Chapter 401: Wiping Memories
"What a plan you humans are forming up behind our backs," taunted the vampire duke, his voice echoing in the high-ceilinged hall as he addressed them casually. "I couldn’t help but overhear your flimsy plan about my family, though I must say you seem to be underestimating the powers of a female vampire and a baby. Apprehending them is not easy, you know; it’s harder than hunting a lion."
Before any of the humans could recover from the shock of seeing a vampire with wings break in on them while they were plotting against his kind, the vampire began to untie the coat he had used to secure the baby in front of him like a carrier. They watched him hold the vampire boy and touch something at his back so the same black wings appeared from the child’s back, catching them off guard for the second time.
"Now, son, you can feed and wipe off as many memories as you can in the hall," Rohan said to his son, who was eagerly flapping his newly released wings and grinning happily as he flew in circles, his little booted feet kicking and flinging about.
Hearing Rohan’s words to the little boy was enough to make the humans snap back to their senses and realized they were unguarded against a vampire who came broke in on their plans. "Alert the guards immediately!" shouted one of the officials as they all began to back away from the window side.
The guards soon rushed in through the double doors to stand in front of the king as the vampire and the baby descended to the floor. The guards held out their stake and sword to protect their king against the vampires.
"Your son?" the king said, his brows drawing together as he and the others heard the vampire call the baby his son, not to mention the striking resemblance between the two they could notice at this moment. Wasn’t the baby red-eyed before? How come he has black eyes just like the mad vampire? The king, like everyone in the hall who had noticed the little vampire, couldn’t help but be astonished at the change.
"Hmm," Rohan hummed nonchalantly as he stepped across the broken glass on the floor, his boots making crushing sounds with every step as he walked toward the humans who stood ready with weapons, though not a single one of them could harm a hair on his body.
"My son, and you are about to know him more as my son, because you have someone of ours. My lovely wife and his dear mother," he said as he came to a stop in front of one of the pointed wood pieces, the tip touching his chest as he looked toward the king with a smirk playing on his face at the shock registering on their faces as his words sank in.
"Y-you mean you had a son with her? She has not only killed my daughter, but she has also betrayed our land!" shouted the marquis, who was cowering behind the palace soldiers.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk... why is every human making such a big deal out of the fact that my wife and I love each other enough to have a son?" Rohan mused, tilting his head slightly as his eyes roamed over the astonished and disgusted faces of the humans, as if the very thought of a vampire child was both repulsive and unthinkable to them. He didn’t like that they dared hold such an offensive look right in front of his little son.
"You must have forced the poor girl to bear your disgusting son. What a monster you are to—" one of the officials began to spit out in indignation, but Rohan didn’t so much as move from where he stood. He simply raised his hand toward the man and curled his fingers inward. Immediately, the nobleman choked on his words as an invisible hand gripped his throat.
The man clawed at his neck, trying to breathe, but no air came. His face flushed red as he struggled, and everyone else, though unable to see what was strangling him, understood at once what was wrong. It was the vampire’s doing!
Horrified, they stepped back, the realization sinking in that this creature was far more than what they had known about his kind.
"Nobody gets away with calling my son disgusting." Rohan twisted his hand sharply, and the man’s neck snapped with a sickening crack. His body dropped lifelessly to the floor, and the gravity of the situation settled like a stone on the rest of them.
"Kill them both!" ordered the king to his men after witnessing one of his officials get killed easily.
At the king’s order, the soldier, whose weapon was already pressed against Rohan’s chest, thrust it forward with trembling hands, driving it straight into him. The man looked relieved as he noticed the dark blood beginning to ooze from the vampire he had impaled, but his relief was short-lived when he saw the vampire smiling without flinching or collapsing to the floor to his death. Quickly, he pulled out the weapon and thrust it in again.
"Ouch, that hurt," Rohan clicked his tongue as he looked down at the sword and stake that had gone into his chest, hoping that his mark with his wife was not working at that moment so she would be spared from feeling it.
"Wh-why isn’t he dying?" asked one of the officials with widened terrified eyes.
"Are you done?" he asked the trembling soldier in front of him. "Because I am about to show you what happens when you mess with the wrong person. Angel," Rohan said as he stretched out his hand and pulled back his son’s little feet. Angel had been distracted by his wings and flying, not even paying attention to the fact that his father had just been impaled, until he looked down and saw the sword and stake. His dark eyes grew darker, and veins rose across his face.
Angel’s fangs appeared and claws grew out of his hands as his gaze fixed on the man who had hurt his papa. He turned and, in a blink of an eye, was behind the man, his fangs sinking into the man’s neck, his claws sinking into the shoulder as he drank blood and released his burning venom into the man’s veins.
The man’s scream rose up against the high walls, causing the officials to back away even further, a few of them slipping away and running for their lives to get their families out of the palace. Rohan’s eyes caught sight of them, but he let them leave.
One of the guards recovered and brought his weapon down toward Angel, but Rohan moved and blocked it with his hand.
"Not so fast, human," he remarked with a murderous glint as he twisted the sword and used it to cut off the man’s head, blood splashing across his face.
Men screamed like women at the sight and turned on their heels to flee the hall as some of the officials had already done, but this time the doors slammed shut with a loud click and locked themselves tight.
"Everyone calm down, I am not here to kill you," Rohan said as he raised both hands in surrender to assure them, but feeling the pain of the wood still stuck in his chest, he brought one hand down and yanked it out. Immediately the wound began to heal itself and he sighed while everyone in the hall watched.
Angel let go of the man he had been drinking from, and the lifeless body fell to the ground. With blood on his face, he turned and came to stay close to his father, little wings still flapping at his back as he watched and waited for his papa to tell him what to do next.
"What do you want if not to kill us?" one of the humans stammered.
Rohan didn’t bother to answer. He took his time, using his handkerchief to wipe the blood from his son’s mouth, then scolded,
"Your mama won’t like you killing, Max. Don’t kill anyone unless they attack you first. You are only to remove and wipe off their memories of her. Understand?"
He said this as he looked at the murderous, glittering eyes of the young demon. If honed the way Rohan himself had been through hardship, the boy would soon turn into a demon with no morals, never hesitating to take a life.
Angel gave a nod of understanding, and Rohan smiled. The last thing he wanted was to teach his son to kill without a conscience, just like him. It was better he held a little conscience in his young heart.
Though, if it were up to Rohan, he wouldn’t have minded. But his wife wouldn’t want that, and whatever she wanted was what he would make his son grow into.
Rohan turned his eyes to the humans and the king, who had gone stiff on his throne. How he wished it had been this easy to get into the vampire king’s palace; he wouldn’t have been going through all of this because the vampire would have been long dead.
"All I want is for all of you to calm down and stand where you are. I am not here to kill you; I am here to clean up something. But if any of you make it hard for my son, you will find yourself in a place like that," he said, using his chin to gesture to the dead guard on the floor. "Now be good and stay where you are." He smiled as he gave his eager son the go-ahead to wipe off their memories.
Not long after, every single person in the courtroom was wiped clean of Belle’s existence completely. Done there, Rohan proceeded into the ballroom, where many of the guests had already begun to run after the two officials who had escaped the courtroom and alerted them of the vampire.
Rohan didn’t allow any one of them to leave with the memories of what had happened, nor to remember that there had ever been a second Isabelle Dawson after the one from many years ago. Not only did he wipe them of Belle’s memories; he erased something else as well, a small thing that brought a smirk to his lips as he did it.
By the time they finished wiping people’s memories, it was the dawn of the next day. Only then did he go to get Isa.