Transmigrated Into The Body Of The Cursed Prince Wife
Chapter 197: Back from the war

Chapter 197: Back from the war

Covering her mouth with one hand to hold in her sob of guilt, she pointed toward the dead body at the door and choked out, "I killed her... I killed Madeline." She told him shakily as she searched his amber eyes to find the look of resentment or disdain in them at the fact that she had killed the only woman who would help him become the Emperor. She had not only ruined his chances of achieving his greatest goals, she had changed the future by killing Madeline.

Instead of the look of resentment Ave expected to find in his eyes, it was anger she saw. At first, she thought it was directed at her for the crime she had committed. She was surprised when he reached up his hand and tenderly cupped her cheeks. He used his thumb to caress her cheek as he looked down at her with warmth in his eyes.

"Did she stab you?" came his quiet question as he wiped away her tears. When Ave nodded her head and said, "She wanted to expose me as a witch, and I acted impulsively to stop her. She stabbed me and tried to escape, so I hit her in the head with... with a vase." She pointed toward the scattered vase by the door that was covered in blood.

Even if Ave hadn’t killed the woman when she stabbed her, Lucian was certain he would have when he returned. He never really liked Madeline and had been looking for ways to escape his marriage to her, and the fact that she had tried to expose Ave was enough to earn her death. However, he knew despite the fact that Ave was brave and bold, killing someone wasn’t something she was used to and was shaken by it now.

Looking down at the wound, he gritted his teeth in annoyance, wishing he could re-kill the princess for daring to stab his wife.

"Lucian, I am scared. What will I do if they know I killed her? Please help me, I need to get the body out of here before anyone starts searching the palace for the princess." Ave told him, her voice sounding steadier as she knew Lucian wasn’t judging her for killing someone out of self-defense. However, the guilt and regret eating at her didn’t lessen; taking another person’s life, despite their attitude, wasn’t justifiable to her.

Ave’s eyes went to the body, and she moved away from Lucian to walk there, but Lucian pulled her arm and drew her back to him, into his arms as he pressed his lips on her hair and said, "We will get rid of the body, but first, I have to attend to your injury before it gets inflamed. Come." He pulled her hand toward the bed, and though Ave was reluctant at first, she allowed him to lead her to the bed and sat her down at the edge of it.

She watched him take off his war armor suit and put it aside. He then stood before her in his inner gear, a loose cream shirt and loose black trousers. Even the inner shirt wasn’t spared from the blood that had dried on his face and neck, and now that she looked closely, he looked so exhausted and seemed to have lost weight from the last time she had seen him. She couldn’t help the guilt that tugged at her heart at the fact that she hadn’t allowed him to rest the moment he returned and had to involve him in her mistake of taking another person’s life.

"How did you know I was here?" she asked to distract herself from the guilt. She watched him walk up to a drawer and bring out a brown box before walking back toward her in long strides and sitting down beside her at the edge of the bed.

"My curiosity brought me here," he told her gently, causing her to frown at him in confusion.

Lucian wouldn’t have come straight to the main palace if he wasn’t here to personally bring back his unconscious brother, who had been hit even before the assassination attempt was successful or the war had begun. He had come here to personally tell the Emperor about what had happened and had been eager to go back to his palace to meet Ave when he’d seen Prince Aaron dragging Catherine, whose leg had been bitten off by his lioness, and was screaming at the top of her lungs.

Lucian had only spared them a glance and was about to walk away when he heard Aaron’s voice, filled with frustration, as he scolded the maid bleeding on the floor with torn flesh on her thigh. "You had me running to Consort Lyria’s old chamber, swearing you’d heard Maddie screaming and Selene sneaking in there, wasting my time on some—" Aaron trailed off as he acted like he had just noticed Lucian watching him and the maid and said,

"Oh, look who’s back from the war. I heard the alarm drums of your return. I can tell the battle wasn’t easy with how worn out you look. By the way, before you leave, can you take a quick look into your late Mama’s old chamber? This crazy maid claimed something she didn’t see. Maddie is probably sleeping in her chamber, but she claimed she saw Selene and heard Maddie’s screams from there." Saying those words to Lucian, Prince Aaron had walked away from him, whistling to himself, unbothered by the fact that he left a bleeding maid behind in the hallways of his chamber.

