She Belongs To The Devil

"What do I do? Do I run back to Mihir again and inform the King about this unfortunate development?" George paced back and forth while holding his arms behind his back.     

"No! He might even kill me for delivering this unfavorable news! He is one unpredictable vampire." He took in a deep breath and pushed his dark hair back in frustration.     

He dropped on his bed and replayed his conversation with the messenger and what he read in the invitation letter. He was trying to find some leverage that he could have missed.     

"So that Second Prince came to the Palace yesterday… and the marriage was fixed yesterday itself…" he tapped his finger on his forehead and kept on whispering to himself, "and the marriage is after two weeks… why is it going to happen so fast? Normally, the preparations for the Royal wedding take months or even a year! So what's going on here?"     

He closed his eyes and tried to think of the reason that could have prompted the King of Wyverndale to fix the marriage so urgently.     

"Is the King joining hands with some powerful Kingdom?" he clicked his tongue and tried recalling the name of the Kingdom from where the groom was. "Romania was it? Yes! But that's a very small Kingdom across the oceans."     

He felt like pulling his hair out when suddenly he remembered something, "Wait! Second Prince of Romania? But there's no Second Prince in Romania. As far as I remember from what the Minister of Trade once told me, there's only one Prince in Romania. All the others are Princesses. I remember him saying how beautiful the Princesses were."     

George got up on his feet and clapped his hands. "Aha! That's it! I got some leverage that will help me avoid some dangerous fate. If I say that the Prince is fake, then His Majesty might not be angry at me."     

"But look at my rotten fate! How come I happened to serve under that child? I am on my nerves even when none of this is my fault! I think I should just quit my position and spend the rest of my life in seclusion."     

He gently patted his head and tried to put his frustration away. "I can do that later on. For now, I will have to inform the King at the earliest. He could get mad at me if I'm late at delivering this message.     

He then went to grab a few vials of potions from his bag and kept them inside his pocket.     

He was mumbling to himself and trying to make himself believe that the King wouldn't be angry at him, "That fake Prince might have tricked King Dragomir into fixing the marriage so soon. If our King makes the King of Wyverndale aware about this matter and prevents the Princess from marrying a fake Prince, then it will be easier for King Reginald to win over the heart of both father and the daughter."     

He looked out of the window and then thought to himself, "Okay. I don't have any other option than to head back right away. To avoid the crowd, I should take the longer path."     

George stretched out his hands for a while and also his legs. "I should have waited for a day or two to deliver the message regarding Lillian's imprisonment. Then I could have given both the news at once."     

"Nope! Then he would have blamed me for this sudden marriage saying if I had brought the news about Lillian just a day earlier then that suitor could have been him instead of that fake Prince. I did the right thing by running that very evening."     

"Now, I shall do the same… delivering the message right after finding it out myself."     

In the blink of an eye, he leaped out of the back window and then ran at the speed of lightning.     

---     

Adeline was inside King Dragomir's workroom and she and Dragomir were checking off the things from the to-do list.     

Dragomir was speaking while ticking on the paper, "Invitations sent, gown measurement given, called the carpenters for redecoration, tasked the Royal chef to come up with menus for the wedding banquet, assigned money for the granary to stock the raw foods…"     

Adeline watched a lot of things getting ticked off the list and thought, "Our father does know how to work a lot. He got so many things done already."     

Even though she was excited about the wedding, her mind was also stuck on the letter that the King of Mihir had sent.     

Her father was too immersed in planning out the wedding and it seemed like he had completely forgotten about the letter.     

So, when Dragomir put down his brush, Adeline asked, "Father, have you written a reply letter to the King of Mihir?"     

Dragomir scratched his head and said, "Ah! I forgot that I had received a letter from Mihir." He massaged his temples with his fingers and closed his eyes for a while. And then he looked at Adeline to say, "I think we should have the meeting after the wedding is over. I don't want our moods to be ruined if things go south in that meeting."     

Adeline would have liked it if the meeting was held as soon as possible. But what her father said was also sensible. As far as she could tell, the meeting wasn't going to end well. So, she thought that waiting two weeks to hold the meeting was not such a bad idea.     

She nodded her head and smiled, "I think you are right. We should avoid anything that could cause trouble before the wedding."     

"On that note," Dragomir pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and said, "I should send them the letter saying the same. I completely forgot about it yesterday."     

Adeline smiled at her father. "I will return to my workroom then. I have to catch up on a few things."     

"Sure."     

Adeline walked back to her workroom while thinking about the things that she had to do. "Okay, regardless of when the meeting with the Vampire King is going to be held, I have to hold a meeting informing all the Generals and other related people to talk about the war. It's better to start preparing now."     

"Oh," Adeline smiled and thought, "It would be nice if I could teleport to Aberdeen and personally invite Nigel and Rhea. I will ask Theodore after having the meeting first."     

Adeline then went to her workroom and listed the names of people who she trusted and who needed to know about the upcoming vampire war.     

She then gave a sound to her assistant, "Bennett, will you come here?"     

When Bennett appeared in her room, she handed over the list of names and asked him, "Will you gather everyone on the list for an urgent meeting? I need all of them to be present in the meeting room after an hour."     

Bennett took the list and saw that the list included names of all the Generals and a few others including his. And he asked, "Is the meeting going to be about the said war, Your Highness?"     

Adeline sighed and confirmed, "Yes. We need to start preparing without wasting any more days."