Married To The Mad Vampire Lord-Chapter 81: The vampires in the woods_Part 1

If Belle had a watch with her, she would have truly realized she had wandered around the forest for more than two hours now without finding the path Farrah had marked on the map she handed her. From the marked path on the map, she was to follow a straight path and that would lead her just out of the forest and into the next town, and she would take a coache to Mr. Andrew’s inn to meet Jamie.

It had seemed easy when Farrah helped her analyze everything, and she had been confident about stepping into a forest she had heard from Rav could be dangerous, as no one knew what sort of animals lurked in the woods. The sky had turned completely dark, and if it weren’t for the lamp in her hand, she would have been plunged in utter darkness with no way of seeing where she was going.

The crescent moon in the sky was barely visible as the usual thick clouds of the lands kept hovering and covering it. She could hear the loud hoot of an unseen owl in the distance and the crickets in the bushes, but what she couldn’t see nor hear was a nearby town or see the light she always saw from the top of her balcony that made her believe that the town wasn’t far. What greeted her was pure darkness with the light of her lamp not going beyond where she stood.

The first crulding dread she had not allowed to creep into her bones was slowly creeping in and causing her to look around her surroundings panickingly. She had walked far away from the castle walls to dare go back, and if she did go back now, there was no telling if she would ever have this opportunity to test her heart and to let go and free Jamie from holding on to her and the beliefs that she would still be with him.

"Was I even walking in the right way?" Belle muttered to herself as she brought her lamp closer to the map that was starting to make absolutely no sense to her because there was no clear path that led straight to any town. It almost seemed like the map was a made-up thing, but then it couldn’t be. Farrah had given it to her saying it was the Grimvale map she had bought in town because the forest was a maze of wonder she wished to study as a pastime.

Farrah wouldn’t have mistaken another map for Grimvale, would she? The girl had been genuinely helping her, it must have been a mistake that happened because she was in a hurry to get it. Belle thought as she tucked the now useless map into her dress pocket and looked ahead of her. She would have to find the way to the town herself.

Perhaps if she just kept going, she could find another way out of this bewildering maze of paths.

For another few minutes, she didn’t pass a single soul nor hear the noise that was supposed to indicate she was coming closer to her destination. Her sense of unease grew with each step, as did the rhythmic rustling of the leaves behind her, making her, just for a moment, begin to believe someone was following behind her and trailing her steps. She hated this feeling, especially knowing she was alone and there was no way to run if she was indeed being followed, just like in the castle in that corridor.

"It’s just the wind," she murmured, quickening her pace yet again.

A branch cracked in the woods to her left. Belle whipped around, clapping a hand to her pounding heart.

Although her eyes failed to detect even a ghost of movement in the direction, she could not shake the sensation that someone—or something—was watching her from the shadows, some unseen presence that was content to bide its time until she relaxed her guard before it would probably attack her.

She whirled around to run. She’d barely taken three long strides before she crashed headlong into a masculine chest.

If the impact hadn’t dazed her, the man’s breath would have. The fumes rolling from his mouth were strong enough to make her eyes water, carrying a metallic scent mixed with something spoiled. She fought the urge to hold her breath or cover her nose.

She knew even before looking up at him that he was a vampire, and it made her heart thud within her ribs at the realization.

Blinking to clear her vision, she looked up at him and saw that he was a lean, fair-haired, good-looking young man, with an innocuous scattering of little freckles across the bridge of his long nose. His light red eyes bored down at her with trailing blood stain at the side of his thin lips, that made it obvious he had just fed. The sight made her own blood turn cold and fear curled in her bones, but she tried not to show how terrified she was and focused on analysing her satution.

Judging by the fine cut of his coat, he was a noble, and relief rushed through her as she fought to steady her nervous breath. He wasn’t a rogue, and she had been declared untouchable among the nobles of Nightbrook. A noble vampire would know better than to attack her or drink her blood. Belle clung to that thought, willing her jittery nerves to calm.

"Excuse me, sir," she said respectfully, "I seem to have lost my way. Perhaps you’d be kind enough to direct me to the human town after Grimvale?"

"Well, what have we here?" he crooned, ignoring her words as he steadied her with one hand while swiftly plucking down her hood with the other. "Little Red Riding Hood on her way to Grandmama’s house?" he chuckled, as if he’d said something funny. "Jacob, come see who we have here. Little Red in the woods."

A second young vampire came swinging out from the trees behind him, landing on the balls of his feet with the grace of a feline. He was licking the blood off his lips as he came to stand beside his partner, his red eyes shining brightly as he eyed her like their next meal.

"The devil, I thought Little Red was just a stupid story told to kids. Who would have thought she was real—and that we caught her," laughed the one named Jacob, who had come down and was studying her in the red fur cloak Rohan had gotten for her on the day of the royal banquet.

"Didn’t anyone tell you that these woods were full of big bad wolves just waiting to gobble up little girls like you?" came the words of the first man.

As Belle’s startled gaze darted from one face to the other, she saw that these two might be nobles but it was obvious they did not recognize her as the human bride or that they did not care for the laws the king had set down to be followed. She was not safe with them like she had thought. Her heart went plummeting to the pit of her stomach.

She gave her captor’s chest a shove, breaking free from his possessive grip and stepped back three steps, her lamp falling to the ground, but she didn’t care for it when she had fallen prey to the wrong people.

"I am not Little Red. I’m hardly a little girl." Fighting to keep her voice more steady than her hands, she added, "I can see that the two of you are gentlemen. I was hoping you’d be willing to lend assistance to a lady." freeweɓnovel.cѳm

Hitching his thumbs in the pockets of his waistcoat, the dark-haired vampire, Jacob snorted as he eyed her from head to toe.

"No lady would come strolling down this walk all alone unless she was looking to be assaulted and sucked dry of blood. If that’s what you came here for, you are in the right direction."

"I—I didn’t come here for that. I need to go to Andrew’s inn in the human town. I need to meet a man there!" Belle blurted out without thinking, desperate to make them understand why she was out here by this time of the night.

The fair-haired vampire’s grin was all the more chilling for being so genial.

"Then I’m sure two of us will be twice what you are going to do in the inn." he snarled mockingly as his red eyes turned predatory.

As they advanced on her, Belle began to back away. Through a haze of fear, she remembered all the stories she had heard of the innocent girls who had fallen prey to bloodsuckers in Nightbrook with no justice given to them because humans were at the lowest to them, and according to Farrah who had once told her the stories, no one had heeded their screams until it was too late.

The girl liked to tell many stories of her inmates in the slave establishment who had tried to escape and fallen to into the hands of such predators, but she had not told her that predators like that were in this certain direction she had outlined in the map!