She Belongs To The Devil

"Damien…" Joyce let out a soft whisper and covered her mouth with her palm.

The rims of Joyce's eyes suddenly glistened with tears of joy upon seeing the small kid who had now grown up into a fine young man. She couldn't explain how happy and relieved she was to see Damien standing in front of her looking happy and healthy.

She immediately hugged Damien. And rather than scolding him or expressing her discontent for abandoning them, Joyce asked, "Are you okay?"

"I am now." Damien looked at her with a rather wistful smile on his face.

Victoria was keenly watching that heartfelt interaction between Joyce and Damien. She was a hundred percent sure that Damien wasn't one of Joyce's cousins.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"I would have never forgotten this handsome face if I had seen him before," Victoria was thinking to herself with a suspicious look in her eyes. "So… who might he be?"

She then turned her curious gaze towards her brother. She was expecting to see a look of jealousy or suspicion on her brother's face. However, to her dismay, her brother looked completely fine with his wife embracing a handsome man who was clearly not her cousin.

So Victoria gazed back at Damien and thought to herself, "Maybe he is her close relative?"

Joyce turned to look at her husband and introduced Damien to him, "Your Highness, this is Damien." And she looked at Damien and said while gesturing her palm at her husband, "And he is the Crown Prince and also my loving husband, Vlad."

Damien gave a polite nod to the Crown Prince.

The Crown Prince walked closer towards Damien and said while offering his hand for a handshake, "I have heard a lot about you, Lord Damien. It's my pleasure to finally meet you in flesh."

Damien shook Vlad's hand and replied politely, "The feeling is mutual. I was curious to see who was brave enough to marry our Joyce."

Vlad laughed at that remark from Damien. Truth be told, he was initially a little worried when Joyce had spilled Damien's true identity. But after seeing Damien and exchanging pleasantries with him, Vlad concluded that Damien was no different than a human.

"It looks like we will get along really well," Vlad said to Damien and then turned around to welcome the rest of his guests who were by now hovering around Joyce and Victoria.

Damien stood right where he was and looked for a particular source of aura which had been bothering him since a while ago.

And when he finally found the source of that aura, he narrowed his eyes at Victoria. And he thought to himself, "What's her problem? What's she so jealous and angry about? And who the hell is she?"

"There is something off about her, isn't there? You can also feel that, right?" Zach suddenly stood by Damien's side and asked in a whisper.

Damien turned to look at Zach's eyes. He could tell who Zach was looking at. "Yes. I cannot believe how much negative aura she is emitting right now. It's almost inhuman," Damien whispered back. And he asked, "Who is she anyway?"

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"Vlad's sister," Zach replied.

Damien rubbed his chin and thought again, "I like Joyce's husband. But I already dislike his sister. There is something... dark about her."

While Damien and Zach were lost in their own thoughts, the others were busy greeting each other with warmth and respect.

"Alright, why don't we all head inside now? All of you must be really tired," Joyce glanced at her cousins and gestured for them to follow her inside.

Ariel held Joyce's arm and replied, "We aren't tired but let's head inside. We have so much catching up to do."

The Crown Prince had prepared a separate guest quarter for all of the guests to stay in.

And he informed his guests as he led them towards the quarter, "I have already asked the maids and servants to prepare the bath for all of you. Since it is already dusk, we all will gather together for dinner right after. And all of you can greet the King and the Queen at the dinner."

After showing their respective rooms to all of the guests, Joyce stayed back in Ariel's room while Vlad headed back to oversee if the preparation for the dinner was going well.

On the way back, he found Princess Victoria walking back and forth near the main keep.

"What is it, Victoria? Was there something that you needed?" Vlad asked his restless sister.

It was clear that Victoria wanted to say something to her brother. She pressed her palms together and tried to speak. However, she was finding it difficult to put it into words. "The thing is… Umm… I saw… No, not saw but… Umm… I felt as if…"

Vlad noticed his assistant waiting for him at the entrance of the keep. He was trying to gesture something to Vlad but Vlad didn't quite understand what he was trying to say.

"I felt that I was…"

Vlad turned to look at his sister and abruptly said, "I'm a little busy at the moment. Why don't you come and find me later? And we can sit down and talk about it in detail."

As he was passing by Queen Helen's room a few days ago, he had heard his sister's break down and her grievances. And he thought that she was about to say something related to that. So he thought that it would be better to sit down and calmly talk about it later on rather than talk here in the middle of the path.

Victoria pressed her lips together and nodded her head. And she watched her brother walking away from her.

And she whispered to herself while she watched her brother walking further and further away from her, "I felt as if I was being followed by someone…"

---

"Ugh! Where's Osanna? I can't wait to get out of these tight clothes and jump in the bathtub," Ariel said to Joyce while restlessly looking at her door.

Joyce smiled and stepped up for the job. "Let me help you then. She must be tired as well."

Ariel happily accepted the offer of her cousin. She sat down at the dressing table and gathered all of her loose curls away from her back.

"So, you finally dared to step out of your prison huh?" Joyce asked while helping to untie the laces of Ariel's bodice.

Ariel smiled to herself and replied, "Yes. I finally got the courage to get out of there after Kenneth pestered me for years."

Joyce's eyes twinkled upon hearing that. "Does that mean you've finally decided to see Kenneth as a prospect for–"

"I had but not anymore," Ariel abruptly cut off Joyce's sentence. She looked a bit guilty when she said that.

Joyce was stunned to know that Ariel had indeed seen Kenneth as her prospective suitor. And even more stunned to know that she didn't think of him that way anymore.

Instead of helping her out of her dress, Joyce pulled a chair and sat down beside Ariel. She looked at Ariel with curiosity lingering all over her face and asked, "You had but not anymore? Why? Did you not like Kenneth?"

Ariel heaved a deep sigh. She looked down at her hands and answered as she nervously pinched her fingers, "No, it's not that I don't like him. But…"

"But what?"

"But I like someone else more."

"More? May I know who that someone else is?" Joyce asked even though she already had a rough guess as to who that another man was.

And just as she had thought, Ariel looked into Joyce's eyes and replied, "Damien."