Lucian didn’t give a hoot about Catherine, who was crying. He brushed past her as well and thought to check his late mother’s old chamber to see what Aaron was talking about, mostly because he had said his wife was seen sneaking there when he knew he had told her not to come out of his palace.

By the time he reached the hallway of the chamber, his sensitive nose had picked up the strong smell of blood coming from the room. Lucian’s pace increased, and when he came to stand before the door, he perceived his wife’s scent in the room and then heard the loud beating of her heart coming from behind the door. He had tried to open the door, but when it didn’t open, he’d used his powers to unlock it from the inside.

Nothing had prepared him for the sight of her he saw in the room. She looked so scared and shaken, like a terrified rabbit hiding from its prey in a corner. He’d known someone was dead in the room, but he didn’t even realize it was Madeline as his own concern was only Ave, and as she looked at him in confusion of the words he told her now, Lucian smiled at her as he wordlessly reached out and began to unbutton the tiny buttons on the front of her dress while he asked,

"What were you doing that made Madeline believe you were a witch? Did you use your powers again?" He narrowed his eyes down at her, knowing that, even though he had warned her to be careful, she had risked her life by using the powers.

Ave shook her head, "I didn’t..." She trailed off as she stared at the mirror behind Lucian that had taken her into another world that afternoon and revealed something that would forever change the course of her life. Her panic and guilt after killing Madeline had overshadowed her discovery and made her not think too much about it, but now that Lucian was here and she felt a sense of protection from him, she glanced at him, where his hands were removing her buttons and his eyes were on her, waiting for her to tell him what she must have done to make Madeline suspect her.

"Did you know that our parents had always wanted us to be married even before we were born?" she asked with a bitter smile on her face as she watched a look of bewilderment cross his face. Unable to help herself, she reached out her hand and stroked his fine eyebrows, then traced her hand down to his cheek before she cupped his face, where he subconsciously leaned into her hand. Turning his head to the side, he pressed his lips into her palm, and Ave felt a surge of warmth go through her body and cause her heart to skip a beat.

He didn’t ask her what she meant because he knew she wasn’t done talking; instead, he looked into her eyes, urging her to explain what she meant.

"Lucian, I saw your mother today and... mine as well..." She began to tell him everything she had witnessed and what had happened from the time she had come into the palace to find out what the letter they’d sent from the camp said to the time she heard a voice calling her name. She told him about the soul swap his mother had performed, while keeping out the part where they said they couldn’t be together because she didn’t understand that part well enough to explain how she couldn’t be with Lucian because of his curse. It was irrelevant now that she was here and nothing terrible had happened to either of them.

Lucian stared at her unblinking as if he couldn’t believe what she told him. He didn’t look quite as surprised as she thought he would; instead, he seemed to be digesting everything with a calm facade as he looked deep in thought.

Lucian was surprised, it was just that he didn’t know how to react to this. No words could describe the unexplained happiness that bubbled inside his heart at the fact that Ave owned this body all along, and that he could allow himself to admire her the way he wanted without feeling compunction about the fact that he was getting attracted to a face and body that wasn’t hers.

From the day he had come to know that Ave was in this body, he had tried his best to always remember that he mustn’t get too used to her in it, as he believed one day they might figure out how to make her be in her own body without going back to the future, especially on the night he had taken her to that pond and she’d said he couldn’t like her when he didn’t know what she looked like. It would be a lie if he said he wasn’t happy to know that she was the real owner and that he had first fallen in love with her looks in their childhood and now her soul.

It seemed he had never really loved Selene; it was Ave all along that he wanted. She had been the one who made his heart beat faster and made him want to possess her, both body and soul. However, seeing the sad look on her face now, Lucian toned down his own happiness and slowly parted the front of her dress, which he had unbuttoned to be able to attend to her wound without the dress standing in his way.

He moved it gently down to her waist as he asked, "What’s wrong, my wife? You don’t like that you belong in a time like this?" He spoke with a hint of humor to lighten her mood, if that was why she looked sad. She smiled faintly and shook her head.

"No. I just realized something. When I was in the future, I’ve always felt detached from my body. My emotions felt like they were locked away, and I couldn’t experience the real joy of life. I had no contentment despite my achievements; my body was unfeeling to anything, physically and emotionally. And when I came into this body, every single feeling I had felt foreign, and I thought it wasn’t coming from me." She looked into his eyes, where he was staring at her and listening to her attentively, and she continued to tell him something she wouldn’t have ever told anyone before.

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