The Devil's obsession with the Heiress

[Music recommendation: David Chappell - This Quiet Violence]

.

.

"Then..." Her voice softened. "What happened to you?"

Gavriel took her hand and began lightly pressing his thumb against the tips of her fingers as he stared down at them before finally breaking his silence.

"Truthfully, even I don’t know exactly what happened. I... don’t have a large chunk of my memories, Ana."

He let out a sharp sigh. "All I remember is living my life as the chosen prince of the underworld, preparing to be crowned as the next ruler by my father. People looked up to me with the reverence owed to a devil."

His brows began to furrow, and Aliana could see him visibly struggling to recall his past.

"Then... something happened. To this day, I can’t remember what. The next things I recall exist only in cruel fragments..." He squeezed his eyes shut, his breathing turning harsh as beads of sweat formed on his forehead. His grip around her hand tightened. "The very people I was supposed to protect... they looked at me with pure hatred and fear. I killed... destroyed. As far as the eye could see, there was only blood and ruin."

He took another ragged breath, and Aliana grew increasingly worried as dark shadows began to leak out from his body, making the surrounding objects shake violently once again.

Inside Gavriel’s mind, those horrific visions replayed on a loop... screams of agony, mothers wailing, and endless fields of blood and fire. It felt as though he was being trapped right back in that nightmare. Bloodlust surged through his veins like a living entity, feeding his rising fury.

"G-Gav..." a faint voice reached him through the chaos, but the sound of screams drowned it out.

"Gav...riel!"

"Gavriel!"

The sharp call made his eyes snap open.

He found Aliana’s face twisted in pain and concern, but the soft warmth of her palm against his cheek instantly registered in his mind.

"Calm down, Gav," she whispered gently, her touch grounding him. "You’re here with me."

But when he saw her face still twisted in pain, his eyes immediately dropped to the hand he had been holding in a crushing grip, and he released it at once.

"I’m so sorry..." he murmured softly.

Gathering her fingers in his, he raised her hand to his lips and pressed a tender kiss to her knuckles. His powers instantly erased the red mark his strength had caused.

He then slowly slumped forward until his head came to rest against her shoulder, and Aliana felt as though a knife were twisting in her heart at seeing him so deeply affected.

Her hands immediately rose to cradle his head, and she pressed an affectionate kiss to his hair as she held him close.

"It’s alright," she whispered gently into his hair. "It’s alright."

Gradually, his arms slid around her waist, pulling her flush against him as he drew in a deep breath to calm himself.

They stayed in that quiet embrace for a long time, until Aliana heard him speak softly against her neck.

"I arrived in this world thousands of years ago. When I woke here... my body had reverted to that of a five-year-old child. I soon realised the gates to the underworld were barred to me. Those fragments of memories were all that were left of who I was." His arms tightened around her as he whispered, "I remained a devil... the only one to ever live in the world of the living."

Aliana didn’t know why his words pierced her heart so fiercely, but all she could do was hold him tighter and continue running her fingers through his silky hair, seeking to comfort him as much as herself.

Gavriel hadn’t said it explicitly, but she understood it all too well... since his arrival in this realm, he had been haunted continuously by those bloody fragments.

She couldn’t begin to imagine his pain and loneliness.

A powerful prince destined to rule an entire realm, stripped of his true identity, cast into a foreign world as a helpless child and haunted only by visions of slaughter.

Why? Why had this happened to him?

What could have gone so catastrophically wrong in his past to bring him to this point?

She didn’t know.

But one thing had become painfully clear to her.

As horrible as everything that had happened to him was, if he had never come to this world, they would have never met.

She would have never met him.

Her husband.

The man she had fallen so deeply in love with.

The quiet in the study stretched long, filled only with the crackle of the fireplace and the steady rhythm of their breathing.

Pushing past the lump in her throat, Aliana rested her cheek against his hair and asked softly, "Do you miss it? The life you were supposed to have, back when things didn’t go... that way?"

She felt him stir, and she leaned back, only for her gaze to lock with his. She was shocked to find his eyes completely devoid of emotion as he delivered his answer.

"No."

​His voice came out chillingly calm. "Do you understand what banishment signifies for a sovereign of the underworld?"

Aliana couldn’t find her voice, leaving him to answer his own question. "It means I committed an act so monstrous, so unforgivable, that the realm itself cast me out."

The words tore through Aliana’s chest like a blade. Involuntary tears pooled in her eyes, blurring his face as his flat tone continued to slice through her heart.

"I accepted this fate a long time ago, and I don’t feel the need to go back anymore. It’s not like I remember much of it anyway, aside from being trained by my father to be the next ruler. If anything, I only miss seeing my mother’s portrait. But since she is gone, there isn’t much left to miss."

This time, Aliana’s tears spilled freely as she realised the truth.

He blamed himself.

He had spent all these years believing that whatever happened to his people had been his fault. He loathed himself for something he couldn’t even remember doing or understand why he had done.

She was looking at a man who had simply accepted a lifetime of punishment for a crime he couldn’t even remember committing.

What kind of cruel fate was that?

Gavriel offered her a small, empty smile. "Don’t cry, baby. You know I hate to see you cry," he murmured, cupping her cheeks to wipe them away.

His smile widened faintly, and Aliana couldn’t help but choke out, "W-Why are you smiling?"

"Because a day back, you were terrified of me, doing everything in your power to escape," Gavriel said, his thumb smoothing over her cheekbone. "And now, here you are, shedding tears for a monster like it’s the end of the world."

He held her gaze and his smile disappeared. "Do not waste your tears on me, Ana. Even though I am in this realm, you must never forget what I am. I feed on human pain. I collect souls. I have spilled more blood than your mind could ever comprehend. You were right to fear me when you learned the truth, and you would be wise to fear me now. So do not weep for a fallen creature."

His detached tone only made the guilt hit her with devastating force, leaving her gasping for air.

The hurtful words she had hurled at him when she first learned his identity echoed in her mind: ’No... you cannot be my husband...’

She regretted them.

Even in the heat of that moment, she had hated herself for saying them.

She knew she might never be able to understand what Gavriel truly felt for her, but she knew enough to understand that her words must have hurt him.

A man who had already been cast out from his own world... a man who had spent thousands of years carrying the weight of his people’s hatred and the belief that he had somehow deserved it...

What must it have felt like to hear his own wife reject him as well?

Shaking her head in utter devastation, Aliana refused to let herself be another source of pain in his life.

She threw her arms around him.

"I’m sorry," she whispered. "I’m so sorry."

Her body shook with silent sobs as she clung to him.

"I didn’t... mean it." Her voice broke. "I didn’t mean any of it. I’m so sorry."

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!