Back in Allen’s Private Booth

In the several decades that Allen has lived on this Earth, he has never once been as frightened as he is right now.

“Dear?” Cynthia asks, lightly grabbing Allen’s hand that had been crushing the arm rest. “What’s wrong?”

It takes Allen several seconds to answer, and when he does, he does it through his terminal, not daring to speak out loud about this in a magical reality that could very well be tapped. And the moment Cynthia sees the text on his terminal’s screen, her face pales and her eyes widen in fright.

[It looks like the least likely theory has been proven. The scent the boy smelled is just like the one my nanomachines detected coming off of the blood lycan in the last Class V Fracture.]

“A-are you sure?” Cynthia asks, stuttering and showing real fear for the first time ever since their daughter died.

Allen nods his head before typing on his terminal again.

[I didn’t even consider it before, that she might share their scent. So I never bothered trying to have my nanomachines check into it. But now…]

Cynthia shakes her head and says, “It doesn’t matter. She’s our daughter and nothing will change that.”

In her eyes, Allen can see the unspoken words she has left out in case of any eavesdroppers.

A look that says, ‘Even if she is half demon.’

Allen grips his wife’s hand for a few seconds before looking at the screen again to find his soon-to-be daughter lying on the ground with her arm still partially cut off and healing at a rate visible to the eye.

I knew she shared a lot of similarities to the man I saw back then, and that she had a couple traits of blood lycans, but this was still only the least likely theory we came up with… to have it proven like this is… but why would White have a child with a demon? A noble one at that? It just doesn’t make any sense…

Unknown to him, Allen’s grip on his wife’s hand continuously grew tighter and tighter throughout his thoughts until she says, “It’s okay,” snapping him out of the fog he had found himself in.

Allen lets out a sigh before nodding his head and saying, “Yeah, no matter what, she’s still our daughter. Nothing will change that.”

“Should we bring it up with her?” Cynthia asks with a worried frown on her face, but Allen shakes his head and answers, “No, we should leave it to her to bring up when she trusts us enough. It’s not our place to interject ourselves into her private affairs.”

“Hmm,” Cynthia hums with a light nod as they both watch the screen, the commenter still going crazy about the last battles between Scarlet and team Ace and Spades. Not to mention the battle currently going on between Lost and Crim.

Scarlet being half blood lycan certainly explains why she has the capabilities that she does though, because blood lycans are far superior to humans. But what does it mean? Will her demon genes eventually devour her human ones entirely? Are they stable?

“Most likely they will slowly devour her human genes every time she advances in class,” Allen’s fae, Aurora, answers for him. “But that’s something that would be better asked of a royal fae. Like her partner.”

Allen nods his head at that, still deep in thought.

So she’ll be even less human when she advances to Class II…

He shakes his head, dislodging the thought from it.

No. Her species doesn’t matter. Scarlet is Scarlet no matter what. But…

Allen glances at Cynthia, only to surprisingly find her with a warm smile on her face as she watches Scarlet finally get up from the ground after Emily returns from the core. And that sight has Allen smiling as well.

Good to see that knowing Scarlet’s heritage hasn’t changed Cynthia’s feelings on her at all, despite our past with demons.

“It’s the same for you though, isn’t it?” Aurora asks, and Allen nods his head.

Scarlet is Scarlet and nothing will change that.

Allen’s smile grows larger when he sees Scarlet looking back at where Shifter was with a conflicted look on her face.

Actually, she definitely shows a lot of traits of being a blood lycan. And it certainly explains why she’s so damned prideful all the time. But at the same time, I’m pretty sure a lot of that is just her own pride. Because noble demons aren’t as affected by their demonic instincts as the other demons are.

He raises a brow for a moment as a thought comes to mind.

I wonder, do you think her fae is convincing her that all of that pride is from her demonic instincts?

“It’s quite possible,” Aurora answers, sounding slightly amused at the prospect. “Her fae is His Highness Tarankar, and he’s known to have pushed his previous contracted partner to grow sometimes by telling half-truths and manipulating their thinking on things that might hinder their growth. Although I’ve also heard that he isn’t doing that much with his new partner. That he’s grown to truly care for her like family.”

That’s good. As long as the only thing he’s doing is exaggerating the effect of her demonic instincts.

“That should be all he’s doing,” Aurora confirms.

Good. If I had to guess, since she’s a half blood lycan, only around a third or so of her pride is from her instincts. Meaning most of it’s still just her. Although I can’t help but feel like Scarlet wouldn’t really care if it were her instincts driving her or not.

Allen’s eyes suddenly widen.

That crazy look she gets when fighting finally makes sense to me!

“Blood lycans do love their hunts,” Aurora says with an amused giggle.

Allen snorts at that.

It also means I’ll have a lot more trouble to deal with down the road, doesn’t it? Especially since the Knights are bound to have recognized the scent that boy described assuming they’re watching.

“If she’s truly White’s daughter, then they likely already knew about her anyways,” Aurora says, making Allen sigh.

Starting to think I’m the only one who didn’t know at this point… even if that’s far from the truth.

Allen suddenly feels Cynthia lightly tightening her grip on his hand, bringing his gaze to his wife as she says, “She’ll tell us eventually. Count on it.”

A few seconds pass before Allen nods and says, “Yeah, I’m sure she will.”