Chapter 372: Mending the Bridge Between Father and Son_Part 1
Belle didn’t regain consciousness until the sun began to set and dip beneath the horizon. She stirred awake with a small moan because of the discomfort in her head.
She opened her eyes to the dimly lit room, blinking several times to focus as memories poured back to her like a tide, causing her to flinch at the recollection of falling from a great height into a dark hole, and the sharp sensation of hitting her head against something hard before everything went dark.
The rest of the things she recalled after that came in bits and pieces, fragments slipping in and out, where voices had flowed like echoes inside her mind. She had heard Rohan’s voice pleading with her not to leave him, his desperate words saying that he would kill everyone if she did.
Belle had fought hard, clinging with every strength she had to remain in her own body, to stay with him, but something had been pulling her away from herself, dragging her further and further until she was slipping beyond reach. She would have been lost, gone forever, if it weren’t for the sharp pain that pierced against her shoulder, a pain that had made heat consume her in fierce waves and pulled her back.
Belle wanted to move her hand and touch her mildly sore shoulder, to confirm the source of that saving pain, when she realized her son’s small figure was nestled close against her body, sleeping peacefully in front of her, his little arm draped protectively across her neck. She looked down at his face, buried into the softness of her bosom, his flushed cheeks warm against her skin, his mouth slightly parted in the innocence of sleep.
A subconscious smile tugged at her lips at the sight of him. Overcome with tenderness, she hugged him tightly to her body, recalling how he had helped her, even in the land of the dead. She pressed a gentle, lingering kiss to his soft hair.
"Thank you..." she whispered into his ear, her voice breaking with emotion, and his small fingers twitched faintly around her neck as though he had heard her even in his dreams.
Just then, she heard the door open, and she turned her head to see Rohan walk into the room, closing the door firmly behind him when he noticed she was awake. Belle felt her heart leap at the sight of him, and she shifted slightly away from her sleeping son as her husband reached her in long, purposeful strides.
She opened her arms when he came to her, and without hesitation, he dropped onto the bed on bended knees and folded himself into her embrace, enveloping her in his strong, warm arms. Burying his head in the crook of her neck, he crushed her to him like he wanted to fuse their bodies together.
"Damn you, Isa. You made me worried like hell," he whispered huskily into her neck, holding her so tightly it felt like he never wanted to let go. As tight as his hug was, Belle held him back just as fiercely.
"I am sorry," she muttered with a hoarse, dry voice that made Rohan immediately pull back from the embrace. He reached to the nightstand, where he had placed a jug of water earlier, and poured some into a cup before holding it carefully to her lips.
Belle hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until the water touched her tongue, and she gulped it down deeply. She drank another cup before she finally felt steady. Rohan took the cup from her hand and used his gloved thumb to wipe the corner of her lip, before gently pushing her back to rest against the pillows propped on the headboard.
Over the next hour, Rohan made sure she ate something and also took the medicine he had gone out to fetch from a doctor he had tracked down while she slept, medicine that would help with her headache and any body pains. Though Belle couldn’t eat much, he coaxed her gently into eating enough, all the while being careful not to wake Angel.
"You changed my room," Belle pointed out, feeling much better now as her eyes roamed around the elegant, fancy guest room. She realized she had never stayed in here before, nor even sat on the bed, since she lived in the Dawson house. It was one of the rooms her mother said was too fancy for her.
"Hm," Rohan hummed as he took off his shoes and got onto the bed to sit beside her, their backs leaning against the headboard. He pulled her to rest against his chest with his right arm wrapped securely around her shoulder. "You can stay here until the day we leave this land," he told her quietly.
Belle rested her head against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart against her ear, her gaze drifting to the faint glow of the lamp on the opposite wall. "For how long have I been unconscious?" she asked softly.
"Five hours," Rohan replied, stroking her hair and resting his chin lightly against her head. "Don’t worry. I have already handled your parents, they won’t look for you until tomorrow. Though Louisiana came this evening, wanting to talk to you again, I sent her to sleep early by compelling her."
Belle absorbed his words, absentmindedly playing with the buttons of his open shirt as she quietly asked, "Did she cause any trouble when she took over my body? I mean... when the soul took over?"
Rohan’s eyes hardened at the mention of the soul who had brought him so close to losing his wife. The only thing he regretted was not causing more harm to the soul before she managed to run away, but he calmed his disappointment and steadied himself. He then began to tell her everything that had happened until now, leaving nothing out, including the fact that he had marked her in order to save her life.
"You marked me?"
Belle pushed herself away from his chest and tugged down her dress to see the mark on her shoulder, but her eyes couldn’t quite reach. Rohan handed her a hand mirror from inside the nightstand drawer, and Belle lifted it to see a dark, heart-shaped mark etched into her skin.
"I...I didn’t know you could do that. But why don’t I feel any different?" she asked, touching the mark with her fingers, her brows furrowing as she traced it. Rohan had said it would allow them to share feelings, yet she felt no change at all from her normal self.
"The mark is not stable on you," he told her grimly. He had already noticed, while she slept, how it flickered in and out. Though he could now sense her presence and emotions more strongly with the mark, it wasn’t as powerful or steady as it ought to be. It was supposed to flow both ways, binding them equally, but it was apparent now that she wasn’t sharing his own feelings the way he was sharing hers at this moment.
A frown drew itself across Belle’s face as she turned away from the mirror to look at him. "Is it supposed to be like that?" she questioned curiously.
"No," he said, bringing his hand forward to brush lightly across the mark. "It’s supposed to take effect immediately, to bind us with a deep connection, sometimes even a mind link. Though not everyone with a mark can achieve that unless they are of the same kind of creature, still... my mark should not be this weak on you. I don’t know why it is like this, but the fact that it saved your life is more than enough for me."