Married To The Mad Vampire Lord-Chapter 31: Overfeeding

Cordelia, seeing that her cousin was staring at the human who was blushing earnestly and shyly, smiled halfheartedly and then said, "What kind of punishment did you give her, cousin Rohan? Perhaps I could take it to make my slaves more obedient without having to hit them all the time. You are always good at coming up with things, especially punishment, and I love to learn from you."

Rohan did not reply immediately. Instead, he moved all the food he thought his wife liked, since she had reached for them, to her front and let her eat by herself, sparing her innocent heart from thudding or ripping out of her ribcage at the rate it was beating.

Then he dusted his fingers and casually leaned back in his seat, bringing his blood wine with him as he ran his tongue around his teeth to get rid of the food he had enjoyed eating, much to his bunny’s exasperation. And because he did not know what discomfort and embarrassment felt like or why people felt it, he simply had no reason not to tell his noisy, curious cousin what she asked for, but not before he made her uncomfortable for glaring at his bunny just now. He stared at her forehead smiling, and Cordelia shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

Just like everyone else, she was not immune to his presence. She had just gotten used to it by trying to please him in ways she thought he would like. If it was difficult to look Rohan in the face, it was completely impossible to meet his eerie, dark gaze. No one knew just how he had gotten such eyes that were different from everyone else’s, but it was said that when they fixed on you, a man felt like his skin had been flayed open and his darkest sin exposed. No one had met his eyes and lived to tell the experience of what they truly saw.

Sighing, he finally replied to her, "I don’t believe you’d like to use such a method for your slaves, my dear cousin. Not unless you plan to take one of the male slaves as your lover, you shouldn’t ask me what I did to my wife as a punishment."

Belle, who was so aware of their conversation, bit down on her bottom lip as she let out a breath she did not realize she was holding in. She had thought her husband would speak of what he had done to her with his cousin, but what she did not know was that his flippant words had been understood by the vampiress, whose smile had fallen, and her eyes had darkened, though she tried to mask it with a laugh.

Rohan watched with satisfaction as Cordelia’s fake polite eyes dimmed. He then turned to his wife, who tried to make herself invisible and was moving a few of the untouched plates of food he had put before her aside, causing him to narrow his eyes at her actions.

"You can’t leave that out, little bunny. You are to finish all the food. You reached for them, and I went through the trouble of arranging them for you. You didn’t think I did that just so you could choose from them, did you?" His lips curled into a smirk. "Eating well is part of my training for your weak muscles, you need to be strong, you look like the next strong wind can swipe you away. Now, eat up."

He moved the plates of food back in front of her and smiled charmingly. "We’ll take a stroll once you finish, to help you digest it faster." To him, she looked too thin for all the fun he planned to have with her.

Belle stared at the array of food arranged in front of her on the table and suddenly felt nauseous. Though she knew she had become leaner than the average woman because her mother had only made her eat once a day before the wedding so she could fit into her dress, her stomach had become used to small meals. She couldn’t imagine finishing half of it, even if she had been starved for weeks. She had only reached for them earlier because he kept snatching whatever she touched without explanation, not because she wanted to eat everything.

Was he planning to feed her to her grave? Because if she actually finished all this, she might end up there sooner!

"I... I can’t finish them all." Her voice wavered as she looked up at him. He couldn’t possibly expect her to eat nearly ten full plates of food, could he?

"Yes, you can. Humans need plenty of food to grow just like vampires need blood, and the more food you eat, the stronger you will become for me, little bunny. I do not want a weak wife. Now eat up while I am being nice before I decide this will be your last meal for today," he patted her head like one would do to something they were affectionate about.

But Belle was not so naïve as to believe a man like him was capable of affection, not to mention genuine care, when he had told her so straightforwardly in the carriage that he had no heart and was incapable of affection. But then, all affection always came down to the heart—when someone did not have it, there was no way they could feel it. And certainly forcing her to eat this much could only be madness not affection!

She had thought he was nice to prepare her plates, but it seemed this vampire always went overboard with his so-called kindness. Whenever she started to believe he wasn’t that bad, he did something that made her see he was exactly that bad. If not, why would he make her eat all this?

Belle caught a glimpse of amusement in the vampiress sitting in front of her. Then she clenched her teeth in annoyance and picked up her spoon to eat. She would probably not be able to eat lunch and dinner after eating all this. She began to eat while the two began to talk to each other like she wasn’t there.

"Father has decided to make a trip to the slaves’ establishment to get more of these humans and have a mini establishment in our residence where they would be producing more humans for our family, and I plan to go with him. Would you like to come and pick another human to your liking?" Cordelia asked her cousin, who looked away from the human and turned his head in her direction, and then dragged his gaze lazily to her. He arched his brows and then parted his lips to question, free𝑤ebnovel.com

"What made Uncle Scott want to make his own slave house? Isn’t it enough that you kill more than ten humans a week with your anger tantrums? And with that attitude of yours, those slaves will not live to reproduce more humans before they meet their end." He deadpanned without bothering to answer her question if he would go with them.

Cordelia’s smile broadened instead of falling, as Belle, who was stealing a secret glance, expected it would. The vampires are weird, thought Belle, as she would have expected a normal person to feel offended by Rohan’s words.

"You know me too well, Cousin Rohan, but this time I will not do that with Father’s plans. With the number of these humans being turned into our kind, we are at risk of having more of these stray rogues. If you haven’t heard yet, the House of Hathaway was under attack by the rogues a few days ago. They all tragically lost their lives."

Rohan was faintly familiar with that name, as they were one of the wealthiest normal vampire families that were not pure-bloods, but he did not care if they lived or died. He had heard of their tragic death, as words spread faster than the wind in Nightbrook.

Humans who were turned into vampires were the ones always at risk of turning rogue, as their human heart never stopped beating within their body. While being a vampire gave one the ability to live longer than any creature on earth, when the heart still beats, it could not live for that long and instead turned rotten and corrupted, making one lose their sanity and become the walking dead. They would kill and attack anyone on sight. They did not bite only to feed on blood but to kill and feed on the flesh of those who fell prey—humans and vampires alike.