Transmigrated Into The Body Of The Cursed Prince Wife
Chapter 195: Time with the dead body

Chapter 195: Time with the dead body

Ave stared at Madeline’s broken head, where blood had covered her entire face and pooled up under her body, and she felt her stomach twist into a knot, bile rising in her throat. She reached out a trembling hand to check if Madeline had a beating pulse, but when she found no beating pulse and her heart had stopped, the terror that washed over Ave was so much she fell back and leaned away from the body. She had killed someone. Not just anyone but a princess, who could have been the real Selene’s ancestor.

The pain of the stab on the side of her stomach was drowned out by her panic and alarm. She looked down at her hands that had bloodstains and tried to wipe it off against her dress. Though she didn’t like Madeline, she would never have thought of killing the girl because of it. She had acted impulsively to protect herself, but she’d never imagined the vase was strong enough to split her skull.

If anyone was to know what she did, nobody could save her from it. The Banzai, who seemed to dote on the princess like a precious flower, would stop at nothing until they have her head. She had killed their flower; she had killed someone who was supposed to have children and birth a generation that would lead to the future.

As Ave stared at the blood pooling up on the floor of the room, an image of dead bodies flashed and disappeared into her mind. She blinked as she tried to focus to see what the image was, but it disappeared completely like it wasn’t hers. What was that for? She wondered panickingly as she removed that imagination from her head completely to try to think about what to do with Madeline’s body before someone would come in and see what a murderer she was. They would behead her for sure.

If only Lucian was here, if only he would return, but she knew she was kidding herself at this point; Lucian was still unconscious somewhere, and she hadn’t even thought of ways she would heal him if he was brought back.

Biting the inside of her cheek, she looked down at the purple bracelet around her wrist that had passed down the hands of three people before it came to her. It originally belonged to her real mother, and now it was something given to her by the man she was married to as a token of their marriage. Seeing the faint scar of their wedding cut, Ave felt her throat tighten with emotions. If only Lucian was here, he would have helped her in such a situation, but now that he wasn’t, she had to help herself or stay here until she got caught.

Thinking quickly, Ave decided to hide the body in this room and leave, but then realizing that the girl deserved better than rotting away in a room no one comes in, she decided to leave for now and lead someone here. If they didn’t see her around the body, no one would know she was here and had killed the princess. Besides, they do not have the technology to check fingerprints and all that would lead to the murderer; no one would suspect her because they didn’t see her here.

Ave nodded her head in agreement to her thoughts like she was talking to someone. She knew this would probably haunt her for life, but she didn’t want to think about all that for now. She hastily began to stand up when she heard footsteps outside the door and froze.

"Your Highness? Where are you?" came a voice Ave recognized as Catherine’s outside the room. She wasn’t alone, Ave noted, when another voice questioned.

"Are you certain you heard her screaming?" It was Prince Aaron, whom Catherine had rushed to go and call after she heard the princess screaming for help.

"Yes, Your Highness. I heard her. She must have been attacked by that savage Selene!" she accused, her voice not hiding her resentment towards her stepsister.

Aaron’s eyes narrowed down at the maid; he tilted his head to the side to study her for a moment before he asked, "What made you think she was attacked by Selene when Selene isn’t in the main palace as we speak?"

"Selene is in the main palace. She hasn’t left yet. Princess Madeline and I were taking a stroll outside when we saw Selene come into the palace. Her Highness wanted to talk to her about something and went after her while I stood at the end of the hallway on her words, but she hasn’t come back yet, and I heard her scream just a few moments ago. Selene must have done something to her!" Catherine said with certainty.

She had been standing guard at the hallway as Madeline wanted to be sure that Selene wouldn’t escape them so easily while they spied on her. When Catherine had first heard the princess’s scream, her first thought was to go and take a look, but knowing how crazy Selene had become lately, she had gone to get the princess’s brother.

"If you claimed that Maddie is here, where is she now? Why can’t I hear her screams?" Aaron asked with an arched brow, and when the maid looked around the hallways and saw no signs of the princess nor Selene, she turned to him again to speak, but Aaron cut her off. "Did you know that you interrupted my afternoon tea time with your baseless accusations and assumptions? I do not take it lightly when I get interrupted," he remarked with a nonchalant air around him that made Catherine nervous.

