She Belongs To The Devil

"You mean he lives in the Devil\'s Cave?"

For the first time in her life, Adeline felt this scared of her father. He was glaring at her and was shouting at her as though she had made the biggest blunder in her life.

Her father\'s questioning glare was not leaving her so she whispered, "Yes. He is the one whom people refer to as the Devil."

Dragomir was now enraged at Adeline. He pushed his black and grey hair away from his face and shouted at Adeline in frustration, "How can you be so naïve and fall in love with the Devil when you clearly know that he is the Devil?"

"But he is not the Devil! I mean… he might be called the Devil but he is not how people think him to be. He is not evil. He definitely does not feast on children as the myth tells. And he does not go around causing trouble for people." Adeline replied defensively.

Dragomir slid forward and sat down at the edge of his bed while aggressively staring at Adeline. He exhaled noisily and asked her while trying to speak as calmly as he could, "Are you hearing yourself? How can you defend the Devil? And how can you even think about marrying him?"

"Father…" Adeline gave a pleading glance to Dragomir and desperately tried to make him understand again that Theodore was not evil, "I am defending him because he has never done anything wrong to me. He has always been there for me ever since I was a little kid. He has always cared for me and always loved me."

"And I want to marry him because I know that my life will be a living Hell without him. I have already lived that Hell and I…" Adeline didn\'t know why but her eyes were already filled with tears even when she was trying her best to keep her emotions at bay.

She gulped and continued, "And I cannot even imagine my life without him. I want to marry him because I know that I will never be able to love someone else. I have already given my soul to him and I want to spend the rest of my life with him."

Dragomir was unable to digest everything that Adeline was saying to him. He closed his eyes and held his head with both of his hands. And then he asked in a whisper, "When did all of this happen? When did you sell your soul to the Devil?"

Adeline let out ragged breathing. She understood where that question from her father came from. Selling one\'s soul to the Devil in return for something was popular in folklores.

So she said defensively, "I did not sell my soul to him, father. I haven\'t made any kind of deal with him. He is not the one to trick people into making a deal with him in return for something. I truly love him with all my heart. I love him because I see the good in him."

And she further tried to justify Theodore\'s goodness by emphasizing something, "Being cast down from Heaven does not make him a monster, does it? He is still the son of God. And he is still the angel that he used to be."

Dragomir was not ready to listen to any kind of reasoning that Adeline was telling him. His heart rate was increasing rapidly because of the fury that he felt towards the Devil. And he felt like rallying towards the Devil\'s Cave to chase that Devil out of Wyverndale\'s territory.

"I don\'t care if he is the son of God or the fallen angel. I know that he is the fearsome Devil and I am not going to forgive him for trying to trap my innocent daughter," he growled angrily and abruptly got up from his bed. He was ready to head towards the Cave on a whim of anger.

Adeline had never expected her father to act so impulsively. She ran in front of her father and stood in his way.

She was tired of him not listening to a word that she said about Theodore and she also shouted angrily, "Father! What is wrong with you? How many times do I have to chant that Theodore is not a bad man? What do I have to do to make you believe that he did not lure me or trap me using some forbidden magic or trickery?"

"Do I have to write it with my blood that I love him out of my own free will and not because I was coerced by him?" Warm droplets of tears began flowing down Adeline\'s cheeks.

But she still kept on shouting at her father, "I told you that he makes me happy and without him, my life will be a living Hell. Why do you think I ran away from the Palace the other day? I ran away because I felt miserable without him. Do you want to see your daughter\'s dead body washed up in the river\'s bank?"

"Enough!" Dragomir roared in fury and threw a tight slap across Adeline\'s face.

The slap was so powerful that Adeline\'s upper body swung to the side with great force. She placed her palm over her cheek and sat down on the floor. Then she began crying hysterically. She had never been slapped by Dragomir, not even once in her life before. And getting hit like this made her feel really sour.

Dragomir, on the other hand, instantly regretted hitting his beloved daughter. He would never raise his hand on his daughter but when she threatened him saying that he would find her dead body in the river, he could not bear his anger anymore.

He was greatly hurt by her words because after doing everything to raise her, she was telling him that she felt miserable without the Devil. And he was angry thinking that the Devil had corrupted his daughter\'s mind so much that she was willing to run away from the Palace for him.

Dragomir also crouched down in front of Adeline and hugged her. And he apologized with teary eyes, "Adeline, I am so sorry. I didn\'t mean to hit you. Please forgive your father."

Adeline didn\'t say anything and just kept on crying. In the fit of rage, she didn\'t even remember what kind of things she had said to her father earlier.

"Adeline… I…" Dragomir was trying to say something but suddenly, his old heart could not take it any longer. And he collapsed flat on the floor.

Adeline was shocked to see her father falling unconscious like that. She instantly went to her father\'s side and shook him gently, "Father! Father!" But there was no answer.

She sat on the floor helplessly and panicked, "Oh dear lord! What have I done?" She then turned towards the door and shouted in a loud voice, "Guards! Call the healers! His Majesty has fainted."