She Belongs To The Devil

At the other corner of the Palace, the atmosphere wasn\'t a happy one. Prince Edwin was lying on the bed, too tired to even move a muscle.

His body looked half of what it was before, he had lost weight very drastically. His eyes and cheeks had sunken to his skull, and his lips looked like he was deprived of water for weeks. And his hair was no longer dark and shiny, it was now a mix of black and grey.

His wife, Princess Juniper, was sitting on the edge of his bed and was trying to feed him healthy soup. He had been denying to eat anything from yesterday and he was also threatening to fire the maids who had tried to feed him.

So the Princess had no choice but to try feeding him herself. She was using several ways to make him take a sip of the soup; she was pleading to him, she was even threatening him that she and their daughter would also not eat anything unless he ate something.

However, no matter how much she tried to persuade him, he just turned his head to the other side and pretended that his wife wasn\'t even there.

When all that was going on, Queen Lillian entered the bedroom of Prince Edwin unannounced.

Princess Juniper hastily got up from the bed and then bowed to the Queen, "Your Majesty!"

Lillian took the bowl of soup from the Princess\'s hand and waved her off. Then she sat on the bed and looked at her bedridden son. He was blankly staring at the wall without even blinking. The only way to know that he was still alive was by looking at the cloth above his stomach that moved up and down ever so slightly as he breathed.

Lillian\'s heart stung badly. Among her two sons, Edwin had always been her favorite one. And looking at him laying down almost lifeless made her stomach churn. She sighed and then tried to feed Edwin. She held out the spoon in front of his mouth but he wasn\'t opening his lips. "Edwin, you need to eat something. You will make yourself even weaker."

Edwin slowly shifted his gaze towards his mother and spoke using his breath, "How can I eat, mother? I had been waiting my whole life to give that stupid test and when the time is finally here, I can\'t even move. What\'s the point in living like this? I would rather end my life."

"Edwin!" Lillian shouted angrily at her son for saying such things. "How can you even say that you would rather die? What happened to my son who was a fighter? My son would never give up so easily."

Edwin looked away again and kept on staring at the wall.

Even after seeing his increasing grey hair, Lillian didn\'t suspect for a second that the succubus could be behind her son\'s illness. Because the King had also been looking sick lately and she had no reason to suspect that the succubus had betrayed her.

What she didn\'t know was that the King looked sick because of different reasons altogether. His mental health had been degrading because of all the stress and mainly because of his accumulated anger towards Lillian. A day that Lillian walked freely would add up to his anger, and ultimately to his self-loathing.

In the past week, Lillian had tried everything in her power to find out what was wrong with Edwin. She was no healer but she had brought each and every well-known healer to the Palace to check on Edwin. However, like the previous healers who had already seen him, none of them were able to diagnose what was wrong with the Prince.

"I wish I knew how to help you…" Lillian gently caressed her son\'s boney hand and held his palm. Even with all the powers that she had, she was unable to make her son feel better. And nothing hurt more than feeling useless in times like this. Yet, she didn\'t show any signs of weakness by crying. She believed that only the weak would cry.

The Prince slowly turned his gaze towards his mother and then whispered, "Mother, will you bring Pearl to me? I want to see her one last time before I die."

Lillian instantly frowned and then raised her voice, "What rubbish? You are not going to die!" Then she gave a softer look to him and said, "I thought you had already forgotten about her. But it seems like you haven\'t."

Pearl was a normal village girl who had caught Edwin\'s interest a long time ago. He wanted to marry her and he had even expressed his love for her. But she had refused the Prince saying that she already had someone else in her heart.

If he wanted to then he could have forced her to marry him. To be honest, he wanted to force the marriage. But Lillian had talked him out of it saying that if she didn\'t love him then there was no use in marrying her. Because it would ruin both of their lives.

Eventually, Edwin was lucky enough to find Juniper. She loved him and so did he. They also had a lovely daughter together.

And Lillian wondered if all of the love between Edwin and Juniper was just a façade because he was asking for Pearl at times like this. So she asked, "Did you even love Juniper? Or was that all a lie?"

Edwin shook his head very feebly and spoke with great difficulty, "No mother, it was not a lie. I love Juniper." And he hesitantly added, "It\'s just that… I have been seeing Pearl in my dreams lately. And I wanted to see her one more time."

Lillian almost instantly widened her eyes as though something hard hit her mind. "What did you say? You have been seeing her in your dreams?" She leaned close to her son\'s face and gritted from between her teeth, "What kind of dreams?"

Edwin flinched from that sudden closeness of his mother and turned his head away. "You don\'t have to scare me. Just say that you don\'t want me to meet her."

Lillian grabbed her son\'s jaw and made him look at her. And then she asked again with more intensity, "I asked what kind of dreams? Is it the erotic ones? Does Pearl lure you to the bed and then-"

"Mother!" This time Edwin managed to speak a little loudly. And he turned his gaze away in embarrassment and asked, "Why would you ask such things to me? What is wrong with you?"

Lillian leaned back while anger was slowly building up inside of her. And she asked again while trying her best not to yell at her son again, "So you are seeing those kinds of dreams, am I right? Just tell me… I need to know."

"Yes," Edwin sighed and replied while still looking away.

Lillian grabbed her hair with both of her hands and crouched down while letting out a muffled scream. And she cursed that succubus inwardly, "That wh*re! I am going to kill her. No, no, no. She doesn\'t deserve an easy death. First, I am going to torture her, I am going to make her beg for mercy, and then… and then only I am going to kill her."

She got up from the bed and then went out of the room like a furious gust of wind.