Transmigrated Into The Body Of The Cursed Prince Wife
Chapter 159: On The Verge Of Death

Chapter 159: On The Verge Of Death

Ave returned to her chamber after the announcement, just like everyone else who had gathered in the hall. She was starving and tired, but she knew that after she’d slept in with Lucian, breakfast had long passed them both.

On her way to her chamber, she tried to look around to see if she’d see Lucian, but she didn’t see any sign of him or Zane, who she knew if she were to find, he’d tell her where his friend was. It seemed like those two had disappeared from the main palace, or perhaps she wasn’t looking in the right places, because she knew she had no reason to seek him out now that he wasn’t seeking her out.

Ave had planned to go and look at Lydia and then visit Heaven in the doomed palace to see if the horse would speak to her again, as she had many questions to ask. But first, she needed to freshen up and relax her tensed muscles, which had been so tense lately. She didn’t know what was wrong with her body, but she hadn’t been feeling all too well since this morning, and perhaps bathing would help her somehow.

Before thinking of anything else, Ave went straight to her bathing room and took off her dress as the tub had been filled. However, because she was standing close to the mirror, she was about to walk to the bath when she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, and a gasp left her mouth as she saw the red marks on her neck and chest. She walked closer to the mirror and turned her neck from side to side to see the hickeys Lucian had left on her skin. That jerk!

No wonder so many people had been staring at her like she had grown two heads. It turned out that perverted Lucian had left marks on her skin without her even realizing it, again! Tracing her fingers against the marks, Ave felt her sensitive skin burn and tingle. Recalling how it had felt to be touched and kissed by him, her muscles grew more tense, and she felt it growing tighter with every passing second as she revisited their time together. Heat began pooling up in her lower abdomen.

Her body felt hypersensitive and alive with a taut, pulsing heat that she couldn’t explain. Each touch of her own fingers against her neck and chest where the marks were only wound her tighter, leaving her feeling desperate, though for what, she couldn’t pinpoint. Her mind swirled with confusion. She had never felt this way before—so tense, so restless, so desperate for something she couldn’t put into words.

Feeling embarrassed about the foreign feelings and angry that it was making her feel frustrated, she turned away from the mirror and stepped into the bathing tub, burying her head completely into the water while wishing she could drown and disappear from the face of the earth from the embarrassment that came with the realization that she wished Lucian would do more than kiss her. She wished he would touch her right where she...

"Ahhh!" Ave screamed in frustration as she surfaced from the water and clenched her fingers around the edge of the tub. She had many things to think about and even do, but yet her traitorous body and mind were seemingly going against her. She had many problems to worry about, like how she ought to be finding ways to interpret that spell for swapping souls and how to find her way back home; to her world and mobile phones and luxurious penthouse, and her poor little cat...

Her cat!

The fact that she had been thrust here and hadn’t even thought about her cat once since she arrived made her angry that being in this damned body wasn’t only messing with her mind but her thoughts and changing the way she thinks and acts.

Her least worry should be Lucian, but he was the only person her damned mind wanted to think of at this moment. Recalling how he had given her that one last kiss before he left her in that corridor to go to the Ambassador’s chamber, her lower abdomen tightened and her legs involuntarily pressed together in the water as her hold on the edge of the tub tightened.

Biting hard on the inside of her cheeks, Ave stood up from the tub, wrapped her body in a robe, and cursed at everything—the universe, the powers that had brought her here, and the man who was making her feel this way. No matter what happened, she needed to find a way to leave here. She had to. She didn’t want to feel the need to stay here for any reason, not for anyone or the sudden feeling of belonging here that had taken over her since last night.

Ave’s mind was overwhelmed with countless thoughts that she didn’t even bother to dress carefully. She dried her hair and wore any dress she placed her hands on before she decided to sit down and distract her mind by writing down the list of ingredients she would give Lucian, or probably Zane so she wouldn’t have to see his face and think about unholy thoughts. She missed modern food, and cooking them for the queen mother would mean she could also have a taste of them.

Not only that, she could make some for Lucian and let him take them along with him to the battle, he was going to love the morden snacks, she was going to cook him different kinds of...

Ave stopped short in her thoughts as she realized what she was thinking. Lucian again!

With a heavy sigh, Ave dismissed Lucian from her thoughts and tried to think about something else. Like how many kinds of food she was going to cook.

She could already imagine the food even as she wrote down the list of ingredients, and her stomach made loud growling sounds that made her pause and glance down.

"Well, this is what you get for falling into the tyrant Empress’s trap last night," she muttered to herself. If she hadn’t drunk that wine, she wouldn’t have found herself in a vulnerable state where she ended up sleeping in with that handsome jerk. And the fact that she couldn’t even recall what had happened between them last night did nothing to make her feel better.

She didn’t by any chance ramble or misbehave with him, did she? He had said she’d told him about the night creature last night; what else did she tell him apart from that? Ave thought, as she had a feeling that she’d said more than she should have last night.

Also recalling how she had struck Lucian with the killing spell of a night creature, her eyes widened as she abruptly stood up from her chair. He had said he would be fine, but then she still recalled how pale he looked this morning when he walked away from the Empress’s door. Could it be that he was suffering in his chamber now, just like that night she had once stabbed him? Was that why he wasn’t anywhere around when everyone was ordered to gather in the hall?

