Chapter 152 - Demonic Power

Theodore took them through the forest that was behind the Palace. With the speed that they were traveling at, they reached there at the forest in less than half an hour.

When the Palace was in view, Theodore slowed down the horse and then said, "Alright, I will meet you in your room… that is if you are left alone by your maids and others."

"I don't think I will be sleeping peacefully tonight. I will have to lie to everyone where I was." Adeline twisted down the corner of her lips.

"I hope you won't lie to me. I want to hear everything when the others leave you. See you later." Theodore said while planting a kiss on Adeline's forehead. And then he disappeared from there.

Adeline took a deep breath in and turned around to take control of her horse. Then she rode towards the Palace. She entered the Palace using the back gate. She noticed that there were more guards than usual.

Two of the guards hurriedly opened the gate and then bowed to the Princess.

Adeline could not help but ask, "Is something going on inside the Palace? Why is this gate so heavily guarded?"

One of the guards replied cautiously, "Princess Claudia has been acting strangely. She was shouting saying that a monster was trying to hurt her and was trying to run away from the Palace. So the King had ordered to increase the number of guards at both the entrances and around Her Highness's quarter."

Adeline felt a little uncomfortable hearing that. She averted her gaze from the guard and then nodded her head. "Okay. Perform your duty then."

She didn't give much attention to what the guards had said, she didn't have time to linger around. Thus, she quickly made her way to her quarter first because she didn't want Hawisa and Osanna to go mad, thinking that she was kidnapped again… well she was kidnapped… sort of, but she didn't want her maids to know.

And she definitely didn't want her father to know that she was not in her quarter. She hoped that whatever Claudia was doing was enough to distract her father's attention from her.

She stopped her horse in front of her quarter and as she had expected, Hawisa and Osanna came running to her. Not just them, the Royal Guards who were assigned to her also gathered around and circled her.

"Your Highness, where were you? We searched everywhere for you!" Hawisa was the first one to scold Adeline.

Adeline had a guilty look on her face even though it was not her fault that she was… kidnapped and lost. She got off from Rion and apologized to her maids, "I am sorry for making you all worry about me." Then she pinned all the blame on Rion, "Rion had managed to escape from the Palace. I went outside to search for him but it took a while to find him. And before I knew it, it was already dark."

Rion softly hit on Adeline's back with his head as though he was mad at her for putting all the blame on him.

Hawisa raised her brows in surprise and exclaimed, "He managed to escape from the Palace?" Then all of a sudden she had anger on her face and she began to shout, "Why didn't the guards at the gate catch him then? They had one job and they couldn't even do that properly."

And Osanna also followed the suit and added, "We are going to complain to the King about this." She covered her neck and spoke softly, "We were so worried that our head would be separated from our neck."

Adeline knew how dramatic her maids were so she was not surprised by that rant from them. Rather she chuckled and hugged both of them, in front of everyone else, and said, "I am sorry. I won't disappear like this again. And besides, I can take care of myself. You don't have to worry about your neck if I disappear for a few hours. I will ask the King not to put the blame on you two for every little thing that happens to me."

The Princess looked at her guards and apologized to them, "I am sorry for leaving the Palace without taking you all. I was anxious after Rion went missing and I immediately set out to look for him. And thanks for looking for me."

The leader of the squad bowed his head to the Princess and said, "You don't have to apologize to us, Your Highness. We are the ones who should apologize to you for not keeping track of you and for not being able to follow you when you left the Palace. Please forgive us, Your Highness."

All the other guards also bowed their heads and spoke simultaneously, "Please forgive us, Your Highness."

As the Princess had set routine and she would limit herself inside the Palace almost all the time, the guards would not follow her unless she asked to.

And to speak the truth, Adeline liked that her guards would not stick to her like glue, like the guards of some of the other Princes and Princesses. She did not like the idea of being watched and followed around by her guards 24/7.

Adeline smiled and then dismissed them, "All of you may go and rest."

After her guards left for their quarter which was just beside Adeline's quarter, Hawisa said to the Princess, "You must be hungry. I will bring you some hot food."

Adeline nodded and said, "Till then I will take Rion back to the stable. And I will make sure that he is tied properly." She added the last sentence to make her previous lie sound believable.

When Adeline returned back from the stable, a table full of delicious-smelling food was waiting for her. She felt hungrier seeing all those food so without even changing into her nightgown, she began to eat the food. After all the trouble that she had today, the food felt really comforting so she was lost in the food heaven.

She was so lost that she didn't even realize Theodore was leaning against the wall near her window. Theodore stared at Adeline with a smile on his face and thought to himself, "I bet she loves food more than she loves me… look at her, looking at that piece of meat with so much love."

Theodore chuckled and then jumped on the bed, almost scaring Adeline. Adeline looked at the bed and mumbled with food in her mouth, "Oh, you are already here. Did you have dinner?"

"Yes. I did. Even if I hadn't, I would have been full just by looking at you." Theodore kept on looking at Adeline with his keen eyes and with an unfaltering smile on his face.

After Adeline finished her 'romantic' dinner with herself, and after she dismissed her maids for the night, she briefed everything that her brother and sisters did to her after making Theodore swear that he wouldn't go after them or scare them.

And she didn't forget to tell him the part where she had felt as though she was being possessed by something. She told him how she had deliberately wanted to hurt her half-siblings and how she had even enjoyed hurting them. It was as though she was… evil.

"As I had suspected…" Theodore quietly thought to himself when Adeline told him how she had felt.

They chatted for quite some time, and when Adeline fell deep in her slumber, Theodore took this chance to examine something.

He towered over the Princess and placed his first three fingers in the middle of Adeline's forehead. His eyes turned blood red and his pupils dilated. He was looking deep inside Adeline's soul to check whether there was any change. And to his relief, her human soul was still intact.

And the next thing he checked was the demonic power that he had lent to her when she was a toddler. That came as a little surprise to him. He had just given her a grain of his power but right now, she had the demonic power which equaled to lower level demons.

"How did it manage to grow so much? Should I take some of it back?" Theodore thought about it for quite some time.

From the way she had explained it to him, it sounded like the demonic powers were having a negative effect on her innocent personality. He didn't want her to change from the kind and sweet human that she was.

In the end, he decided to take some of her powers back, leaving just enough amount of the demonic power to protect her from Lillian's magic.

He placed one of his palms on her forehead and the other over her heart. Then he closed his eyes and tried to take them back. However, to his surprise, the powers that were inside of Adeline were incompatible with his.

Over the years, the demonic power inside of her had acquired its own characteristics. Just like how Theodore's demonic energy would increase after consuming the aura of revenge, Adeline's demonic energy had adapted itself and would feed off of the fear of people around her. And it had managed to increase to a point where Adeline's strength equaled to that of a lower-level demon.

Theodore took a deep breath, defeated, because he was unable to take her powers back. "I guess it is for the best then. I hope she doesn't turn into the next me. I would hate to lose the innocent her."