Theodore let Adeline out of his ‘prison’ and shifted to one corner when he heard some footsteps approaching her room. It was none other than Osanna who had returned to Adeline’s room to inform the Princess that the hot bath was ready.

Osanna spoke as she walked towards Adeline’s wardrobe, “Adeline, your bath is ready. It’s already late so make sure that you get out of the bath soon. You don’t want to catch cold, do you?” She took out the bath gown and kept it on Adeline’s bed for her to change before going in for a bath.

Then she also took out Adeline’s nightgown and towel for the Princess to use after her bath and took them inside the bath house.

After Osanna left the room, Adeline grabbed her bath gown and glanced at Theodore. He was smiling and gawking at her. Normally, she would have changed into her bath gown in her own room, but she was not going to change into her thin see-through bath gown in front of Theodore.

So she decided to change it in her bath house. She grabbed the dress and whispered to Theodore, “Wait for me for some time okay? I will take a quick bath and will be right back.”

Theodore’s seductive eyes fell on the thin bath gown that Adeline was holding in her hand. He was reminded of the day when he saw Adeline in that dress, all soaked in water. She looked like a full moon shining on the ocean at night. And he wanted to see his woman in that breathtaking form again.

Adeline turned around to walk towards the bath house but Theodore caught the rim of the light pink gown that Adeline was wearing. He was seductively biting his lower lip. He darted his eyes from Adeline’s neck to her feet and spoke in his enchantingly deep voice, “Your dress looks very tight. Don’t you need my help to take it off?”

Adeline’s jaw dropped down hearing how smoothly he had asked her if she needed his help to take her dress off. She bit the inside of her cheeks to stop herself from smiling and she shook her head disapproving his sly behavior. “I can’t even…”

“You can’t even take off your dress, right? That why I’m offering to help you.” Theodore gave a devilish smirk to the Princess. He could be very charming when he wanted to. And he playfully pulled Adeline’s dress and Adeline along with it.

“Theo! What are you doing?” Adeline tried to mask her nervousness with her chuckle.

She wanted to be mad at Theodore but he started to pull her dress around her stomach trying to imply that the dress was too tight for her to get out of it on her own. And Adeline was feeling so ticklish that she could not even focus her mind to get mad at the mischievous Devil.

Adeline asked Theodore to stop behaving mischievously while still giggling uncontrollably, “Theo, stop it, please. My bath will get cold.”

“Can’t I join you in the bath?” Theodore asked with an enticing demeanor. “I will get bored if you leave me alone here.” Theodore was still holding the rim of Adeline’s dress and was not letting her run away.

A part of Adeline wanted to give in to Theodore’s persistence and invite him in to the bath with her. But she came back to her senses and then sternly ordered him, “No, you can’t join me. Just wait here. I will be back in no time.”

Then Adeline remembered that she had purchased something to give to Theodore. She placed her hand inside the pocket of her gown and took out the beautiful figurine of the Devil.

Adeline took Theodore’s hand and handed the figurine to him and said, “Here, take this. You won’t be alone now.”

Theodore took the figurine from Adeline’s hand and looked intrigued by it. The figurine had a pair of horns and wings. It was wearing black and golden clothes. It had golden horns while the wings were black in color.

The Devil gave a smoldering look to Adeline and then asked her, “By any chance, is this supposed to be me?”

“That’s right!” Adeline giggled very happily. She was proud of herself for picking up such a fitting gift for Theodore.

“And this is a gift for me?” Theodore raised his brows and asked.

“Mhmm” Adeline did a little nod.

Theodore smiled as though he had just received something very valuable. He had received many gifts in his life before. But out of all those, he felt like this was the best gift that he has ever received.

He didn’t know whether he felt that way because he had received it from Adeline, or because the figurine somewhat resembled him. Nonetheless, he liked the gift very much. He carefully placed the figurine inside his pocket and patted on top of the pocket as if he just tucked the figurine to sleep.

Then he finally let go of Adeline’s dress and said, “Alright, I will let you off my hook this time because of the beautiful bribe that you presented me with.”

“That was not a bribe but I’m glad that it worked.” Adeline smiled and then began to walk towards her bath house.

And Theodore shouted to her, “But come back soon, or else I will come to pick you up from the bath house myself.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t give you that chance,” Adeline shouted back as she locked the door of the bath house behind her.

And just like she had promised, she came out of the bath house only after 10 minutes. She was now in her white and elegant night gown. Her silver hair had turned into locks as they were still wet. And she was holding the necklace that she had bought from the market in her hand.

“What’s that?” Theodore asked with a hint of curiosity in his eyes.

“It’s a chain that I bought from the market today.” Adeline went towards her dressing table and then placed the chain carefully in a drawer.

Theodore clapped his hands as if he just remembered something important and said, “Right, market. I have a lot of questions that I have to ask to you.”

He glanced at Adeline from her head to toe. A seductive smile appeared on his lips because Adeline was looking very fresh and beautiful in her night gown.

Droplets of water were still falling from the tip of Adeline’s wet hair and were soaking the part of the gown that was over her chest. It seemed like Adeline did not wipe herself properly after the bath because her gown was stuck to her wet skin, almost attaching itself perfectly to Adeline’s womanly curves.

Theodore did not realize it but he was subconsciously biting his lower lips. He was enthralled by the alluring beauty that was standing in front of him.

Adeline was waiting for Theodore to ask questions to her but he was lost. He was longingly gazing at her. The Princess was feeling her heartbeat escalating. Her whole body temperature was rising, making her feel really hot. And before the pressure in the air intensified anymore, Adeline massaged her nape and asked, “Theo, you were going to ask me something?”

Theodore’s eyes were following Adeline’s tiny movements. He was busy staring at Adeline’s gorgeous neck. And without even shifting his look from her neck, he asked, “So, shall we take this conversation over to my room? I would love to talk about a few things while lying down on my own bed… with you by my side.”

Adeline thought that Theodore was not serious about taking her to his room every night. And even though he was serious at the moment he said that, Adeline had thought that he would have forgotten that by now. But it seemed like Theodore had not forgotten that at all and that he was really serious about always sleeping together. 

However, she wanted to stay at the Palace and maybe stay alert for any kind of door that Lillian would open. She had no idea how this door to the other worlds would look like, and how it could be opened. But she wanted to find that out. “Why don’t you stay over instead? Agnes was talking about some kind of door that Lillian was opening. Maybe we can look out for it.”

Theodore would have liked to stay over at Adeline’s place and keep an eye on what Lillian was doing exactly, to be more specific, he wanted to know who or what kind of creature she was summoning.

But at the same time, he thought that it was too dangerous to let Adeline stay in her Palace at night after already knowing that Lillian had been summoning something using even more dark energy. He did not want Adeline to fall victim to that witch.

“Opening a door does not necessarily mean that it is bad. You don’t have to worry too much about it.” Theodore tried to comfort Adeline with his words so that she would not insist on staying over and watching Lillian’s actions.

However, Adeline was still insisting, “I don’t think that anything that Lillian does is not evil. We should try to find out what she is exactly up to.”

Theodore hummed for some time and then came up with a plan. “Then let’s do this, I will send a few of my followers here to watch over Lillian’s moves. They will report to us and we will take actions accordingly.”

Theodore pulled Adeline by her waist and gave a captivating smile to her, “For now, let me take you to my humble abode.”