Chapter 460: Cruelty
Belle had no choice but to move with the pull of the chains. If she didn’t, she might lose her balance and fall, and she couldn’t risk hurting her baby, who was already moving restlessly inside her as if it could sense her distress and panicked mind.
If Cordelia was behind this, then it could only mean she had taken the help of some dark witch to assume her form and somehow bring her here without anyone witnessing it. How could Cordelia do this without fears? Did she really think Rohan would let her get away with it once he found out she was an imposter?
Belle’s eyes darted around as vampires opened cells, dragging out pregnant women in chains. Every one of them had short hair like Andrea and wore a dirty, nearly transparent shift. They walked in a straight line down the narrow hallway leading outside, where pale morning light poured in.
The cold was forgotten as Belle’s gaze fell on the young pregnant girls whose eyes looked utterly lifeless, as if the light had long been taken from them.
"Why is everyone pregnant?" Belle asked Andrea, who was walking right behind her, her swollen stomach bumping Belle’s back with each step.
"The establishment is divided into many sections," Andrea whispered. "This is where they keep the pregnant humans. Now stop talking if you don’t want to get whipped."
Belle didn’t need to be told twice. Up ahead, she saw a woman getting whipped by a guard for crying out, "I don’t belong here! I was taken from my husband’s house! Listen to me!"
"Shut up, bitch! You were sold by your fucking husband because he couldn’t afford to keep a pregnant wife!" yelled the vampire called Master Kent, who had left their side at the sound of the commotion up ahead. Belle hadn’t even realized when he left their side but she saw him up ahead with the woman.
He grabbed the crying woman by her hair and lashed her several times with a long whip before shoving her back into line. The woman stumbled and fell but was yanked up again by the hair and forced to walk, her sobs echoing through the cold, stone corridor.
The other guards roared with laughter, joking about how human males were smart to sell off their wives to get rich, and to give vampires more access to blood. A pregnant woman was said to be more expensive than one who wasn’t. These days, human men from villages who had lived their entire lives in poverty were beginning to realize that the establishments paid a great deal for women. Many of them had started selling their wives or daughters just to get a taste of wealth before dying poor.
Belle’s stomach turned. The thought of a husband selling his pregnant wife repulsed her. Pity twisted her heart as the weeping woman insisted they were lying, that her husband would never sell her, but the vampires only laughed harder, and Master Kent kept whipping and shoving her forward when she resisted.
"How could they treat someone like that?" Belle whispered in despair, unable to comprehend how anyone could be so utterly heartless to another living, breathing being. Though she had seen her own share of cruelty, and had even committed it herself by taking people’s souls, watching this felt deeply unsettling to her.
"That’s what will happen to you too if you bring attention to yourself, lady," Andrea whispered sharply from behind, knowing her cellmate had now seen the reality of this place. No matter who Belle claimed to be, the vampires would mock her, beat her, maybe even starve her. The last thing Andrea wanted was to be punished for sharing a cell with a woman who refused to adjust.
"If you act accordingly, you’ll be spared from the Redroom. But if you resist, you’ll find yourself there, and trust me, it’s not a place you want to be," warned the other woman, speaking without even moving her lips, her face remaining straight and expression blank.
Belle had planned to demand to see whoever was in charge again and ask for their mistress, but seeing the woman’s treatment silenced her. She was already weak and in pain, getting whipped would only worsen her condition. She needed to save her strength to find a way out.
She didn’t yet know what kind of witchcraft Cordelia had used to steal her form, or how she planned to fool Rohan into not noticing the difference, but she was certain the vampiress was cunning enough to plan everything carefully. Belle couldn’t stay here too long. Rohan would find out eventually and come for her, but how long would that take?
She had to endure, at least until she could think of something and a way out. Pureblood vampires were cruel creatures, she had known that even before marrying Rohan, and their cruelty was the reason humans wanted to wipe them from the face of the earth, only she hadn’t witness this much of their cruelty firsthand until now.
Soon, Belle and the rest were pulled into the yard. The moment she stepped out, a blast of icy wind hit her so hard she shivered. She had dropped Rohan’s coat back in the cell when the man tugged at her chains, and now she was left bare to the cold. Mist hovered in the air, but it didn’t hide the sheer size of the yard.
The women lined up automatically, as if they already knew their places and Belle followed. The place was massive, larger than the grounds of Rohan’s castle, and at the far end, the walls surrounding the establishment rose high, so tall no one would dare attempt to climb them.
As she studied the yard, her eyes widened when it settled back on the women. The women were trembling in cold, reaching for the hems of their thin shifts and stripping naked under the open sky. Her stomach twisted at the realization that they were being forced to bathe publicly as the vampire guards held long hoses oozing cold water.
Belle’s hands clenched tightly around her dress. There was no way she would take off her clothes in front of those leering vampire men!
"And what do you think you’re waiting for?" drawled one of the guards, stepping up beside her with a stern look. "A special invitation to strip for your bath, or a whipping to clear your head?"
Belle turned her gaze to him, glaring through her freezing lashes. "You’ll have to kill me before I strip naked," she gritted out, trembling from the intense cold.
The vampire smirked. "Oh, a stubborn slave, who hasn’t gone through the normal discipline. Take her to the Redroom!" he barked, and the other guards moved toward her at once.