She Belongs To The Devil

1The moment Ariel teleported away from her room, Joyce was bound to be worried about her, especially since she was recently targeted by an angel who was dead set on removing Ariel's existence from the face of Earth.      1

She ran as fast as she could to find Theodore.     

Upon reaching his room, she hurriedly knocked on the door and shouted with urgency, "Uncle Theodore, there has been an emergency."     

Joyce expected Theodore to answer her. However, when the answer didn't come from inside the room, she looked around to see if she could find anyone.     

A maid who was standing close by bowed her head to the Princess and then informed her, "His Royal Highness had exited his room about five minutes ago."     

"Do you know where he went?" Joyce asked as she ran closer to that maid.     

The maid pointed her hand towards the opposite end of the corridor and then answered, "He went that way, Your Highness."     

Joyce lifted her gown a little and then sprinted as fast as she could so that she could catch up with her uncle soon. She didn't see a sign of him along the corridor, and neither did she see him when she stepped out of the building.     

"Where could he be?" Joyce wondered to herself. "Could he have already known about Ariel's disappearance? Did he already go after her?" She looked off into the distance with a little frown line between her brows.     

Joyce then ran around looking for Theodore in the garden, near the castle border, and she even asked a few of the servants if they had seen him. However, none of her efforts were paying off.     

"Ugh!" She rested her back against a tall tree's trunk and then sighed in despair. "Uncle Theodore won't be happy if something was to happen to Ariel." She covered her face with her palms and scolded herself, "I should have stopped her before she ran off like that!"     

Right when she was about to give up, she heard very light footsteps behind her, and she abruptly stepped away from the tree and turned around in caution.     

"Joy?" Theodore smiled at her and then asked, "What are you doing here? I thought you were with Ariel."     

"Ah! Uncle Theodore!" Joyce sighed in relief and then blurted out everything at once, "I was looking for you. Damien and Kenneth aren't in the castle. I told that to Ariel. And Ariel suddenly teleported somewhere. I fear that she might get herself into some trouble so I was looking for you."     

Theodore was obviously instantly worried about his daughter. "She shouldn't have gone on her own!" he thought to himself and then looked at Joyce. He patted Joyce's head and said, "Thank you for letting me know, Joy. I will go and look for her."     

Theodore closed his eyes and instantly thought about his daughter. The dark mist slowly rose around him and he vanished from there in no time.     

The moment he reached where his daughter was, he almost got a heart attack when he saw the exact same thing which he had seen in his vision years ago, the same thing that he wished he would never have to see again.     

"Oh my father!" he exclaimed loudly, stunned by what his eyes caught.     

Both Damien and Ariel instantly pushed themselves away from each other and stood on either side of the room.     

"Dad!" Ariel exclaimed in fear and embarrassment while wrapping her body with her majestic wings.     

Theodore covered his eyes with his palm and burst out in awkwardness, "At least close the door!"     

"But you didn't come through the door!" Ariel emphasized loudly and instantly clasped her mouth, surprised at her own response and the pitch of her voice.     

She immediately regretted it after realizing that she happened to raise her voice when she didn't mean to do so, especially when things already looked bad for her.     

Ariel had expected her father to lash out at both her and Damien for doing something unholy.     

However, unlike what she had expected, her father turned around and said, "Just… be more careful from now on. I don't want to see you two…. see it again."     

"Eh?" Ariel's eyes turned big and round as she stared at her father's back, wondering if he was being sarcastic like usual or if he was saying that seriously.     

Before she could figure that out, Theodore looked over his shoulder and snapped his fingers to get Damien's attention.     

And he spoke in a low growl, "You." He pointed out of the window, at the garden outside, and continued, "Meet me outside."     

After saying that, Theodore immediately vanished from the room again.     

Damien was already panicking the moment he saw Theodore in the room. And when he heard Theodore ordering him in such a heart-numbing growl, he trembled for the first time in his life.     

He looked at Ariel and asked in a terrified tone, "He is going to kill me, isn't he?"     

"What? No!" Ariel let out an exasperated sigh and then scratched her forehead. And she mumbled while looking towards the window, "Er… I don't know."     

Damien needed reassurance from Ariel saying that he was going to be safe. However, Ariel made him fear for his life even more.     

He suddenly felt his chest clenching. A drop of sweat ran down his spine and he shuddered when he got goosebumps all over his body. To add to all that, he also felt his glabella itching so intensely that he thought his soul was about to escape his body and go to hell, not as a resident but as a sinner who would get judged and punished.     

Suddenly, both of them got startled when they heard a knock on the windowpane, followed by Theodore's shrill voice, "I don't have all day!"     

"Yes, sir!" Damien stretched his back in an attentive position. He grimaced upon realizing what he said in fear and instantly corrected himself, "I mean… Yes, Your Royal Highness."     

He looked at Ariel's worried face while drawing in a sharp breath. The expression on his face alone was enough to tell Ariel what he wanted her to do.     

Ariel cleared her throat and reassured Damien, "I will intervene if things look bad between you two. Don't worry."     

Damien sighed again and said pleadingly, "You better not let me die at the hands of your father."     

"Damien…" Ariel ran her fingers through her hair to push them back from her face. She wiped her upper lips which were covered in sweat. And she reassured Damien again, "I doubt that he will do something like that. At most, he might scold you or threaten you. Just stay strong and… try not to tremble."     

Damien bent down and grabbed his knees. He gave a nervous laugh and mumbled, "If only I could order my knees…"     

He then slammed his fist against his knees a couple of times before vanishing from the room.     

Ariel quickly picked up her bodice that she had managed to pull in with her leg earlier. And she teleported to find Osanna so that she could get dressed properly before appearing in front of her father.     

"I hope he doesn't do anything bad to Damien until then," she thought to herself after reappearing in front of Osanna. And she asked her handmaid while handing over the bodice, "Osanna, help me real quick, will you?"