She Belongs To The Devil

After Adeline was done with her work, she went to visit the King to report her \'visit to the outer village\' with Theodore.

And she also hadn\'t gotten the chance to tell her father that she had decided to give the position of her Personal Advisor to Prince Edwin. She decided to do that before the King would find out that she had already prepared the workroom for Edwin and he was even coming in for work already.

She found King Dragomir in the garden that was in front of her own quarter. He was looking at the flowers and was admiring their beauty.

Adeline was elated to see her father taking time to appreciate the beauty of the garden rather than burying himself with work like before.

She went and stood by his side and she also began to admire the beautiful flowers. "They are a treat to the tired eyes, aren\'t they, father?" she softly smiled while gently touching a red rose.

"Yes, they indeed soothe the eyes. They remind me of the past." A soft smile curved upon Dragomir\'s lips and he further said, "Your mother used to be very fond of flowers. That is why I had asked the gardeners to plant every kind of beautiful flower in this garden."

Adeline gave a wistful smile while softly gazing around at her garden. She also used to love playing in the garden when she was a toddler. But as she grew up, she became more attached to the weapons rather than flowers.

"So, how was your day? Did you spend some quality time with Theodore?" Dragomir asked with a smile on his face.

Adeline was glad that she was now finally able to talk almost freely about Theodore with her father. She nodded her head and smiled while recalling the time they had spent in Aberdeen, "Yes, I showed him a few really beautiful things of Wyverndale."

The beautiful things that she implied were obviously her lovely niece and nephew.

"That is great then." Dragomir kept on side-glancing at his daughter\'s face for a while and then asked, "Are you happy?"

He asked that because he saw that her smile had already faded and she was into some kind of deep thoughts.

Adeline was a little startled because she was caught off-guard by her father. She immediately forced a smile and replied after a beat, "With Theodore? Yes, I am."

Dragomir completely turned to look at Adeline and asked, "Then why do I sense sadness behind that smile?"

"Actually, I was meaning to ask you something, father. Maybe that is why I look a little tense." Adeline managed to disguise her anxiety that the thoughts of the war were giving her.

Dragomir furrowed his brows and asked, "What do you want to ask? Feel free to tell me whatever it is." He tried to make her speak by chuckling and saying, "I bet there is nothing more shocking than you asking me permission to get married to the Devil Prince."

Adeline also gave a nervous chuckle because what she was going to ask could come off as an equally shocking request for the King, if not equal then really close.

She took a deep breath in and then said, "Father, I don\'t want you to scold me again or get angry at me. I want you to listen to whatever I am going to say first. And if you still feel that I am being unreasonable then you may scold me after I finish saying everything."

Dragomir deeply inhaled and exhaled because he felt as though Adeline was going to ask something really bizarre again.

But he prepared himself to listen to whatever Adeline was going to say to him. "Go on. I promise not to jump to a conclusion before you speak everything."

Adeline also took a deep breath in. And rather than repeating her previous mistake of blurting out the conclusion at the beginning and giving a hard time to her father, she thought of building the premises at first.

So she started off by explaining how Azriel had cursed Edwin and how his life was dependent on her and how Edwin was bound to be loyal to her.

King Dragomir did not interrupt her even once and kept on listening to everything that Adeline was saying.

And only after explaining everything, apart from the things related to the war, Adeline said, "Edwin has also agreed to help in capturing Queen Lillian soon. And by agreeing to that, he has already proved his loyalty to me. So I would like to offer him the position of my Personal Advisor. I feel that he deserves a chance to prove himself and change for the better."

Dragomir heaved a sigh because he was speechless. There were so many things that Adeline had kept from him and he didn\'t even know if his daughter was growing to be independent or if she was growing distant from him.

And he asked in a disappointed tone, "Adeline, do I scare you? Why didn\'t you share all these things sooner? And you have already laid out the plan to capture Lillian? And you didn\'t think that it was necessary to run the idea by me before planning everything out?"

Adeline felt a pinch in her heart. She could feel that her father was hurt for acting on her own. However, she could not let her father have another heart problem. She did not want to burden her father too much but she ended up hurting him instead.

So she replied apologetically, "Father, it was not my intention to bypass your authority. And I am not scared of you either. I had gone to see a witch to ask a few things but we ended up planning everything on the spot. And I have yet to receive an actual confirmation from their side."

Dragomir sighed and spoke gently, "It\'s not about bypassing my authority, Adeline. In fact, I am happy that you are taking the lead without me having to spoon-feed you. But at least, be open about everything to me."

He caressed Adeline\'s cheek and urged her, "Tell me everything that you know, right after you know."

Adeline felt a pang in her heart from that request because she was working for even greater things behind her father\'s back. And she was in a dilemma whether to be open to her father and make him sick again or keep things from him and hurt him.

Dragomir could see the color from Adeline\'s face slowly fading away. And he felt somewhat bad for confronting Adeline.

The King smiled and tried to cheer up Adeline, "You\'ve planned to capture Lillian, that\'s fine by me. I\'ll provide you with an arrest warrant with my seal on it. But from now on, don\'t ask for such important things right before the deadline. Let me know everything in advance, okay?"

Adeline smiled while thinking to herself, "I told about ambushing Lillian a week in advance though…"

"I will tell you everything in advance," Adeline smiled again, trying to hide the fact that she was already hiding other things as well.

And she asked with some hesitance, "What about brother Edwin\'s position?"

"Oh, right!" Dragomir hummed for a while and replied, "Let\'s see if he actually helps in capturing Lillian or he is just bluffing with you.. If Lillian is actually captured with his help then I will bestow that position to him."