She Belongs To The Devil

After listening to what his daughter just said, Theodore glanced at his mother. His eyes were full of questions and terror.     

The Goddess knew what her son wanted to ask her just by looking into his eyes. She answered his unasked questions with a little frown line in between her brows, "She flew away to Mihir with Damien. And they met a vampire who interpreted everything from his perspective."     

"She went to Mihir?" Adeline felt her heart clenching badly because she had already imagined all possible 'bad things' that could have happened to her.     

Theodore simply took in a deep breath, and restlessly glanced back and forth at his mother and at Ariel. He was too shocked to even say a word.     

His mother further briefed him so that he wouldn't get troubled by worrying too much. "Don't worry, that vampire did nothing to harm your daughter. And your father didn't meet her. But she had a fight with Damien and he…"     

The heavenly mother waved her palm and, instead of repeating that painful incident in front of Ariel, she showed Theodore and Adeline what had happened while she was in Mihir.     

By the time, they saw everything, Adeline was clasping her mouth with her palm; her eyes were full of tears. And Theodore was filled with rage towards Damien, Lavera, and his father.     

Both of them were devastated to know what their daughter had to go through.     

Adeline went and sat down beside her daughter. She hugged her crying daughter without saying a word because Adeline was also silently crying.     

She knew all too well how Ariel must have been feeling at the moment. She had been through a similar pain once. And she hated that her daughter was also going through the pain of losing her best friend.     

"She was almost killed!" Theodore mumbled to his mother.     

He was well aware that Damien's pathetic blood magic wouldn't have been enough to kill Ariel. But she would have been greatly hurt and would have taken days if not months to completely heal.     

And just thinking about it made him angry to his core.     

The fire inside of him kept on growing. His eyes were already red. All that he had left to do was either fly to Heaven and fight his father and sibling, or fly down to Hell and slap the sense into Damien as well as Lilith.     

As if she read Theodore's intention, the Goddess asked him, this time in a politer voice as usual, "Theodore, it's not the time to get angry and put the blame on others. You need to talk with your daughter first."     

She pressed her hand on Theodore's shoulder and urged him, "Tell her everything, Theodore. I don't think knowing the one-sided story is going to do any good to her. You saw how Damien acted today because he knew nothing. And he believed everything that that Vampire told him."     

"Don't make the same mistake as Lilith. Keeping her in the dark will only estrange your daughter from you." The Goddess then gently caressed Theodore's cheek to calm his anger down.     

With a single touch from her, Theodore got some clarity inside his head. The flames that were burning him up from the inside calmed down to some extent.     

And he went and sat in front of his daughter and his wife.     

"Ariel," he called his daughter in the softest voice possible.     

Ariel looked at him while sniffling and hiccupping.     

"Yes, it is true that I killed Damien's father. But don't you want to know what his father did to deserve a death worse than Hell?" Theodore was ready to tell everything.     

Ariel wiped her tears and was ready to listen. She was sure that her father had a good reason to do so. But she wanted to hear each and every detail. "What did he do?"     

Theodore then began the tale, "It all started when one day, his father, Reginald, saw your mother in the market. He took a liking to your mother and came to Wyverndale to ask her hand in marriage. But your grandpa declined because your mother and I were already in love; our marriage had already been fixed."     

"So he married Aunt Lilith?" Ariel asked innocently.     

Theodore shook his head and pursed his lips. "He never married Aunt Lilith. And they were never in love."     

Ariel was surprised to hear that Damien's father liked his mother. And she was even more surprised to know that he never loved or married Damien's mother.     

It was already getting hard for Ariel to grasp the information and make sense of them. "Then how did they give birth to Damien if they didn't get married?"     

Theodore sighed and said, "You will first have to understand a few other things to get a clear picture."     

He then started to explain as well as he could, "Reginald was a Vampire who didn't have any morals. And your Aunt Lilith wasn't always as kind as you know. She was a strong, fearless, and a terrifying demoness."     

Ariel had completely calmed down by now. She was very attentively listening to what her father had to say.     

"War was brewing between Wyverndale and Mihir. Reginald blamed me for killing his sister, which I did, but only to save your mother. His sister was a few seconds away from killing your mother."     

Ariel turned her head to glance back at her mother. She was glad that her father had saved her mother.     

Theodore kept on explaining, "Reginald used dark magic to summon Lilith from Hell so that she would kill me in the war, or at least defeat me. Lilith agreed to him but in return, she demanded that he let her have his baby."     

"Have his baby? Did Reginald sell his baby to Aunt Lilith? Who is Damien's real mother then?" Ariel was a little confused there.     

Theodore scratched his head and answered, "No, I didn't mean that. Reginald and Lilith are Damien's real parents. The two of them made a deal and Aunt Lilith got pregnant with Damien."     

"Oh!" Ariel nodded her head. She thought that making a deal was enough to conceive a baby.     

Theodore then quickly mumbled further, "Anyway, the war happened. You have read a few major things that happened in the war. But several details are omitted from your history book."     

"Like?" Ariel raised her brows.     

This was the most difficult part for Theodore. And this was the most important part that Ariel needed to understand. She needed to understand why Reginald was killed.     

Theodore glanced at Adeline as if he wanted to ask her permission for something.     

Without exchanging a single word, Adeline understood what her husband wanted to do. So she gave an encouraging nod and made their daughter sit on her lap.     

Theodore looked into his daughter's eyes and asked in a little serious tone, "Ary, I would like to show you some memories. They are the most painful memories that I have. Can you promise me that you will act like a mature lady and that you won't cry afterward?"     

Ariel got a little scared when Theodore put it that way. However, she had to know, no matter how painful those memories of her father were.     

"I can't promise you that I won't cry. But I won't keep on sulking over it, I will promise you that much," Ariel answered like a mature lady.     

Theodore heaved a sigh. He would also live those memories again while showing them to Ariel. So he mentally prepared himself for it.     

"Okay, close your eyes."