Married To The Mad Vampire Lord-Chapter 163: "Stand back..."

Despite her scream, the creature did not seem to know the direction she was in and kept sniffing the air like a dog, its nose in the air as it turned in every direction, trying to detect her.

The rogues were once vampires until they lost their sanity and became savage creatures who fed on flesh and blood. Though a few of them could still hear and see, those who had lived as rogues for too long began to lose their other senses and came to rely solely on their sense of smell, one that was no longer as sharp as it had been when they were vampires, yet still enough to find prey.

But the newly turned rogue still carried the sharpest senses, however, the one in front of Belle seemed to be an old one as he couldn’t detect her direction.

The irony, Belle thought to herself, Cordelia’s compelling had not worked on her, but she had somehow walked herself right into the trap. She almost let out a bitter laugh at her misfortune, but she dared not make a sudden movement that would alert the rogue to her when it couldn’t see her.

Belle began to walk backwards, but just when she began to put distance between her and the rogue, she bumped right into another one behind her.

Fear and disgust at coming in contact with such terrifying thing made her react before she could think—she turned around and hit the creature with her crossbow.

She shouldn’t have hit it, because that only made it let out a loud cry that seemed to alert the rest of its kind. Belle heard the rushing sounds of hurried footsteps and strange noises coming from within the mist, and without any hesitation, she turned on her heels and began to run away.

Before she could get far, one of the creatures jumped out of nowhere and pounced on her. But her survival instinct had long kicked in. Her hatred for the rogues seemed to strip away half of her fear, and she swung her bow again, this time hitting it hard on the head.

From the distance, Belle could see more of them running in her direction, some even swinging from one tree to another like monkeys. Her eyes widened in terror, but she knew she couldn’t let her fear make her lose grip of herself and the weapon she was using to hit anyone who came at her.

Their skulls seemed so fragile that one strong hit was enough to break it and make them fall back, writhing on the ground, flinging their hands and legs like slaughtered chickens.

But one person against so many creatures could not keep up trying to wield them off. They soon amounted to a number where she couldn’t hit anymore.

Just when she was swinging her bow at one, another came at her from above the tree. It jumped right on top of her. It knocked her to the ground, and she whimpered in fear and disgust.

Right in front of her was its terrifying, rotten face, sunken and twisted, with large, darkened fangs. Its foul stench invaded her breathing, making her gag, and its warm spit fell onto her jaw. She felt the urge to throw up but she hadn’t even eaten anything since yesterday to throw out of her stomach.

Belle struggled, using her bow to push at its gaping mouth before it could bite into her flesh.

"Get away from me!!" she screamed as she pushed with all her strength, but the persistent creature still frantically pinned her down, growling and thrashing as it tried to reach her, its jaws snapping hungrily.

If the creature had a rational mind like a human, it would have long bitten her, but its frantic and desperate movements made it clumsy, unable to focus enough to land a proper bite. It kept missing the openings, and she used that moment of chaotic struggle to her advantage, fighting it off with every ounce of strength she had.

She was shaking both internally and physically, pushing at it until her hands weakened, and the creature’s mouth came so close to biting her that she could feel the heat of its breath on her skin. But just when she thought it would sink its rotted fangs into her, a loud gunshot rang out, splitting through the air like a crack of thunder.

The next thing she knew, the creature’s head above her exploded, its black blood splattering over her face, her clothes, everywhere. She froze in horror, her breath caught, and then hurriedly shoved the lifeless weight off her chest, her hands trembling as she scrambled into a sitting position.

Panic and confusion twisted inside her as her wide eyes darted around, trying to find the source of the shot.

She expected more to rush at her, to finish what the dead one had started, but instead, she saw them turning away, fleeing in the direction from which the gunfire had come. Her chest heaved, and when she turned to look toward the direction, every movement in her body stopped.

And then she saw him.

Rohan.

The name surged through her mind and heart like a lifeline tossed into a storm. Relief crashed over her, warm and overwhelming. Her eyes stung, not from the blood, but from the sudden, bone-deep ache of safety she felt.

That familiar feeling she had come to know so well, one that always washed over her when he found her. Every time the world turned dark and dangerous, he was there.

He was here again.

Rohan fought the rogues with such movement and speed that it was hard for her to follow. His body moved like shadow and wind, violent and graceful all at once. Whenever any of the rogues made an attempt to come near her, he grabbed them, and with his bare hands, tore them apart as if they were nothing more than paper.

However, Belle’s relief was short-lived when she noticed something terribly wrong about her husband.

Yes, he was here, but every single part of his body was covered in blood, like he had been dipped into a lake of blood and pulled out. Even his hair stuck to his forehead and head, just like his clothes clung to his body.

And when he turned to catch another rogue, she gasped with widened eyes as she noticed the state of his wings—they were broken and torn, dangling from his back!

