Belle felt his gloved thumb caress the back of her hand he held in his as he waited for her to tell him what she had done.
"I don’t know how I got to get it back. The day before we left for that hunt..." Belle couldn’t help but shudder at the ntion and the mory of the dreadful hunt that had caused all of this ss, but she continued to speak and told him about her experience of seeing the plant in the land of the dead.
"I woke up fast, which is why I thought perhaps I had dread it and not teleported to the other land. That’s why I didn’t say anything about it. I don’t know how I was able to find the place where the plant was again, but I did, sohow," she said to him, her eyes taking on a thoughtful look, rembering how she had felt like sothing inside her was leading her to where the plant was. And there was also that voice in her head...
"I think whatever it is that makes different is not so bad. If I wasn’t, I would have lost you. You are right, accepting it is the best way, only that I wish I knew what makes different from the normal humans. What makes it possible for to go in between the world and to see the creatures from the other world."
That day she had first found herself in the land of the dead, Belle had taken this as a curse and did not want to accept it and was afraid of it. Now that she thought about it, Rohan had been right when he once told her that one could choose to take what made them different as a curse or a gift, and now she was starting to see it as a gift. Only, she wished to understand this gift and know what made it so, why she had it, and how she could control and learn about it.
Rohan stared at his wife, who looked to be lost in thought. At first, when he realized that just like him she could see Kuhn, and that it wasn’t because she was about to die, he had thought it had sothing to do with the incident in her childhood with him.
He had almost thought that she had sohow died when he handled her roughly in his rogue state when she passed out, and that just like him, she had made a friend with a reaper who returned her soul to her body and gave her the gift to see his pet.
But now that this had happened, he could tell it was different.
She had not died that day, and she certainly had not made friends with any of the reapers, not even Kuhn’s friendly master. He could still rember that certain reaper who had broken the rules and decided not to cross his soul through the River of Souls, that ti his parents had rcilessly extracted his heart to kill him.
The death of a demon was different from that of a vampire. Despite the grueso torture his parents had put him through, the kind of torture that could take a vampire’s life, he had only truly died when they removed his heart. But that reaper had brought him back into his body and let him live.
Hers was different from his.
He could not travel into the other world. He could only see Kuhn and not other creatures of the dead. His wife was gifted with sothing else entirely different from his. But what that was, and what made it so, was sothing even he had no answer to.
"I have not seen Kuhn since we ca into this kingdom," Belle told him after they talked about what else she could do with her gift, and she answered him, listening to her carefully.
Rohan sighed. "He is in the castle. He cannot leave the place because it is where his master and I beca friends and he was given to . It’s like his safe haven where he could hide away from the reapers. The castle masks his scent and makes it impossible for any reaper to track him. If you haven’t noticed yet, my wife, Kuhn is the biggest coward alive. He fears the reapers and would not risk getting into their hands by leaving and going far from the castle."
Belle nodded in understanding, now realizing why the creature disappeared at unexpected tis and also regretting how she had gotten mad at him that day and sent him away. Actually, many things she had done in the past days mostly felt unreal to her now that her husband was awake. She could not believe she was brave enough to do most of the things she did.
It was like she had been possessed by a spirit that gave her power, and now that everything was over, well, not completely over, she could feel herself coming back to her own body.
"Will the king try to look for us?" she asked as Rohan helped her from her chair when he suggested they tour the manor after she told him she had not gotten to walk around it since the day they ca.
Rohan’s possessive arm, which had circled around her waist, seed to tighten at that question.
"He will. He can’t rest unless he is sure I’m no more. The fear of soone else taking the throne from his bloodline won’t leave him unless he has my head," Rohan said with a small pull of his lips. "But rest assured, I’ll have his before I let him take mine," he assured her when she looked at him with startled eyes, as if she could no longer bear the thought of losing him, causing his heart to skip a beat again, sothing he was still trying to get used to.
"He can’t find us here, Isa. I bought this property under a different na and gave it to you. Vampires aren’t welco in Bimrville—that’s exactly why I chose this manor. And unless word sohow gets out that vampires are staying here, he won’t even consider searching this land."
Belle had been told by Rav that vampires were not welco in Bimrville, which was why, since the day they arrived, Rav and Gwen had not stepped out of the chambers they were given during the day. They wore cloaks whenever they left their rooms to co and check on her.
Rohan had already hired human workers, and Belle couldn’t just fire them all for no reason. She was thankful that Rohan looked nothing like a vampire, nothing that would raise suspicion among the staff, which made it safer for him to be seen around her by the humans in the manor.
"Then, since we’ll be staying here from now on, I’d like to make the manor feel more like a ho." She turned her eyes to him, only to find him already looking at her.
"Anything you want, sweetheart, anything." He whispered softly, his arm pulling her closer to him.
"How about we go out tomorrow?" he asked her. "We can tour the city and walk the snow."
Belle’s eyes rounded, rembering just yesterday she had told him she had wanted to tour the city and be in the snow.
"Did you hear what I said to you yesterday?" she asked as she ca to a stop and looked up at him.
Cupping her cheeks, his hand trailed down to her delicate neck, wrapped in a shawl against the cold. His touch was warm. "Sothing lured up," he said, his voice quiet. "Soone telling how much they needed ... the feeling of keeping them waiting, not wanting to disappoint them. Yes, your words lured back, and I want to fulfill those wishes. Every single one of them."
As he spoke, he noticed the shimr of tears in her expressive hazel eyes. Without hesitation, he pulled her into his embrace, his arms folding around her with aching tenderness. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, breathing in her scent, and held her tight, so tight it felt like he wanted to rge their bodies, to never let her go.
"Tell everything you want, and I will make sure it’s done," he whispered into her hair as he held her to him, basking in her warmth and scent.
"Anything I want?" She muttered.
"Yes, anything."
"Then all I want is for everything to be all right. I want us to stay here forever. Nightbrook is dangerous. Let’s not get tangled in the battle of the throne," she whispered, her voice muffled against his solid chest.
Rohan’s eyes looked ahead after hearing that, and once his eyes shifted from his wife, they darkened murderously. The king had crossed the line he shouldn’t have by sending Gaggers after him that day, and as much as he wanted to keep his wife safe and not want anything to do with Nightbrook, Rohan did not want to run away forever.
When the ti ca, he had too much score he wanted to settle with too many people in Nightbrook, and Cordelia being one of the top on the list for what she dared do to his wife. He would beco king. That he had promised his wife, and though he wouldn’t take any actions now, he would not let that promise slide.
That golden seat would be his, and everyone who had wronged him and his wife would be eliminated. Rohan might have gotten his heart back, but it did not an it had softened him into being a forgiving person to unworthy beings who wanted him dead. He never had a forgiving bone in his body, and he wasn’t about to build one now.
He was willing to give his wife everything and anything, but he wouldn’t forgive those who had hurt and made her go through all this. They would pay for every single thing they did. They would reap what they had sown.
His arms tightened around his wife. "Everything will be fine." He promised.
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