Married To The Mad Vampire Lord-Chapter 139: "Why do you wear gloves? Part_2

She had no idea she was the very first person he had ever thanked.

With the cotton in his ears, Rohan felt his head calming down and things starting to make sense in his brain. With no ringing in his head, he was finally able to concentrate on things he had not in the past few hours. His wife. He turned to her. She was trying to smooth the tear now on her coat sleeve where she had pulled out the cotton.

"How are you feeling?" he inquired, and she looked at him in question, her lips pursed in that adorable way that made one want to kiss her all the time.

Rohan smiled, "In your body? Are you sore, tired after what we did hours ago?"

It was a question meant to know if she was tired, and to also fill the silence on the ride to the castle. Not to mention, it was her first time—but due to what was going on with him, he had not taken care of her like he wanted and planned when he finally took her. He had not even meant to take her yet, but his control had been lost to him at that moment.

Her flush deepened, and she ducked her head as she replied,

"I-I feel quite normal after my bath. I... am not sore."

She cleared her throat and then pulled his hand back to her hand to hold it. She ran her fingers across his leather glove as she felt his heavy stare on her, which made her aware of how his strong thigh was grazing hers now—and also reminded her of how he had been one with her hours ago, in a way she had never imagined possible, with how big he had been when she first saw him in this same carriage.

She had felt nothing like what the women whispered in hiding. She had not hated his touch, though she had been in pain, it had not lasted. And she wondered if those women who had whispered about hating their husbands had been joined in a wrong way—different from how Rohan had been with her—because it had been sinfully delicious to her to the point she had not wanted him to stop.

She had wanted it to last, and she felt herself warm up under his stare now.

It wasn’t the right time to have such thoughts in mind, and to take away the thoughts, Belle asked another burning question that had been eating at her right from the beginning.

"Why do you always wear gloves?"

She looked up at him where he was staring at her, and at the question, he blinked and crooked his head to the side.

"Isn’t it a normal thing for a noble to wear gloves?"

"Not all the time. They do not wear gloves while eating and indoors unless it’s winter, but you never seem to leave your hands bare. Why?"

She had always wanted to ask this question but, for some reason, had always never voiced it out, as she had a feeling he wouldn’t answer her—especially when she thought she was nothing to him but an amusement that would fade someday.

To Belle’s shock and disbelief, she heard him say, "Take a look at it yourself."

Her eyes rounded, "You mean I can take off the gloves?"

He nodded, watching her without blinking.

Biting the inside of her lips, Belle looked down at his hand that was held in hers. She had never expected him to say such words. She had expected him to avoid answering, like he usually avoided anything personal—like his scars—but he told her to take a look herself?

Without hesitation, she pulled her fingers from his and, with a hasty movement, she pulled the glove off his hand. Then she froze, her eyes widening in shock.

"Oh my... what happened to you?" she asked, her voice slightly rising as she stared down at his bare hand now resting on her thigh.

"Nothing happened. They’ve always been like this," he said with a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. "Just another dark omen I was born with, just like my wings. They came together."

He remarked in humor, but Belle found nothing amusing about it.

His hand was just like any other person’s, fingers intact, long and slender like she had expected. Only the veins that ran down the back of it were black and bulging in a way that looked like dark ink had been poured into them. And his fingers, they were trimmed beautifully, however, just like the veins on the back of his hands, they were pure black, like they had been painted with nail colors.

It would have frightened her if it wasn’t his hand. They looked like the hands drawn in holy books in Aragonia that described demons. An involuntary shiver went down her spine as she ran her finger against the black veins.

"They look..." She searched for the right words to say, and he supplied the words he thought.

"Evil? Demonic? Terrifying and devilish?"

He arched a brow when she looked up at him with a gasp and a glare.

"No! I wanted to say unique. Is that what people tell you they look like? Evil and all? Was that why you wear gloves?" she questioned, watching as a frown came to settle on his face as he pulled his hand away from her and put back his glove.

"I don’t care what anyone thinks. I wear gloves because I think it makes me look more the way I want." He said as he hid the hand back into the glove.

Belle realized something right there.

Behind the mask of indifference, behind those unbothered eyes, Rohan Dagon cared about what they thought about him—or he wouldn’t have hidden behind the gloves. Only he was good at hiding it, and making one feel fear and terror before they could see through his own thoughts and emotions.

He would hurt you and make you feel pain before you get to him. He shields himself behind his cruelty.

She was slowly uncovering the layers he hid behind, slowly seeing the real him. And the more she discovered, the more her heart went out to him, and the more she was falling and wanting to let him know that it was absolutely normal to be vulnerable and to show weakness to the right person.

He had taught her how to fight back and gave her the strength to lean on him, and not let anyone step on her. She wanted to do the same for him as well—only she knew it wouldn’t be easy with someone who had gone through things that must have reshaped him to this way.

It made her question if the late king and queen had really indeed loved and cared for their child enough. Because this man sitting next to her did not seem like a man who didn’t respond to care and love like any other person.

What must they have done to him that made him kill them?

He had told her when he saved her after pushing her off that rooftop many days ago that he would never kill her. His actions towards her were affectionate enough to make her believe he wouldn’t kill someone who cared about him—and who he cared for in return.

Unless it meant he was indeed mad and had lost his mind when that killing had occurred years ago. Said a voice in her head.

She glanced at him where he had now leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. There were two options now: either he was an unstable man, or his late parents had done something unforgivable for him to kill them.

Belle would rather believe the latter, which she intended to find out herself slowly.

If only she could understand Kuhn, everything would have been easier, as they had been together long enough for him to know things. If she could understand the creature, many of her questions about Rohan—and even herself—would have been answered long ago.

It had seemed the land of the dead had been the place that made it possible for her to understand him, and he was a wanted pet in the land, and she could also get into trouble for venturing there.

Ever since she had been able to see images and flashes of memories from touching Rohan’s painting, she had not experienced anything unusual again that would indicate she had powers to see through things.

Though that day, Rohan had said it must have been from her, because his paintings were just ordinary, without magic or power. She had seen through the things he painted with powers that came from her, but those powers hadn’t worked on anything else she tried to touch after leaving his art room.

If only she could have the powers to see through her husband...

She pulled his hand back into hers and held it without saying a word to him again.

The rest of the journey to the royal castle was in silence.