His stance was unstable, but he did not stop killing the creatures that rushed at him or her, he used his hands and his gun all together. There was a menacing motion to the way he killed, and it was utterly unsettling.

But the state he was in was more concerning to her than the brutality of his killing and movement. She could not believe that Cordelia had been right all along, and that people had actually been sent to get rid of him, until now.

"How dare they...?" she muttered to herself, her fingers clenching into fists, feeling an unknown rage consume her whole.

Without a second thought, Belle stood up to her feet and grabbed her crossbow. She did not know what came over her, but seeing her husband in that state, and how the creatures were rushing at him, something stirred deep inside her, and she ran to him, hitting and pushing at the creatures with her crossbow to reach him.

Her fears of the rogues, forgotten, as she was determined to reach his side and help him fight off the creatures.

"Stand back..." Rohan said with a groan. "Don’t let them bite you, even a little. Their bites are venomous." He warned, using his fist to punch the face of one that came to bite him.

Belle used her weapon to hit at another, not listening to Rohan’s warning to stand back. She would not let him fight alone in that condition. She had so much to ask him, what happened to him and how he ended up like this, but the situation was just too dangerous for them to talk, and the only way to see to his injuries and treat him was by fighting off all these creatures and getting away from here.

She wouldn’t sit back and watch him fight alone when she could help somehow.

"I said stand back!!" he gritted furiously, and every muscle in Belle’s body froze as his darkened eyes flashed dangerously at her, burning with a fury so sharp it could slice through bone, wild and like something monstrous was staring out from behind them.

She was finally able to see his face up close, and she realized he no longer looked like her Rohan. His bloody face had darkened veins showing under his pale skin, and his eyes had no white in them, she was used to that, but now, even the dark had a hint of red in it that was totally unfamiliar to her.

His fangs were also in plain sight and covered in blood; they were larger than she remembered his fangs being before, and atop his head were two small horns sprouting out like that of a demon—no, devil. Belle’s blood ran cold at the sight of him and the unfamiliar eyes looking back at her.

She subconsciously took a step back, away from him when he moved, and that action of hers made him pause amidst hitting a rogue. His eyes narrowed, as if the motion had struck somewhere deep, and in that brief moment of hesitation, he seemed to let his guard down, just enough for one of the rogue to leap and sink its teeth into his arm, ripping the flesh off.

Rohan barely even groaned. Without looking away from his wife, whose fear-stricken eyes were fixed on him, he grabbed the creature and tore its head off its body with a brutal twist of his clawed hand. Belle blanched even more at the sight of the long, dark claws, claws that had just ripped the creature apart. Claws that were his.

In spite of herself, she took another step away from him, fear unmistakably etched across her face as she stared into his eyes, eyes that had, without a doubt, turned completely red. They weren’t just red, but burning with something feral and unrecognizable, something that didn’t belong to her Rohan.

Rohan knew why she looked like she had seen a ghost—he did not look like the man she had come to love. He was becoming that devil the rumors had carried; the same rumors he knew she had refused to believe.

Worst of all was that, right at this moment, he also did not feel like himself any more than he looked it, which was why he had furiously yelled at her to stand back just now and let her see into his eyes, eyes that were no longer his own.

If he were truly himself, he would have understood that it was natural for her to react this way to his appearance. He would have known her fear wasn’t rejection, but shock.

But having already lost his sense of self, none of it made sense to him anymore, and her reaction, her fear, shattered the last thread of sanity he had clung to so desperately as he tracked her scent through the vast forest, after dying over and over again in the hands of that Gagger before he had finally managed to kill the creature.

He should have lost it all back then in the fight, but the thought of her in danger had propelled him through his fight with the Gaggers. It had been the only thing keeping him together—her, the only reason he hadn’t fallen completely into madness. He had forced his body through pain and blood to reach her.

And now, after everything, after surviving for her, dragging what was left of his broken self to her, she looked at him like this...

He couldn’t bear it. It crushed his already vulnerable mind.

He ignored the rogue who lunged at him and sank its teeth into his upper arm. He didn’t even flinch. Instead, he began to walk toward his wife, gaze fixed on her trembling form, and she instinctively began to move backward, her legs stumbling, her eyes wide with that terrified look etched across her face.

She was afraid of him.

That realization stopped him in his tracks like a blow to the chest. He stood still, silent, as the weight of it fell over him.

Then, without so much as a glance at the pain tearing through his bleeding arm, he grabbed the last of the rogue that had bitten him and ripped it apart with a vicious snap, his eyes never once leaving hers.

After that, the forest was silent. Apart from her loud heartbeat, he couldn’t hear anything. Her heart was beating in a rhythm he recognized. Panic, terror, fear...

She was truly afraid of him...