Chapter 644: Disappointment (Part Two)
"I am happy for them!"
The small, feminine voice speaking from the table filled with honored guests startled everyone in the room, and all eyes turned to the figure of a woman who bore a striking resemblance to the Willow Witch as she climbed up onto her chair and then onto the table so the entire hall could see her.
"Look at how he holds her," Helga said, much to the horror of her husband who seemed torn between pulling her down off the table and crawling under it to hide in embarrassment at his headstrong wife who didn’t seem to have the slightest regard for propriety.
"Look how she turns to him for reassurance, even now! My little Heila used to look at me like that whenever she got her horns caught climbing trees or playing hide-and-seek in the underbrush with her brothers," she said, completely oblivious to the way Heila’s face began to heat at her mother’s display.
"What woman here doesn’t want a man to look at her that way?" Helga said, turning on the table to look out over the crowd. "How many of you knew you found the one when he held you like that? So I approve and I applaud because my daughter found someone she loves so much that even when everyone is staring at her and whispering, she hasn’t looked once at her parents for support... she looks at him."
"Oh, damn it all woman," Kaisen grumbled as he hopped directly from the floor to the table, standing next to his wife, but this time facing Ignatious directly and pointing a finger sharply at the powerful vampire. "I don’t approve of you!"
"Father!" Heila cried, breaking her silence at last as she stared at her father in open-mouthed shock. At this point, her face had turned as red as a cup of wine, and she desperately wanted to hustle her family into one of the side rooms to have a personal conversation, but how could she when they insisted on speaking up so publicly?
"Just wait a moment, little lambkin," Kaisen said patiently as he stared directly into Ignatious’s dark, mysterious eyes. "There is a way to go about things, and I won’t have anyone taking shortcuts or liberties with my most precious daughter. I don’t care if you’re older than I am," he said, shaking his finger at the former Inquisitor. "I expect a visit from you tomorrow night to ask permission to court my lovely Heila. You have to treat her right if you want to receive my blessings, do you hear me?"