Married To The Mad Vampire Lord-Chapter 64: Unable to compel

He should leave the room and avoid her questioning him, but he liked to listen to her heartbeat. She was the only amusement that had driven him into coming back this soon when he still had so much more he wanted to do outside the walls of his castle.

Recalling the look of disheartenment he’d glimpsed on her face about those words written in the parchment, Rohan felt himself visiting the memories of the boy who had written those words before his death. It had been in this same room, only the room was nothing like this then and was a ruined version of what it was now with broken mattress and fireplace.

"He is a devil. A devil should not live among us, he should be sent back to hell where he belongs. He killed his own granduncle yesterday for being nice to him," said voices the young boy tried to eavesdrop on from his room. He needn’t even try because the voice came to him and reached his ear where he lay down on his favorite spot beside the fireplace, curled up and staring at the empty walls.

"If he grows up into a man, he would be worse. We have shown him so much love but he isn’t accepting it, he is behaving like the devil he is. We have to put him to peace, Your Majesty. Love is not what he requires," came the voice of the queen.

"Then he shall be sent to his home where he belongs." The king declared.

The boy heard those words and knew what it meant. His time was over in this world and his death was near, but strangely he felt nothing. He did not know if he would prefer death to living, he had never felt like he was living. Was everything done to him by his parents called love? Was that what love was? He questioned himself as he sat up and reached out to take the parchment and ink lying next to his legs where he had been learning how to read and write by eavesdropping.

Bending down over the piece of paper, he began to write down what he felt at that moment. "Today is the day they plan to kill me. I heard them talking about it, but surprisingly... I do not fear death as much as I feared living. I live in hell each day. I wonder what the real hell will be like, as they said I belong there. My only regret is that I never got to live before I die."

Writing those words, he folded the parchment and looked around on where to put it so his writing which he’d learned with so much dedication would live even after his death. Something about him had to live so when he became the devil in his home, he would come back for it. He found a perfect spot beside the fireplace where a friendly rat he’d eaten days ago had walked in from. He crawled there and carefully pushed the parchment into the hole and then stared at it in satisfaction.

He was still staring at it when the door of his room was banged open. And he knew immediately that his life was over even before he turned around to see who came in. He closed his eyes and accepted his fate with a dead smile.

Back to the present, Rohan watched the ceiling blankly, completely lost in the memories of that boy when his wife’s voice snapped him back to his senses. She wasn’t sleeping, he thought with a sigh as he turned in her direction and she looked at him guiltily and repeated her words which he’d missed.

"I will sleep if you tell me what happened to your back," she said.

Rohan, for a moment, thought he had misheard her words and frowned, "What did you say?" he asked and she repeated it and he sat up quickly on the bed.

"Didn’t I tell you to forget it?" he demanded, his voice sounding harsher than he planned for it to sound. He had compelled her into forgetting, how come she still remembered and was still asking?

Belle felt her heart sting at the harshness in his voice when he had been just kind and easy to be around. His intense eyes burned into her that she felt like crawling away and hiding, but she didn’t do that and sat up to face him. "You did, but it’s not something so easily forgotten. How can I forget something that looks so, so..." She trailed off when he suddenly moved towards her, grabbed her shoulders in both hands and then stared into her eyes, causing gooseflesh to rise on her skin and her soul to feel like it was exposed to him. She shivered and stilled. freewёbnoνel.com

"You will forget about my back and the parchment you found in the hole. You will have no memories of it and live your life like you have been doing," he said each word carefully and gravelly, with his voice sounding layered and inhumane, causing Belle to jerk away from his grip and move back.

"What are you trying to do? I can’t forget it. And if you won’t tell me, don’t try to make me forget them." Belle mused as she moved back from him, pulling the sheet with her. For some reason, she had a feeling he was trying to compel her with his vampire abilities. She’d heard that vampires can compel, but she’d thought it was part of the misconception about the night creatures and that it was impossible, but the feeling she had in her body just now was not normal. It was like he was seeing through her soul, but something inside her was pushing it away.

Rohan sat still on the bed, staring at her blankly as he couldn’t bring his astonishment to his face. His compulsion had never gone wrong. It had worked on her sixteen years ago. Why wasn’t it working now? Some people even lost most of their memories after his compelling because his was strong. There was no human who couldn’t fall under such a spell, but his bunny had resisted his... how was that possible?

"You can’t forget it?" He asked, his voice calm, too calm it sounded strange to her ears.

Pursing her lips, Belle shook her head. "I can’t..." She looked up at him, "Did you just try to make me forget by compelling me?" She asked quietly, but if he heard her, he didn’t react and simply got out of the bed and jerkily put on his shoes. Turning to her, he said, "Never let any vampire know that you can’t be compelled. If you fall into any situation where someone tries to look into your eyes and talk with command, act according to their command and pretend it works, do you understand?" He demanded seriously.

Belle, slightly confused about everything, found herself nodding her head. She was about to part her lips and question him why he said that, but then he had turned away and left the chamber, leaving her alone in the silent room that suddenly felt empty without his presence and company.

Back in Rohan’s study, where he reached and immediately lit his cigar and began to smoke, he paced carefully around the space, his shoes muffling on the soft carpet. He couldn’t figure out why his compelling did not work on her when it never failed him. His ability was double the power a normal vampire had. A human in a world of vampires without being able to be compelled was like being in a world of death.

The vampires carry many secrets they wouldn’t want the humans to have in order to have power over them. The border that separated the two worlds had rules where, before a human walked out of it to Aragonia or any human land, they would be compelled by the vampire soldiers at the border and asked if they carried any secret that would harm the vampires to the human. If a human had such a secret, they wouldn’t pass the border and would be killed instantly, which was why until now, no human had known what could kill their kind.

These rules had been there for ages, and though not many humans left Nightbrook, a few still tried to leave to sell the night creatures’ secrets in exchange for wealth and protection. It had never happened before that a human couldn’t be compelled until now. His wife. She might have been given into Nightbrook after signing the agreement that no one would harm her, it didn’t mean that someone wouldn’t try to compel her into knowing what the humans thought about the vampire.

The vampires would want to be curious about Aragonia and everything, especially after they would see her and see that she didn’t match the description given to them by the humans about the bride they would give. Though he did not mind the switching of the sisters as he preferred the woman he was now married to, he did not think the king or the rest would take it lightly when they find out about the switch, or try to compel her to take information about the humans and it didn’t work.

She was in great danger if she showed that she couldn’t be compelled.

But what he didn’t understand was why? What made her different?

"You’re here," Rohan remarked as he felt the presence in his study as he blew out the smoke of his cigar. He didn’t need to turn to see that Kuhn was behind him. He continued to speak to the only presence he had taken as a friend. "Did you see that? She can’t be compelled and she saw my scars?"

There was silence for a long time where Rohan was listening, and then he replied, "Stay the fuck away from her. If you take her, I will be your enemy, Kuhn. I mean it, she can’t die." Rohan warned darkly as he crushed his cigar in his gloved fist.