However, certain that the princess was here in one of the rooms and that Selene must be holding her down or had even done worse than that, she said, "I am not accusing Selene, Your Highness, I am certain of it. And I will prove it to you," she said as she hurriedly began to open one door to the other to see if the princess was in one of the abandoned rooms of this hallway.

Ave, who had turned as still as a rock when she heard the exchange between the two, bit down hard on the inside of her cheek when she heard Catherine’s footsteps stop before the door of the room. When Ave saw the door knob turn, her heart dropped to her stomach, and her eyes widened. She didn’t know she was holding her breath until she saw how the door didn’t budge as she’d magically locked it from the inside when Madeline was about to run.

"This room is locked from the inside, Your Highness. None of the rooms are ever locked before, especially this one. It used to belong to the late third consort before she was made into a consort and was given her own quarters, and I am certain someone is inside now," Catherine said with certainty as she bent down on her knees to peek down between the gap under the door. She had a feeling the princess and Selene were in this room, and she needed to prove to this prince that Selene was nothing but a witch who had done something to harm his sister.

Catherine closed one of her eyes to focus on what was on the other side of the room through the gap. Her vision wasn’t that clear, but she thought she saw something or someone lying on the floor, and that made her even more than certain. She raised her head up to tell the prince only to gasp when she saw him crouched down beside her, his intense dark eyes boring down at her angrily.

"Your Highness!" She yelped in pain when he suddenly reached out and grabbed her throat, his fingers tightened around it like he would choke the breath and soul out of her. His expression hardened like stone, and his eyes darkened.

"You don’t seem to realize how your jealousy is making you go crazy, do you, Catherine? You hate Selene and thought that you can make up some nonsense about her being here, and I will believe it. You manipulated my darling sister to play your own dirty games and bring down Selene, and thought you could do the same to me? Tsk," he clicked his tongue in annoyance as he tightened his grip around her neck even more before he released her and got up to his feet.

Coughing and rubbing her burning neck, Catherine looked up at the prince with teary eyes as she tried to catch her breath on the floor. Before she could do anything or say more, he glared murderously down at her and spoke coldly,

"For your insolent behavior of interrupting my afternoon, I will punish you with the honor of feeding Annala in her room. She has just given birth to two cubs this morning and didn’t get the chance to come out for her meals; she must be starving by now. Come with me, you will go in and feed her," he told her as he started to walk away from the hallway.

Catherine’s eyes widened in horror. Last night, when the lioness had been in labor and a servant had gone in to feed her, the servant had come out with an arm missing, screaming. The animal was said to have turned even more aggressive than she had been in the past because of her cubs, and the prince ordering her to feed it was no less than offering her as its meal!

Catherine didn’t immediately get up from the floor, and the prince stopped walking and turned his head over his shoulder to say, "Are you going to get up from there, or should I personally bring Annala to you here?" he deadpanned, and she snapped up to her feet, trembling and fidgeting.

"Y-your Highness, please forgive me! I didn’t mean to interrupt your afternoon tea," Catherine pleaded as she followed behind him, her hands wrinkling nervously in front of her.

Aaron’s eyes didn’t reveal any emotions as he said, "You should have thought about that before including my sister in your nonsense."

When their footsteps faded away in the hallway, Ave fell back down and leaned against the wall with her eyes closed and hands clutched to her beating heart. At this rate, she might have a heart attack if care wasn’t taken with how much she was being thrust into heart-wrenching situations. She couldn’t imagine what would have happened had Aaron listened to Catherine and opened the door. It was said he doted on his sister more than anyone; he wouldn’t hesitate to kill her if he knew what she’d done.

And now that he seemed to believe she didn’t come into the main palace today, she couldn’t possibly go out now. If she left this place, bleeding on her side, someone would surely notice her, and questions of how she had gotten stabbed would arise. That wouldn’t only lead to someone believing or suspecting she had been in a fight with someone but would also confirm she had killed Madeline if her body got discovered in this room.

One thing was certain: she couldn’t leave this room while the day was still bright and everyone was probably out for their afternoon stroll. Glancing towards the unmoving body of Madeline, Ave swallowed hard as she settled herself to sit down at the side and wait for nightfall. She pressed a hand to her side to stop the bleeding of her wound, and she grimaced in pain.

"Damn it...she really stabbed me deeply," she groaned as her hand came in contact with the warm, sticky blood.

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