For some reason, the atmosphere in the room immediately turned cold when Daemon sat down.
Suddenly, the joyful laughter had vanished as the children became tense, and Derila appeared to be somewhat uneasy.
To remedy the awkwardness, Carla quickly lifted her glass. "It's not every day that we get to have dinner together like this, so I'd like to propose a toast!"
Zayn then lifted his glass as well to join in. Naturally, he had a non-alcoholic beverage in it.
After Derila and the children, too, lifted their glasses and cups, they turned to look at Daemon, who had no choice but to follow suit.
"This is just wonderful! How I wish we could gather like this more often! Cheers, guys!" exclaimed Carla.
"Cheers!"
After clinking their glasses and cups, everybody gladly took a sip of their drink, except for Daemon, who nobody wanted to clink their drinkware with.
Zayn was about to start eating when he noticed how disappointed Daemon seemed, so he hurriedly extended his glass to the man.
At first, Daemon was a little reluctant, but he eventually responded in kind anyway.
The two then quietly took a sip of their drink.
"Okay. Let the feast begin!" announced Carla excitedly.
Zayn started chatting with the children while they ate. "So what did you guys play just now? The swing? The slide?"
"The swing!" answered Alpha with her hand raised. "Josh pushed me so high up that I could touch the sky! It was really fun!"
"I played the slide, but I was a little scared because you weren't there to catch me, " uttered Beta in her childish voice.
"I'll catch you next time, okay?" responded Zayn gently before suggesting, "Or you can always have your daddy catch you."
The man then glanced at Daemon, who had already lifted his head to look at Beta.
In response, the child meekly shook her head. "No, I don't want Daddy to catch me."
Surprised, Zayn raised an eyebrow curiously. "Why not? Your father is even taller than I am. I'm sure he's more than capable of catching you, Beta."
"I'm scared." Beta quickly curled up in her mother's arms after glancing at Daemon's hands.
"What's the matter? Did Daddy do something?" questioned Derila.
"Daddy told us a ghost story just now. It was terrifying!" chimed in Alpha.
"He even stretched out his hands to scare us, " Suddenly, Beta's eyes began to tear up.
"I swear that story was horrifying! Even Randy, Josh, and Venus were scared, " added Gamma indignantly.
After hearing all that, Zayn was stunned and did not know how to respond. Did Daemon really tell the kids a ghost story?
"Alpha, Beta, Gamma, I'm sure your father was just fooling around. He wasn't really trying to scare you, " explained Carla, trying to smooth things out.
"Yeah. He's probably just messing with you guys, " chimed in Zayn since he would rather not have Derila fighting with her husband right then and there.
"So what story was it anyway?" Derila questioned Daemon with an eyebrow raised.
Swirling his wine, Daemon answered without looking at his wife, "What do you think? I only ever know one story."
"You mean the one about the victim of a car accident losing his hands?" Suddenly, Derila laughed out loud. "What's so scary about it? It was a ridiculous story!"
Puzzled by Derila's unusual response, Zayn and Carla exchanged looks. "So you've heard of it?"
"Heard of it? I'm the one who told him that story! He was terrified too the first time he heard it, " replied Derila before continuing to laugh.
Zayn and Carla had no idea what else to say next. However, they were convinced that Derila and Daemon were made for each other. And here we thought she was going to go berserk on Daemon for what the man did. It turned out that she was the one to blame.
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