Adeline was the talk of the night among the guests because her beauty had enchanted everyone. They would glance at her once in a while when they were enjoying the lovely dinner.

“Now I know why King Dragomir took a liking to a commoner. If the Princess looks this beautiful, then her mother definitely should have been a beauty.” One of the guests whispered in the ear of another guest as he was chomping on a chicken drumstick.

The other guest stole a lustful glance of the Princess and agreed, “If I was not already married, I would have agreed to shift to the Palace just so I could be her husband.”

And among the enchanted ones was Prince Fenris as well. Fenris was drinking his wine while constantly staring at the lovely Princess who sat right in front of him.

Fenris seemed drunk, not because of the wine but because of Adeline’s pure beauty. “Nigel never told me that he had such a beautiful sister. If I knew her earlier I would have already courted her.”

Fenris had his head in the cloud but then he suddenly remembered something, “Where is Nigel?”

He looked around at the other tables but Nigel was nowhere to be seen. “Shouldn’t he be here by now? It has been about half an hour since the feast started.” He leaned towards his mother, Queen Tasha, and whispered, “Mother, have you seen Nigel around?”

Queen Tasha was also itching to ask the same question to her son, “I was about to ask you the same question. Weren’t you with him all the afternoon? Why didn’t you two come together?”

Fenris furrowed his brows and replied, “Well I was with him the whole afternoon. But then I left for my room to tidy up for the banquet. We agreed to meet here in the hall but he never came.”

Prince Fenris was now genuinely starting to get worried about his cousin. “Nothing weird happened to him right? No, it can’t happen… or can it? Is it even possible after all these years?”

Fenris shook his head and tried to focus on his dinner instead. “He just might be taking more time to get ready. He said that he wanted to look great.” He started cutting his steak but he could not quite shake off the strange feeling in the pit of his stomach, “But he used to say that his sense of smell is powerful.”

“Maybe I should go to his quarter and check on him.” Fenris was about to put down his knife and fork but everyone were still seated in their seats. It was considered rude to get up before the King finished his dinner. So Fenris just forced himself to continue eating dinner, hoping that his brother was alright.

However, right at that moment, a faint howl could be heard. But that was enough to startle Fenris. Not just him, Queen Mother Blevine and Queen Tasha also heard the howl and shot a quizzical look at one another.

Then all of them glanced at Queen Claricia who was sitting not far from them. Queen Claricia noticed the concerned looks on their faces and then smiled and shook her head at them. Fenris let out a soft sigh and started to focus on his food.

Behind the Palace, a little far away from the celebration, something was lurking in the shadows of the forest. It would come into the view for some brief seconds, when the full moon’s light that managed to enter past the dense trees would fall upon its body, and it would disappear into the shadows again.

After running around freely for some time, the wolf looked up at the full moon and howled again. The deer and rabbits scurried away when they heard the predator’s howl. That wolf was very large which had a mix of grey and white fur. And its amber eyes were shining in the moon light.

As it was making its way towards the Palace, that wolf caught a strange scent. Then it decided to follow the scent and kept on running until it finally reached to the source. It stopped just outside Adeline’s quarter and started to growl softly.

When the wolf was walking softly towards the room, its amber eyes caught a sight of another pair of amber eyes. But soon those amber eyes that it saw turned red.

“Now this is interesting!” The tall figure said with a smirk on his face.

The wolf started to give a hostile glare at Theodore and started to growl aggressively. Theodore was unfazed and said playfully, “There, there puppy, you don’t want to die now, do you?”

But the wolf pushed its legs from the ground and pounced at Theodore. However, all it took for Theodore to stop the wolf was his hand raised in midair. And the wolf was whimpering and was left dangling in the air.

Theodore went to where the wolf was dangling and ran his fingers through its fur. When he touched the wolf, Theodore’s eyes twinkled. He instantly realized that the wolf in front of him was not a normal wolf but was a werewolf. And not just that, Theodore knew who he was.

