Chapter 370: A Place By Her Side
The second he and the others stepped off the path, the house disappeared behind them. Dante looked briefly over his shoulder, a feeling of panic threatening to burst from his chest, but he held it back.
The last time Hattie had disappeared from his sight she came back a different woman, stronger, yes, but still not the same. Would that happen again? The next time he saw her, would she show him a new face? Or would he still be able to see the woman who held his heart in his hand?
Taking in a deep breath, he let it out slowly as he raised his head. The land in front of him was like nothing he had ever seen before. A dense fog floated at the base of the trees, covering the path in front of him.
The Devil only knew what was lurking in the mist, but this was the path set out for him. The one he was determined to walk on. What did it matter what was lurking in the darkness? Before Hattie, all he knew was the shadows, his very name enough to cause fear in all who heard it.
It didn’t matter which side of the moral line the person stood. They understood that messing with Dante Leone meant only one thing... Death.
But now it felt like he was nothing more than a shadow of his former self. He was no longer the emperor of the underworld, but rather a dog running after a little girl in a princess dress with flowers in her hair.
It wasn’t that he was bitter or didn’t want to follow her, but he felt lost. How could he equate the man who had built an empire from ashes with the shadow he had become? It was like he was a sword without a grip, and a small part of him was worried that one day, being her follower wouldn’t be enough, and he would end up causing her to bleed.
He had once stood above millions, but now he was just one of ten. If something happened to him, would Hattie even notice? Would she miss him, or would one of the others simply fill in the gap?
"We are Pride," hissed the demon inside him. They were fully merged, neither fully man nor fully demon, but Pride always seemed to be the voice of his insecurities, whispering things in the darkness that should never be seen during the day. "We are not some nameless creature that can be traded like a cookie. We were created by her, made not only in her image but in her idea of perfection. You’ve played human long enough. It’s time the world remembers who we are—and what happens when the Seven Deadly Sins stop pretending to be something that we are not."