The Vampire's Runaway Bride

Chapter 4: After Betrayal

Chapter 4: After Betrayal

Leaning against Lirad, we lacked heartbeats, so I couldn't feel if his heart had quickened. But as he showed me painting after painting, I was deeply moved.

Each scene in the frames was filled with happiness and joy. I could sense what Lirad meant when he said we had been happy before.

But Lirad, did you choose to be with me because my red eyes destined me to be your queen, or because you truly liked me, Heatherlyn? Are you clear in your heart?

There were more than a dozen paintings left, but Lirad forbade me from looking at them. With regret, I gazed at the easels wrapped in white cloth, my curiosity overcoming everything. I wrung my steps and approached the easel.

"Heatherlyn!" When my hand touched the easel, I heard Lirad's panicked shout, "Don't!"

I smiled, pulled back my hand, and looked at Lirad triumphantly, "Is it something bad?"

"I am willing to record our life in its entirety, and I will show it to you, but I'm sorry... it's not the right time yet." Lirad looked at me apologetically, his green eyes flickering. I was even more certain that the paintings after this must have recorded the reason for my slumber, or rather, the culprit who made me slumber was within them.

I nodded, took Lirad's hand, and led him outside, "It's Shaman... right?"

"Heatherlyn..." Lirad's hand was trembling.

I wanted to laugh; he was the king of the bloodline, what else was there to be afraid of? "I've been asleep for a long time, and I know you couldn't have waited for four hundred years, but if you knew the person who harmed me was her and could still be with her without any qualms, what reason do you have to imprison me?"

Lirad stared at me as if looking at a stranger. In fact, to me, we were strangers.

"Vivian told me that the room at the end of the corridor holds the answers to all the secrets. I went to look." I leaned against the window on the stairs and looked at the mess in the garden, "Who is buried there?"

"No one." Lirad's voice was still cold, but this time it carried a determination different from before.

No one... at all?

Why did the diary say: ...In the middle of the night, I heard a commotion in the garden. I secretly lifted the curtain and saw the servants carrying a body, trying to bury it in my favorite rose bush...

If my diary wrote this, it should be what I saw. Why does Lirad deny it so vehemently?

"I told you, don't pin too much hope on a diary from four hundred years ago." Lirad sighed, stroked my hair, and looked at me with a slightly melancholic gaze, "Although Vivian was your maid before, four hundred years have passed, and even you and I have changed. Do you still expect a maid to remain as loyal to you as before?"

I took a step back and leaned against the wall, staring at Lirad with wide eyes. I could distinctly feel myself trembling, not because of Lirad's words, but because of my conjecture, "Vivian was... killed by you, wasn't she?"

A flash of fierceness crossed Lirad's eyes. His light green irises turned dark green. He took a step closer to me, almost pinning me between him and the wall. His mouth came to my ear, and he said harshly, "You are mine, my only queen, Lirad. I won't allow anyone to hurt you. Those who harm you must disappear!"

Waking up, I found myself in an unfamiliar room. The furniture and decorations were all black, and the air was filled with his scent. This was Lirad's room.

Lying on the black bed, covered with a black duvet, this was where Lirad rested every day, so it was everywhere filled with his scent, unlike my solitary palace, which was cold and empty, with only the scent of roses.

I still couldn't believe that Vivian wanted to harm me.

She had been kind to me, telling me many things I didn't know. She managed everything for me there. If she truly wanted to harm me, she didn't need to wait for so many days; she could have acted the second she was by my side.

So, even though Lirad told me he killed her because she wanted to harm me, I was still angry and would argue with Lirad over his cruelty.

That argument on the stairs ended with me fainting. Before I passed out, I seemed to see Lirad's panicked and apologetic expression.

But that might have been an illusion.

I always thought vampires didn't dream, but it's ridiculous. During this faint, I had a dream, a very beautiful dream.

I dreamed that because my eyes were red, I was abandoned by my parents. Lirad picked me up and took me back, let me live in a luxurious palace, eat delicious food, wear luxurious clothes, learn noble etiquette, and turned me into the dream lover of all vampire youths known for their elegance. And when I turned eighteen, Lirad announced to all the children of the bloodline that he would marry me and I would become the only queen of the bloodline king Lirad.

Later...

Yes, what happened later?

I didn't dream about what happened later, perhaps because Lirad didn't show me.

"Ah... Faster... Yes, right there..."

As I tried to recall what happened later, the brow-furrowing sounds came from above, the kind of shameful noises one doesn't need to see to know what the people in the**** are doing.

I turned over, covering my ears, unwilling to listen.

I resented Lirad over and over in my heart. Why didn't he just let me perish there? Why did he bring me here? Was it to let me know that even if you don't love me, you won't let me go?

Lirad, you know it was Shaman who harmed me, yet you're still so intimate with her in front of me? What did I do wrong for you to retaliate against me like this!

"Feeling troubled, aren't you?"

Hearing that cold voice, I sat up abruptly. In the darkness, I saw Lirad sitting on the sofa by the bed, holding a high-footed glass, expressionlessly drinking the bright red blood inside.

"You... how..."

Actually, I wanted to ask, weren't you just being intimate with Shaman in the next room? But I dared not.

"Indeed, it is Shaman in that room, but for four hundred years, I have not set foot in it." Lirad coldly drained the blood in the cup, stuck out his tongue to lick the corners of his mouth, and I saw his fangs slowly lengthening, his eye color deepening. This look was a bit frightening.

"You..." I frowned. He doted on Shaman for four hundred years; it was common knowledge.

Lirad put down the glass in his hand, got up, straightened his clothes, and walked towards me with an elegant gait, "Do you know how I feel in my heart every day when I hear such noises..."

"I feel hatred." Lirad took my hand and placed it on his chest, his deep green eyes staring at me intently, "I hate that she seduced me back then, causing a rift between you and me. I hate that she harmed you so much. Doesn't she like to seduce men? Then I'll let her seduce enough!"