“Even more interesting… This was your first transformation I suppose. Or else, you would have seen me when you came to the room earlier.” Theodore placed his hand on the wolf’s back and then closed his eyes and mumbled something.

And when he opened his eyes, the wolf was transforming back to its human form. Theodore had performed an incantation to trap the beast back inside its original form.

After the transformation was complete, Prince Nigel was lying on the floor, completely naked. It took some time for him to regain his consciousness.

Nigel slowly fluttered his eyes and opened them. But he was seeing blur. He blinked his eyes hard and when he opened his sapphire eyes, he could see a tall man standing beside him with a smirk on his face.

Nigel was confused as to what had happened to him. All he could remember was a throbbing pain in his heart and then nothing.

Nigel slowly got back on his feet while holding his head with his hand. He was feeling a little pain in his head. He then looked around and realized that he was in Adeline’s room. He stared at the tall man by his side for some time to see if he could recognize him but he had never seen that man in his life.

“Who are you? What are you doing in my sister’s room?” Nigel thought that he was either a kidnapper or a burglar who wanted to harm Adeline.

“Er… Those questions can wait. I thing you should look down first.” Theodore pointed his finger below Nigel’s waist and looked away towards the walls.

Nigel looked down and was shocked with the state he was in. “What the…” He looked around and saw a towel lying on the bed. He quickly grabbed the towel and wrapped it around his waist.

Nigel was a bit embarrassed but he needed to find out the identity of the man who was there with him. He cleared his throat and asked again while fisting his hands on his hips, “Tell me who you are, or be ready to face the wrath of Prince of Wyverndale.”

But Theodore already knew that Nigel was a softie. So he jumped on Adeline’s bed and then lied down. “Don’t sweat so much Prince Nigel. Your sister must be waiting for you for that dance you promised. You should hurry up to the hall.”

Nigel had a bewildered look on his face. “How do you know my name? And how do you know that I have promised a dance to my sister? Why do you know about the hall? How do you know so much…?” And then something clicked on his brain.

“Wait… how did I end up naked with the man I don’t even know?” he was holding his head with both of his hands and now, the more he thought about the earlier situation, the more panicked he was becoming.

After listening to all the rambling of Nigel, Theodore had an offended look on his face. “Don’t make me sound like a pervert, you insolent brat.”

Nigel glared at Theodore and raised his voice, “Hey who is the insolent one? You are the one who is disrespecting a Prince.”

Theodore sighed and then got up from the bed. He towered over Nigel and narrowed his gaze. Then he spoke in a stern voice, “Let me introduce myself to you, Prince Nigel. I am Prince Theodore. You might know me as the owner of the Devil’s Cave.”

Then he changed his eye color to red for a fraction of seconds, which was enough to scare Nigel.

Nigel felt as though someone had hit him on his head with a hammer. He felt his knees growing weak when he heard the words ‘owner of the Devil’s Cave’. He had heard many stories about the Devil that lived on top of a mountain when he was a child. And now the man in front of him was claiming to be the Devil!

Theodore puckered his lips and thought, “Maybe I scared the kid a little too much.” Then he smiled at Nigel and flung his arm around Nigel. Then he spoke in a cheery voice, “You don’t have to be so scared little puppy.”

Nigel slowly lifted his hand and pushed Theodore’s hand off of his shoulder. Then he put up some courage and spoke in an undertone, “I am not a puppy, sir.”

“Oh! You don’t remember that… I guess…” Theodore spoke under his breath and glanced at Nigel. He saw that Nigel was still trembling. “I am not a bad person, Nigel. I mean I am bad… because of course I am the Devil… but I’m not bad to those who are close to Adeline.”

“Why?” that was all Nigel could force himself to speak.

Theodore hummed for a while and said, “Let’s just say for now that I am you sister’s guardian angel… or devil.” He paused for some time and said, “And as her guardian, I don’t want to see her disappointed in her own birthday, so please, get dressed and go enjoy.”

Nigel was not sure if he could enjoy himself after encountering the Devil.. But he wanted to get away from him as fast as he could, so he immediately ran out of the room.