Chapter 468: The Rogue_Part 3
The nights were growing colder with each passing day, and the fog thicker, causing people to avoid being outdoors once darkness fell in the land of Nightbrook. In the castle, particularly in the back garden attached to the kitchen, the cold mist had risen so high it blanketed everything around. At that moment, a figure could be seen crouching within the fog, groaning low in the throat.
One of the servants assigned by the duke to work in the castle came into the kitchen to take away the young master’s dirty plate of blood snacks to be washed in the morning. Earlier that evening, they had all been terrified when the young master fell from the stairs, but thankfully, everything had turned out well, and the duke had not killed any of them for giving the boy the tray to carry, the maid thought as she made her way toward the basin.
But she stopped, frowning upon noticing that the kitchen’s back door had been left wide open. The cold wind was blowing in, flickering the light of the lamp she held in one hand while balancing the plate in the other.
A frown came to her face, and when she parted her lips to speak, a cold smoke escaped her breath. "Who left the door open when Sir Rav has warned us to always close it to avoid rodents from coming in?" she grumbled to herself, moving to the basin to drop the dirty plate. She then made to close the door, but paused when she thought she heard someone groan from the yard.
The thick, cold fog made it impossible to see if someone was truly out there, but the sound was unmistakable, a groan, low and painful, as if someone was in distress. Who could it be, and what would they be doing outside in this treacherous cold that made even vampires shiver to their bones? she wondered, raising her lamp and squinting to see through the mist.
The maid contemplated going back inside to call Sir Rav but realized she hadn’t seen him the entire evening.
Biting her lip, she decided to check for herself, as the groans were growing louder and more desperate. When she stepped out, she noticed a figure bent over in the garden, wrapped in a blue-colored cloth.
"Who is there?" she called, lifting the lamp higher and keeping a cautious distance from the figure. "How did you come in here? Don’t you know no one comes in here or they’ll get killed by the duke?" she asked, wondering who could be foolish enough to be there.
"Go... back inside..."
The maid froze upon hearing the familiar voice that sounded strained but unmistakable.
"Sir Rav? What is wrong with you? Are you all right?" she gasped, hurrying closer in alarm, worried that something terrible had happened to him.
"Don’t..." he groaned again, but the girl didn’t listen. She knew the vampire as a kind man who looked out for all of them and teach them how to serve with care in the castle if they want to keep their lives.
Before she could touch his arm, Rav screamed in agony. In a blink of an eye, he turned toward her, and what she saw made her freeze, the lamp trembling in her grip.
"Wh-what is wrong with you?" she stammered, stepping back in horror. The thing before her looked nothing like Sir Rav. His red eyes had turned ghostly white without the usual red in them, his skin wrinkled with red veins bulging, and his fangs had grown longer and bigger than the normal vampires.
The maid didn’t wait to find out what was wrong with him. She dropped the lamp and turned to flee, but the creature yanked her back with terrifying strength. She let out a scream, but he pounced on her, and with savage hunger, began to tear her apart, devouring her flesh like a long-awaited meal.
When Rav was halfway through feeding on the girl’s flesh, he suddenly stopped. His white eyes cleared back to red, his skin returning to normal. He looked down at what he had done, blood and torn flesh still clinging to his lips, and his stomach twisted violently. He fell back away from what was left of the torn body, vomiting uncontrollably, his entire body trembling as he retched.
"No... God, no... not now..." he cried between waves of sickness that wracked his body, feeling as though his insides would come out through his throat. He had eaten, killed, a girl. The realization tore through him, and he vomited again, choking on his sobs and the strange taste in his mouth.
He was still heaving when a small, frightened voice spoke behind him.
"Uncle Rav..."
Rav went as still as a rock at the familiar voice of Angel. He turned his head toward the kitchen’s back door, where the small boy could be seen standing and looking at him.
