Married To The Mad Vampire Lord-Chapter 103: The boutique_Part 3

And before Belle knew it, the other girl had raised her hand and slapped her on the other cheek.

"You should know where you belong even if you are covered in fine clothes, bitch. In here, you follow our orders. Emma, go get the knife and cup, we need to teach this bitch a lesson today for thinking she is better than us for being a lowlife slave."

Belle made no move to turn her face, which had been forcefully jerked to the side by the second slap. She pressed her hand to her burning cheek, where her ears were ringing. The sting of the slaps brought back painful memories she didn’t want to revisit, but the pain seemed to make her see them. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

She recalled the days she had endured insults from other noblewomen in Aragonia, who called her a servant of the Dawson household and the ugly, unfavored daughter of her own family. They would pour drinks on her on purpose at events and pretend it had been a mistake—some would hit or push her and act like it was an accident.

She suffered many bruises because of those so-called mistaken hits and pushes in public. Being a girl who, according to rumors, was possessed in her childhood, she went through so much at the hands of people.

She had borne those things in silence and even taught herself to ignore them, to appear unbothered, because she didn’t want to fight back and drag her family’s name through scandal when the others claimed it as an accident. No matter how cruel the treatment, she had believed it was better to remain silent than to cause further disgrace for herself.

She had taken everything until people eventually grew tired of targeting her, because she had become so skilled at pretending it didn’t hurt. They had eventually gotten tired and let her be, but so many times it happened in the past, she had wanted to strike back, but the thought of bringing shame upon the Dawson name had kept her in check.

Not to mention she had no backing of her own father’s name to dare fight another noble.

And so, she had swallowed things no one should ever have to. She became the silent girl who wanted to be liked and accepted. She did everyone’s bidding in order not to fall victim to such bullying ever again. All in the name of not displeasing her parents and family, she became everyone’s pushover.

But now... she had nothing left to protect. No name to defend in Nightbrook. In fact, she had the feared name of her husband as backing, and the king who had personally told her to come to him if ever she wanted something. Not that she would ever go to him, but she knew those words meant something. She was ranked higher than these two humans who had decided to target her, and she could put them in their places.

Still, she hadn’t wanted to. She understood what it was to be humiliated, to be looked down on, and she had even given them the chance to apologize and let the incident go as a simple mistake. After all, they weren’t nobles, and they didn’t know she was the bride brought from Aragonia—someone who wasn’t to be touched.

But then they had slapped her twice. Wouldn’t she be a fool if she let this go? She was exhausted from being people’s doormat, the one they could step on every time!

She had had enough of everyone. She was tired—tired of being trampled on, of swallowing pain for the sake of appearances. Belle’s hands slowly balled into fists as she raised her head.

Before the girl standing before her could register what was coming, Belle lifted her hand and delivered a slap so powerful it sent the girl stumbling backward, crashing against the signboard by the front entrance.

The boutique was designed so that you had to climb the stairs to browse through the upper-level shops. When the crash sounded below, some of the patrons who had been browsing inside came out to the railing to look down and see what was happening.

The girl who had gone to bring the knife and tea cup was one of them. Seeing her partner being hit, she cursed under her breath, rushed down the stairs and went at Belle with angry steps.

Belle quietly watched her approach, and the moment she came to her front, raising her hand to hit her again, Belle had anticipated it and grabbed her by the wrist, flung her hand away, and gave her her own heated slap that sent her falling against her friend—who was in the process of standing but went crashing back to the floor when the other girl fell on her.

Sighing and feeling very good about herself, she looked down at the two. "I hope you learn to be respectful to every other person next time," Belle said as she rubbed her stinging hand against her dress, then made her way further into the boutique to find the witch who had left her to this humiliation.

But then one of the girls, who had managed to get back on her feet, gritted her teeth and charged at Belle. She grabbed her by the hair from behind, yanking her back and hurling her toward the entrance. Belle twisted her ankle, lost her balance, and slammed hard against the door. It flung open from the impact, and she went tumbling outside.

Belle moaned at the pain that shot through her already bruised ankle as she tumbled backwards. She had no way of balancing herself and knew she would meet the unforgiving ground—

—but she fell right into someone’s arms from behind. The arms circling around her, holding her against something hard and firm, and warm.

"You bitch! We will show you just where you belong. You dare—" the girl who had pushed her was saying furiously as she made her way outside to deal with the slave she had shoved out. But she froze the moment she opened the door.

Her eyes rounded at the person who had caught the slave and stopped her from meeting the ground.

She knew the face—though she had not seen it personally before, she recognized it from the rumors that had circulated the land. Those eyes that were said to resemble a demon from hell were now sending sharp daggers at her. If looks could kill, she would be in her grave by now.

The air seemed to have turned livid and suffocatingly cold, yet the sweat sliding down her spine reminded her she wasn’t cold at all. Those eyes could have come from a nightmare, while his handsome face looked as if it belonged in a dream.

She couldn’t even swallow when he pinned her in place with a single, piercing stare.

She had annoyed the devil by pushing a slave his way and causing him to hold a low-life human in his arms, thought the girl, who mistook his glares for that. And wanting to make amends for her terrible mistake before he would punish her, she hurriedly bowed her head.

"My Lord. It wasn’t intentional. I did not mean to push that lowly slave your way, she was being difficult and unwilling to comply with our boutique rules. Please forgive me for my errors." She bowed further to the waist, missing the deadly look in Rohan’s eyes at her words, and how his strong arms circled possessively around his wife’s waist and pulled her more into his embrace from behind.

The assistant raised her head, and seeing that the useless slave did not make any attempt to step away from the duke or to apologize for falling in his arms—and dared to keep glaring at her with those hazel eyes—gritted her teeth in irritation and anger at the slave’s insolence. Then, stepping forward in an attempt to appease the lord, she reached her hand in an attempt to grab the slave.

"Disrespectful bitch, come here and—"

Unfortunately for her, her hand never got to reach Belle, who, for the first time, was feeling angered beyond what she could comprehend at the girl’s rudeness and how she had treated her. Her wrist was grabbed by a strong grip that made her bone crack and made her moan in pain.

"Disrespectful bitch?" Rohan questioned, his head tilting to the side as he gripped the girl’s fragile human wrist. "You are not only stupid enough to push my wife out of the building, but brainless enough to walk to me to disrespect her further in my presence. Interesting."

He said it with dark amusement dancing in his eyes, and not giving the girl time to digest his words, with a single twist, he broke her wrist—and her mouth opened to let out a howling scream that made Rohan grimace before letting go of her broken hand.