Those thoughts made Ave feel anxious and scared that she must have caused some damage to him with that spell she cast in the heat of the moment. Though she didn’t like the jerk, she didn’t want him to die, especially not by her hands. He might be mean, but he was the only person she could trust with her whole heart in this era. If anything were to happen to him, then what would become of her?

She needed to give him the list anyway; she might as well use the excuse to go to his chamber, and if nothing had happened, she would leave as quickly as possible after dropping the list. And if something had indeed happened, she needed to nurse him back to health.

With that thought, Ave hurried to where she had hidden the spell book to rehearse the healing spells before she messed them up. But to her astonishment, when she reached the spot she had hidden it under her mattress... it wasn’t there!

She moved the thin mattress away from the wooden post and looked even under it, but it wasn’t there. She checked the desk and her wardrobe, but it wasn’t there. There was no way the book would have disappeared on its own, was there? She pondered as she scratched the back of her hair in confusion and fear that someone had walked into her chamber when she wasn’t here and took it, just like Lydia had once taken that magical dress.

Ave paced her room in worry, and then, deciding to check on Lucian first and worry about the book later, she picked up the list after putting the mattress back in its position and left the room. Though she was still scared that someone had taken it, she tried not to let it show as she walked toward Lucian’s chamber.

Meanwhile, in Lucian’s chamber, where he was with Zane, who had come to bring a report to him after he’d ordered Lydia to be transferred to the dungeon, Lucian pondered for hours on end, cooking up a plan to make Ave stay in this world and never return to her time.

Lucian had even sneaked into her room when everyone was in the hall and took the spell book away. To think she had hidden something as dangerous as that under her mattress still baffled him. Didn’t she know that if a search took place in the palace, it would take no time before they discovered the book? He had taken it without hesitation as he knew leaving something like that with her would further put her in danger.

He had not only taken that spell book but had ordered Zane to get rid of all the books he had smuggled into his palace library and buried them away, along with the spell book, where she would never find them again. He had seen another parchment paper fall from under her mattress where she had written down a few spells, which happened to be the soul swapping spell, and that had prompted him even more to ensure she came nowhere close to any such book again.

Zane, who was leaning against the desk in Lucian’s room, watched as the prince paced the room restlessly, his eyes drifting every now and then toward the door as if he was expecting someone. Frowning, he asked curiously, "Your Highness, you keep looking at the door. Are you perhaps expecting a guest?"

Lucian hadn’t realized he had made it obvious until Zane questioned him, and he turned to glare at him, "I’m not expecting anybody. And you, where were you last night when I asked you to stay close to the hall and keep a close eye on her?" Lucian changed the topic as he addressed this one that he’d intended to ask when he hadn’t seen Zane around the hall last night.

Zane cleared his throat at that question. He had not been around because he had left to attend to some business after that princess and her betrothed had ruined his meal. Moving away from the desk and sitting down on the chair in front of the table, he replied, "I was on the balcony as you ordered me, but the elder princess and her husband-to-be came there, so I had to leave," he said.

Lucian didn’t push the topic as he’d also had his eyes on Ave the whole night without needing Zane. Looking at the hourglass on his desk, where he had set the sand to know the time, he saw how it was going away faster, and yet the person he was expecting wasn’t here yet.

"Zane," Lucian called, and when Zane’s hazel-grayish eyes turned to look at him in question, he contemplated the words he wanted to ask and then decided against it, knowing Zane wouldn’t have the answers to that question when the man had never wanted anything as much as Lucian now wanted to keep a certain someone in his life.

"Is something wrong?" Zane inquired when the prince didn’t talk and resumed his pacing. He didn’t know what had come over Lucian, but he had been acting unlike himself the whole day. If it were before, when he knew a spy had been found in his palace, he would have headed there immediately and dealt with that person by killing them with his own hands.

But instead of that, he had ordered him to lock Lydia up in the dungeon for now until he was ready to kill her, and Zane had also walked into the chamber to find the prince drawing the curtains after he’d cleaned the chamber. He had been at a loss for words when he came in to see him. If he had been drinking water at that time, he would probably have choked to death at the sight of Lucian drawing his curtains, when he’d never liked his chambers to have any ounce of natural light.

Not just that, he had even asked Zane if he knew any good builders in the Empire that could build a skycreeper. Whatever the hell that meant, Zane had no idea.

He watched as Lucian stopped pacing and turned as if to answer him but then stopped all of a sudden as he tried to listen to something outside the door. Before Zane knew it, Lucian had flung his shoes away and leaped onto the bed, covering himself with the blanket.

"Tell her I have been this way since I came back to my chamber. I am sick and on the verge of dying," he ordered the bewildered Zane before he closed his eyes and pretended to be sleeping. Zane got up from his seat and was about to ask who Lucian was referring to when he heard a light knock on the door before it was pushed open. Then Ave walked cautiously into the chamber, and Zane’s eyes widened in realization of what the prince was up to.

"Hell’s teeth," he muttered under his breath in disbelief. No way in hell could he believe Lucian was doing this because he knew the lady was coming here... He should tell her he was on the verge of dying? Zane’s jaw went slack in disbelief.