Transmigrated Into The Body Of The Cursed Prince Wife
Chapter 163: Run away to another kingdom

Chapter 163: Run away to another kingdom

After adjusting her dress, he leaned down and kissed her mouth, where Ave could still taste herself on his tongue. He moved away as quickly as possible before the kiss could go far and gave her space to breathe without breathing in his scent. When he was no longer close to her and was now sitting at the edge of the bed to cool himself down and his erection, which was hurting from how hard it had grown, meanwhile, Ave stared blankly at the ceiling without sitting up.

She couldn’t believe she’d allowed their kissing to go this far, and even more so, she couldn’t believe how much her body had responded to him and how much she’d enjoyed it. She’d heard of men pleasuring women in this way, of course—these things weren’t exactly secrets in her time. But she’d always dismissed them as more of things that would never apply to her.

Between her drive to be successful and her own reserved nature among the opposite gender, intimacy had just never felt relevant. She’d always brushed it aside, focusing instead on her ambitions and maintaining a managed online presence that revealed only what was useful for her career.

Sexuality was something she’d known about but never dwelled on; and most certainly, not something she’d imagined herself experiencing. Yet now, faced with the reality of this intimate act from a man who lived in an era so far removed from hers, Ave felt a rush of emotions she hadn’t expected. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes, overwhelmed by how intensely she’d responded to him and her shameless cries for more. She felt an embarrassing flush rise in her cheeks, leaving her at a loss for words or what to do next.

"What is this?" She was still contemplating how to stand up and bolt from the room when she heard Lucian’s question and turned to see him holding a sheet of parchment she had written the list of ingredients on. Grateful for such a distraction, she hurriedly sat up on the bed and cleared her throat. "It’s the list of the ingredients I will be needing for the meals I planned to cook for the queen mother of Chen. I wanted to give it to you so you can pass it to Hugo to get them for me..." she muttered as she adjusted her dress even properly.

Lucian briefly noticed how she avoided his eyes as she spoke, as if she was still shy. Didn’t she say she wasn’t and never got shy? he thought in amused disbelief. He looked down at the list and saw the ingredients she wrote down; she had pretty handwriting, he noted as he read through them.

"Cheese?" he questioned as he looked at her. "What is that?" he asked, as he didn’t think they had that and many other things she wrote down here in their lands.

Ave couldn’t ask for more distraction than he was already providing her with. She sat down with her legs crossed in an Indian style and faced him to explain. She told him what it was and saw him frown. "What is it made from?" he inquired curiously.

"Milk, of course. You don’t have it here, do you?" she asked, a feeling of dread already settling in the pit of her stomach as she needed cheese in order to make pizza and many more things she had listed for the queen mother that day. Not one single dish should be missing; the woman had warned her. And she must cook everything and present them to her after the ceremony.

Lucian shook his head. "We don’t. Not just that, we don’t have vegetable oils and many other things you wrote down here," he told her as he looked at the list again and then back at her panicked, sickened face.

"Heavens! I’m doomed," she exclaimed in exasperation and panic. She didn’t want to end up being taken to the Chen kingdom for her lack of staying true to their bargain. "Then what do you use to cook here? Do you at least have butter?" she asked with a nervous laugh, but when she saw him shake his head, she almost ripped off her hair in frustration. She should have asked about all this before she went to make that bargain with the queen mother that day. How was she going to make the dishes when they didn’t have the important ingredients?

"Then what do they use to cook here if there is no vegetable oil or butter?" she asked, holding her breath and hoping whatever they use might be of help to her.

Though Lucian had no idea about cooking and how it was done, he knew as much about what they used because of his mother, who had liked experimenting with different ingredients to give the cooks in the kitchen back then while she would send him to deliver them to the kitchen cooks. "Olive oil or pig fat," he told her.

Ave’s stomach knotted at the mention of pig fat. She wasn’t a fan of pork meat even in the future, and the fact that all those bland meals she had been eating were made with the fat explained a lot. She massaged her aching forehead as she decided to make do with whatever ingredients she could find, which meant she would have to look for one way or another to go to the market herself to see what they had there. But before that, she asked Lucian,

"I hope you have milk here?" She would make do with it as well and refine it into cheese, which would take a lot of time and energy. When he nodded his head, she was going to sigh in relief when he said,

"But milk is as precious as ice in our land. You can’t get access to it without the Empress or Emperor’s permission. The cows here don’t milk as often and die often, so we only have no more than five cows in the palace barn and no more in the entire Empire." He explained to her as he watched her, uncertain of her reaction, and he saw as her eyes widened, then she threw herself back on his bed and exclaimed in defeat, "Just kill me!"

She could never dare to go to the Empress to request such a thing. She was trying to help Lucian gain the favor of the Chen without letting her know; going to her would be as good as giving her the opportunity to sabotage their plans, just like in movies where the villains would try to ruin the heroine.

Ave stared at the ceiling in misery as she began to imagine her life in Chen if the woman were to stay true to her words and take her there. She hadn’t even learned to adjust completely to this Empire, not to mention another kingdom. Pursing her lips, she turned to Lucian, who looked to be in thoughtful silence beside her, and inquired,

"Tell me, is King Ling of the Chen kingdom as brutal and heartless as I’ve heard? Is it true that he would gut out whoever dares to disrespect his mother?" She would rather prepare beforehand, as it seemed she had no way of making the dishes when there were no complete ingredients. But the thought of being dragged there almost made her sob and cry out.

Lucian, who was already making plans of ways to get her milk, heard her question and turned to her with a frown, wondering why she looked like someone on the verge of tears. "Yes. He is. He won’t only gut out a person who disrespects his mother but feed their bodies to the wild wolves they say he keeps in his palace," he told her and watched as her face turned ghostly pale and she bolted upright on the bed as she muttered almost to herself,

"I think it’s time I ran away from here. I made a bargain with his mother for your sake, but it seems I’ve made a huge mistake. She’s going to take me back with her if I don’t make and present to her all the list of dishes I gave her." She panickingly jumped out of the bed without even turning to look at Lucian as she made her way towards the door, but before she could take more than three steps from the bed, he had caught her wrist and pulled her back to sit beside him on the bed. However, Ave’s mind and thoughts were too disoriented and scattered all over the place to think straight. She stood up again to leave, but he pushed her back down onto the bed.

Nonetheless, she still attempted to stand up and leave, but this time, he pulled her onto his lap and held each side of her waist with his hands to keep her down on his lap. "Aveline?" He called her name, and she looked at him with terrified blue eyes and a face that looked so lost as she used her hand to touch her throat. "He’s going to kill me..." she muttered with a pout as her eyes filled with tears of terror.

"Calm down and listen to me," he caressed her waist in a relaxing gesture with his large hands that were enough to grab her waist without leaving any space from how slim it was in his muscular hold.

"Listen to you?" She glared at him impatiently. "If you don’t have a solution to this, please let me go and start searching for another kingdom to run to before the day the guests depart from here. I am not ready to die; I have a long life ahead of me and a beautiful world to return to. You..." She stopped mid-speech as Lucian used his finger to press down on her lips to stop her rambling.

"Listen to me at least," he whispered softly. Though he felt a prick in his heart from her words of still wanting to return to her world, he didn’t let it show because he was certain that as long as she was with him and he lived, she wasn’t going anywhere. She was going to be his future Empress and the mother to his heir, as he’d planned.