Transmigrated Into The Body Of The Cursed Prince Wife
Chapter 179: Unexpected

Chapter 179: Unexpected

Deep down, Lucian knew he shouldn’t have tricked her into marrying him without her knowledge, but he knew if he were to return from this war and were to marry Madeline, there was no way Ave would ever be his Empress or his wife; she could only be his concubine even if he were to marry her again. But now that he married her before anyone, she was his wife and would always be. He wanted her to have the right to his everything even if he didn’t make it back from the war; he wanted to have a reason to fight in that war to return back. With the thought of a wife waiting for him, nothing was going to stop him from returning.

Ave was at a loss for words as she stared at him, jaw slack. "We got married..." she muttered in disbelief. Though when they were doing all those weird things and Zane was instructing her to repeat the words Lucian spoke, she had suspected something to be fishy, but she hadn’t dwelled on it as her mind was only set on making her wishes come true so she could go back to her time. However, it had never crossed her mind that she was saying a wedding vow in a language she didn’t know. He tricked her into getting married to him.

Ave knew she should feel a sense of betrayal, but the fact that she didn’t feel that way surprised her. She didn’t know what to feel at this point and only stared at him. "Why?" she asked, perplexed. "Why did you do that?" She looked down at the bracelet on her wrist and the cut, then back at his face. She watched him lift his hands and cup her cheeks as they remained in the crouching position near the grave of his mother.

He wiped at the tears on her cheeks and then smiled bitterly. "Ever since the day you came into my life, Aveline, I couldn’t imagine a life without you anymore. I don’t know when and how it started, but you became a part of me I can no longer deny. I have never known what it is to desperately and senselessly want something until I met you. I want you as much as I love you. And for as long as you promise to stay by my side, I will give you everything your heart ever desired. My life included, I will—"

"Lucian, please..." Ave shut her eyes as she felt herself crumbling completely into his webs. She had no idea what love was or how one was supposed to know if they felt that way for someone, and for some reason she didn’t want to go deeper into her own feelings to search for a name for what she felt for him. For many years, she had been like a lifeless doll; her heart was solid as a rock and had never raced for anybody until she was in this body. Many emotions and feelings she experienced in the past days and weeks she was here were foreign. She didn’t know if her real self was even capable of feeling that, and it pained her to think that she wasn’t responsible for many of the things she felt—it was coming from Selene’s body...

"You don’t even know the real me to say those words. Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Lucian. You can never love someone you have never met..." she whispered brokenly as she stared at him with tear-filled eyes. "I am not Selene..."

A deep frown settled on Lucian’s face as he reached out to hold her, but she stepped away from him and hugged herself. "Take me back to the palace, and let’s forget this ever happened." She said as she wiped away her tears and the openness in her features disappeared, her expression hardening as she withdrew into herself. It was a subtle but unmistakable shift—she had shut down completely from him.

"Aveline, listen to me." He stood up when she did, and she turned her back as her dress from earlier returned to her body. He caught up to her before she could reach his horse. He hugged her from behind and pressed his lips against the crook of her neck while his arms hugged her midsection, pressing her back against him.

"You can’t change the fact that I am married to you now. That is something we can never forget that happened. I may not know what you look like, but I know you enough to have feelings for you. You are my wife now, Aveline. And whatever feelings I have, they are not for Selene but for you. It’s you I love, it’s you I want, it’s you I am married to now. I love you, I love your soul." He whispered achingly against her skin as he nibbled her neck.

Ave shut her eyes tightly and clenched her fists at her sides. If she followed the feelings of this body, she would turn around, hug him back, and also tell him how thrilled she was that he had married her. But this shell of a body she was in wasn’t hers. She was temporary in this world and would one day go back to her own world; their times were apart, and she missed her own body more than anything. Though she was starting to feel a sense of belonging in this body, it could never change the fact that it wasn’t hers, and she would only believe everything she felt for Lucian and he felt for her the day she have her own body back.

She felt him hug her even tighter from behind and kiss her neck and shoulder desperately. "Say something, my love. Don’t stay silent," he whispered pleadingly.

"I can’t..." she breathed out. "Please don’t make me, Lucian. I don’t think I feel the same for you. I don’t want to lie to you..." Because she couldn’t know unless she returned to her own body. She would be really disappointed if she got his hopes up and then one day succeeded in returning to her own time and body and realized everything was a lie. She didn’t want to cause him more pain than he had carried since he was young. He deserved better, and she wouldn’t be that better when she still desired to leave.

If she had only transmigrated with her own body and felt all these emotions, she would have considered the thought of staying and making a new home for herself in this time.

Ave felt his lips pause against her neck, and his arms loosened from around her midsection. The sudden absence of his body made her heart ache, but she didn’t dare turn to look at him and ran towards the horse to wait for him there. Her throat burned with emotions, but she didn’t let them out, at least not now. Not in his presence. She knew she had hurt him, but she didn’t want to see the hurt in his eyes.

Ave heard the rustling of clothes and knew he was putting back on his clothes, and when she heard his approaching footsteps, she stilled and wished she could ride on another horse. When he untied his horse wordlessly and came to stand behind her, she dared not move or turn for fear of seeing his eyes and realizing how much she had hurt him.

"Even though you don’t feel the same as I do for you, Aveline, I just want you to know that it doesn’t change the fact that you are now my wife, and I will do everything to win you over. You belong to me now, and I can be a very greedy and selfish man when it comes to people and things I like and care about." She heard him say at the same time he grabbed her waist and lifted her onto the horse. He mounted behind her before she could even settle properly, brought his arms around her, and took the reins.

He snapped the reins and kicked the side of the horse to get it to speed away. Ave sat as still as a rock; for the first time in her life, she couldn’t retort to someone or know how to react. She had thought that when he released her from the hug earlier, he had given up and was heartbroken, but it seemed her rejection was nothing to Lucian and had instead fueled his determination to win her over. What was there to win over when she wasn’t ever going to allow him to win for as long as she was in this body?

Ave decided not to even say a word. Tomorrow he would be gone to the war, and perhaps before his return, she would have found her way back home. He wouldn’t come back to find her, and whatever marriage between them would be broken when he married Madeline, that cunning bitch, who Ave hoped as hell would be a good wife and take care of him better than the other bitch Selene had done.

Deciding not to dwell on those thoughts that would make her waver even more from her plans, she dismissed them and instead endured the silence and the awkwardness between them with the fierce wind blowing against her face and over her hair, drying it completely.

They were still riding in the darkness of the forest roads that led to the palace when Lucian’s horse suddenly halted and neighed as it raised its front legs. Ave gasped as she thought they would be thrown off, but Lucian controlled the horse and held onto her so she wouldn’t fall off the side.

It was when the horse calmed down that Ave sensed something amiss in their surroundings, and Lucian seemed to also notice it as he cursed under his breath and tightened his hold around her waist. From each side of the bushes of the road, men in black rushed out and surrounded them with glimmering swords in hand. They began to circle them like predators cornering their prey, and Ave’s heart made a turn in her chest at the thought that they were being ambushed by assassins or robbers.

"Lucian..." She called his name with a sense of urgent panic as the men began to move closer to them. "We are surrounded," she told him as she grabbed his forearm in fear. She hadn’t rejected a love confession from a man she suspected she might like a little, only to return to her time without any guilt, but to end up dying at the hands of assassins!

Sensing her fear from her grip on his forearm, Lucian leaned down and whispered, "Don’t worry, I won’t let any harm come to you. I will get down from the horse and keep them away from you. Once I make a path, leave with Aziz and don’t turn back, understand?" He kissed the side of her neck and dismounted the horse before she could tell him not to.