A few hours before Rav came out here. He went to check on Angel at Evenly’s insistence that he do so, since Belle had now put them in charge of the boy, finding him stubborn and bothersome in her condition. Since Evenly couldn’t walk up the stairs, she had waited, sitting downstairs in a chair taken from the dinning hall for Rav to return.
Rav had gone upstairs and hadn’t expected to still find the master in the room with his son, lying next to him on the bed and reading a story that Lady Belle would normally read to her son every night before bed.
Rav stopped at the door. "My Lord," he greeted with a bow as both father and son turned to look at him at the same time. The master was lying sideways on the bed, his elbow propped on a pillow with his palm supporting his head, while the boy lay on his back beside him, the blanket pulled up to his neck.
Rohan acknowledged his greeting with a nod, swinging his legs off the bed to sit on the edge, closing the storybook he had been reading to Angel, who had begun to drift to sleep but was now wide awake when Rav entered.
When Rohan turned to look at him, Rav felt the need to apologize for entering while the man was trying to put his son, who had just endured the pain of falling from the stairs, to sleep. "I didn’t mean to wake him. I just came to check if he’s been tucked in yet," he said, aware that he might have displeased Rohan, who had been out all day and returned to find his son covered in blood.
However, Rohan waved his hand in a dismissive gesture and said, with a passive expression on his face, "You didn’t wake him. Max hasn’t slept yet. By the way, I was about to call for you, I wanted to ask you something." He placed the book on the stand and rose to his feet, slipping his sock-clad feet into the shoes beside the bed before turning to face Rav.
Meanwhile, Angel cuddled the pillow Rohan had just vacated. The boy had looked sad all through the evening, having cried to his father that his mother had lied about not sending him to get her blood tea, and about everything she had never done in the past but was doing now. And Rohan had listened, he had done more than just listen.
"Is something wrong?" Rav asked curiously, closing the door behind him and stepping further into the room, noticing the grimness of Rohan’s expression and tone.
"Yes. About my wife. Have you noticed unusual things about her lately?" Rohan asked calmly with a faint crease between his brows, which made Rav believe the master had also begun to catch on to the things he and Evenly had long noticed.
But because Lady Belle behaved differently whenever the master was around, it was difficult to notice any changes at all.
It was true that Rohan had heard many things from his son, actions Belle took when he was not around, but whenever he was with her, she acted almost normally. Or perhaps it was because the damn vampire king hadn’t given him a proper break long enough to spend an entire day with her since that time he had missed a few days going to the royal castle, as he had taken Belle to Groovestill to collect souls. The king had kept him so busy analyzing the humans’ plans, especially since he had recently been to Aragonia.
Coming back today to find his son in that state was enough to make him investigate further.
Before now, he had actually noticed a few subtle things that made his heart feel detached from her more than he cared to admit.
His wife had never worn strong scents before, but now she did. She had always carried a soft, natural, flowery fragrance from the bathing oils she used, a scent he had loved and found comforting, but now the heavy perfume she wore masked that familiar aroma. Rohan didn’t want to act rashly, knowing that pregnancy could change a woman’s habits and moods, and that no two pregnancies were ever the same. Yet he could no longer ignore it, not after what had happened today when he returned home.
Just like Rohan, even Rav sometimes questioned if she had changed because of her pregnancy, and not because something was truly wrong with her, since her appearance and aura were exactly the same, only her habits had changed.
Every person had an aura, one that vampires and other creatures could sense, a scent that had nothing to do with perfume, but came from one’s very being. And Belle’s aura hadn’t changed. When she had once been possessed by the soul in Aragonia, her aura had shifted slightly, but this time, it remained the same.
Rav saw no reason to hide what he had noticed about the lady. He had kept silent only because no one had asked and because he didn’t want to cause trouble in another person’s marriage, especially when her harshness had been directed at him alone and not the master. Nonetheless, now that the long-awaited question had finally been asked, Rav parted his lips and said,
"Yes, my Lord. I have noticed a lot of strangeness in her lately."