First Demonic Dragon - Chapter 1181: Putting Things Right

Capítulo 1181: Putting Things Right

When Audrina woke up, she was lying in the same bed as her husband.

When Abaddon was really tired, it was easy to think he was dead.

His chest stopped rising and falling because it was no longer taking in air. His body had gone into an ultra-conservative state where even the tiniest actions were being paused to build up energy reserves again.

Once Audrina saw him in that state, she knew that he had been lying about feeling fine.

She hadn’t seen him this exhausted since he came home from living his life on earth.

When he was like this, it was almost easy for her to forget about the monumentally dangerous thing he had done.

But it wasn’t long before Audrina recalled what happened again, and the look she was giving her husband changed.

Abaddon woke up to find Audrina putting a collar with a leash around his neck.

“…Dare I ask why this is happening?”

“Every time that I take my eyes off of you, you’re wandering off to get in some kind of trouble or do something unnecessary. From now on, you’re not leaving my side.”

“…Something unnecessary, huh?” Abaddon repeated quietly.

He reached for Audrina and ran his fingers along her smooth, porcelain neck.

The warmth coming off his body was like a furnace. But Audrina didn’t mind it. Rather, she wanted him to keep his hands exactly where they were.

Abaddon fashioned his own collar around Audrina’s neck, with a leash that was even shorter than his.

“Are you not happy to see your mother again…? Do you wish that I had not done it?”

Audrina couldn’t say that either of those things was necessarily the case. “I just… don’t understand why you did.”

“Because I could. Because it was for you.”

“I have long made my peace with my mother’s passing. To see her again, in our house no less, when we already have so much going on, is just… It doesn’t feel like the right time.”

Audrina interlocked her small, delicate fingers with her husband’s larger, rougher ones.

He brought the back of her hand up to his lips and held it there. Closing his eyes to remember the texture of her skin, the cool feeling of her hands, and the sweet scent coming out of her pores.

“…It’s rare for us to get a ‘right’ time for something. There is always going to be something or another taking place because of who we are and who we’re destined to be. So, I took an opportunity that was right in front of me because I thought it might make you a little happier. I didn’t concern myself with anything else.”

Abaddon pulled Audrina in by her leash. The heat of his body was almost searing, but all the more intoxicating.

“I am sorry to spring this on you. I’m sure it must be a bit overwhelming, and I honestly thought I’d have the time to break the news to you beforehand… Dealing with Nihil took me by surprise.”

Audrina stared holes into her husband, their faces close enough to kiss if they felt like it.

She tilted her head and rested it on his neck. “…Why?”

“To make you happy.”

“I was happy before. Was your goal to make my heart implode with joy?”

“Would it have put me in conversation of world’s best husband if I had?”

“Don’t joke. I think we already know Darius holds that title.”

Abaddon pursed his lips at her poorly timed joke, making her laugh. As if he would lose to the dwarven dragon who routinely forgot the birthdays of his wives and their middle names.

Audrina gradually stopped laughing and became suspiciously quiet. She looked at Abaddon again, this time with a bit of a shameful thought in her mind.

“Did you do this for my mother… because there was part of me you wished to change?”

Audrina knew that she had changed when her mother died. She became more cynical. More materialistic.

She filled the hole in her heart with a vanity that she still to this day hadn’t managed to let go of.

She often got told by her children and her relatives that she was boujee, or that she thought she was better than them. She never really let it show just how much those comments bothered her.

But that didn’t mean her husband didn’t know.

He craddled the back of her head with his palm and ran his fingers through her hair.

“I have known you were perfect from the very first day I fell in love with you. There is nothing I have ever wished to change.”

Audrina smiled discreetly to herself as she leaned further into her husband’s embrace. “Even if I won’t eat your grits?”

“….Well, there may be some things that I-”

Audrina bit her husband hard.

“Joking, joking…” He laughed weakly.

“Mhm. Sure…”

Abaddon pulled Audrina away and smiled at her. “You’re spending too much time in here with a face you’ve already spent billions of years with. Don’t you think there’s somewhere else you’d rather be?”

Audrina caressed his cheek warmly. “As if I could ever get tired of looking at this face. Even if it is a little bit young for my tastes.”

“You like that it’s young.”

“I do.” Audrina sighed dejectedly. “If only you weren’t unwell, you could learn just how much.”

“W-Well I’m not that bad, so-”

“As if. Lailah would strangle us both and that… might be appealing on it’s own, actually.”

Audrina shook her head.

“No, no, I need to get up.”

Audrina rose out of bed just as it seemed she was going to think herself into staying.

She rushed towards the door with a bit of nervous excitement that wasn’t there before.

That sight alone immediately made Abaddon feel as though all of his decisions had been worth it.

However, Audrina seemed to know what he was thinking.

When she was halfway out the door, she looked back at her husband for a long time without saying anything.

“…Having second thoughts?”

This time, Audrina didn’t take the bait and smiled at him exhaustedly.

“You need to learn to deal with your compulsion to fix everything. No one’s life has been perfect, but they make us who we are. It’s not your responsibility to change that. You can’t always protect us from life, honey.”

Abaddon’s smile faded, and he nodded without trying to defend himself. “…I understand.”

Audrina started to close the door and leave her husband to rest.

“Still… thank you.”

When she left, Abaddon let his head flop back onto the pillow.

He stared at the ceiling for a long time, the darkness of the room gradually creeping in to comfort him.

Naturally, his mind drifted towards the last few hours of his life.

Oblivion claimed that they’d taken something from Eternity. With the day he’d had, Abaddon could no longer say that wasn’t true.

He wondered if that kind of thing would make him easier to spot by certain outside visitors.

Abaddon couldn’t forget the way those seven had locked eyes with him when he viewed them from afar.

Surely, they would recognize his gaze the next time he laid eyes on them. But would they see him, or the sum of what he had consumed?

Abaddon wasn’t sure of the answer. But he knew for certain that they would be arriving soon.

And that massive army that followed them would no doubt be coming to do more than just sightsee.

He needed to make sure everyone was ready. But how exactly does one prepare to fight an army teeming with lifeforms beyond the scope of their comprehension?

After thinking about it for a moment, Abaddon was actually glad.

His sister was currently more mad at him than she had ever been in their entire lives. Not only had he sidelined her, but he had given her a son as well.

And at times like this, nothing would make Kanami feel better than having a nigh impossible task to prepare for.

And an apology…

–

Audrina heard the noise before she even reached the living room.

A trembling, persistent sobbing that couldn’t have come from any rational adult.

…Or maybe it could.

Audrina walked into the media room and saw them from behind.

Isabelle was a verifiable mess who cried on her mother’s shoulder with breathless, snotty sobs.

Their mother looked like she had tried to be comforting, but after around thirty minutes of this, she had simply given up and let her child cry out what she needed to.

“There, there, mommy’s here, ommy’s here…” The woman didn’t even take her eyes off the screen as she inserted sliced apples into her mouth.

“MOMMYYYYY!!!” Isabelle’s sobbing intensified and drowned out the noise of the housewife fist fight happening on the big screen.

Gathering all of her courage, Audrina clenched her fists and approached them from behind.

She stepped in front of the two women and temporarily blocked their vision, but her mother didn’t seem to mind much.

Rather, her eyes were pacicked.

‘Please don’t you start crying too.’ They seemed to say.

Audrina let a single tear slip down her cheek as she smiled in disbelief, the reality of this moment just now sinking in for her.

“…Hello, mother. I’ve missed you.”