everything I know about his Lordship, but only if you promise that after I tell you, you will fulfill his wishes."
"What wishes?" She asked with a shaky voice, still finding it hard to comprehend Rav’s words about Rohan’s heart being removed.
"His lordship had given orders that if anything were to happen to him—back then he had thought he would be taken to the asylum when he made this arrangent, but I still think he would want you to go with that sa arrangents he made a month ago..."
"If I tell you everything about his past, you will promise to leave Nightbrook. It’s no longer safe for you now without his Lordship. You can no longer stay here. If I tell you everything, you have to promise you won’t fight in taking you away."
Belle stared at him like he had spoken in a foreign language she could not understand, because even though she understood him completely, she was not going to make any promise to leave without bringing her husband back.
Leave Nightbrook? And go where?
She would rather die here than leave the land without him.
She saw how Rav was waiting for her to make the ridiculous promise to him. He had a look on his face that seed like he wasn’t going to tell her anything unless she made that promise, and Belle, who had gone through hell and back and had been reshaped through ti, stared back at him.
She was never the kind to give empty promises, but she nodded her head and gave the empty promise she had no intentions of keeping. "I promise. Tell ," she urged impatiently.
Only by knowing what had happened to him could she co up with a way to help him, because Lord help her, if she had to go into Grimvale and fight every rogue to get to him, she would. And if she had to keep him by her side even in that state... she was willing to do it.
Her love for him was indescribable and undeniable. She had wronged him once, and she would never do it again. She had let him down, and she would do anything in her power to make up for it. Anything.
Reviews
All reviews (0)