Transmigrated Into The Body Of The Cursed Prince Wife-Chapter 276: Friendship (part 2)

"How is she now?" he asked hesitantly after a few moments of silence.

Lucian knew who he was asking about because Zane’s face became remorseful. "She’s recovering amazingly," he assured him and watched as he sighed in relief yet again before saying, "Tell her I am sorry and—"

"You can tell her that yourself," Lucian cut him off as he got up from his chair behind the desk and perched on its edge, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched Zane’s eyes round.

"You’re all right with me seeing her?" he asked, taken aback as he was certain of how Lucian was overprotective of his wife and could get pettily jealous at times.

Lucian shrugged. "As long as you are only seeing her to apologize, I don’t have a problem with that."

After that, the two fell silent until Zane broke the silence again. "I heard the men haven’t located the Empress’s whereabouts up until now. They said it’s as if she has disappeared into thin air. Where do you think she might be hiding?"

Lucian’s expression slightly turned grim at the mention of that cunning witch. He had also received the news of how her whereabouts were still unknown to anyone.

"I don’t know. Rylan will be here for the coronation. If we don’t find her before then, we can use Rylan’s powers to locate her and fish her out," he said, while deep down, he hoped the Empress wouldn’t be plotting something evil to get back at them for taking back the control she once had.

She had been the one to play with fire for years, and when it finally burned her, she would blame the fire and not herself for the loss it caused her. Knowing how she was, Lucian had a feeling she would want to get back at him yet again.

"I have doubled the men around the palace and also made sure no one goes in or out without identifying themselves to the soldiers," Lucian told Zane.

"If you will not mind, Your Highness, I can take up the duty of guarding your wife every hour of the day if she’s not with you. I can—" Zane began, trying to make amends for his failure to protect Ave in Nazia. However, Lucian chuckled and scratched the back of his head, cutting him off. Zane immediately recognized the gesture—it was the prince’s tell whenever he was planning something Zane would likely disapprove of.

"You’ve thought of something else for me to do before the coronation, haven’t you?" Zane asked with a sinking feeling, dreading what it might be.

"Well, it’s not exactly my idea," Lucian admitted. "But when I think about it, Zane, you really are the best man for this task."

"And what is it?" Zane asked, arching a skeptical brow.

"You need to travel south to bring back the first princess before the coronation," Lucian said, trying to maintain a serious expression as he noticed Zane’s immediate look of disapproval.

Zane began shaking his head. "I’ll do anything but that, Your Highness. I’m not the best man for this. There are plenty of soldiers who could make the trip, or better yet, her damned brother could handle it himself! You should’ve seen how he looked at me just this morning. All I did was try to help him when he stumbled after leaving the dining hall. He glared at me and said, ’Take your damned hands off me before I cut them off!’ If he has the energy to throw threats at someone who only wanted to help, then he has the energy to fetch his sister himself! You—oh, hell, will you stop laughing and at least try to see my side of this?!"

Zane finally lost his temper when the prince refused to stop laughing and threw something in Lucian’s direction. Lucian dodged it effortlessly, though his laughter ceased as he straightened up and glared murderously at him. Zane, realizing his mistakes of disrespecting a royal, immediately bowed in apology.

Just as Zane began to rise, something smacked him squarely in the face, followed by an explosion of laughter from Lucian that shook the walls of the study.

"You never let your guard down when we were little!" Lucian managed through peals of laughter, leaning back on the desk and clutching his belly.

Zane stood frozen, his dumbfounded expression enhanced by the ink brush thrown at him that had splattered black ink across his nose and dripped down his lips. For a moment he’d thought he’d crossed the line and had angered the prince.

Zane couldn’t help but smile as he watched Lucian. He could still remember when they were little boys with not much worry about life. They would always fight like real brothers, throwing and dodging things at each other. It was when Lucian became cold, aloof, and was forced in his teenage years to grow into a mature man by life that Zane knew the friendship between them could never be like before.

He began to treat Lucian formally and even addressed him formally. Not until now had he ever seen the prince laugh like this with him or even throw things like when they were boys.

Raising his hand, he touched the ink on his nose, and before he could hold himself back, he also began to laugh until his eyes moistened.

He had Ave to thank for the changes she had brought to the prince. She was like a spark of light in the darkened world of the prince; she had slowly brightened his life and heart, and he was slowly returning to the Lucian Zane once grew up with and shared a room with.

"I’ll be serious with you, Your High—"

"You can call me Lucian when it’s just us. Drop the formality," Lucian said after their laughter had subsided. He didn’t know why he had never insisted Zane call him by his name when he started calling him "Your Highness" after his mother died, but now that he thought about it, he wanted that old friendship back.

Zane hesitated just for a few moments before he nodded his head and tasted the name on his tongue. "Lucian..." It sounded foreign to him because he hadn’t dared use it in a long time.

"What were you saying?" Lucian arched a brow for Zane to continue his rant about being the one to go and bring back the princess.

"I really don’t think I am the right man for it," Zane grumbled.

"Why?"

Why? Zane thought. Why was he so unwilling to go and bring her back? What was it about that princess that disturbed him so much?

She had the most innocent pair of eyes he’d ever seen, grey like gloomy skies yet undeniably enchanting in a way that it made people want to stare into their depths and bask in the warmth of her lovely gaze, but when he recalled all the things her brother had done to him in the past, he just couldn’t bring himself to want to have anything to do with the two siblings, especially the princess.

And most especially with the fact that he’d just happened to think of her eyes as lovely all of a sudden as if he had no choice but to admit that he’d always seen that in her. She made him uneasy whenever she looked at him with those gray eyes, and his uneasiness made him want to stay as far away from her as possible.

His refusal to go and get her back had nothing to do with how Alden had treated him just a while ago, but had so much to do with his own personal feelings about her.

She had been married to another man for a month now, and though that seemed to disturb him in ways he did not want to know, he just did not think he was ready to look into those eyes of hers again and let her mess with his senses and temper after he had momentarily forgotten about her.

He could still recall the strange emotions she had stirred in him after the day they were all gathered in the doomed palace kitchen and she’d cut her hands.

He had been genuinely worried about her, and later, when he thought about it, he felt stupid for having such feelings. When he went to bed that night, he had seen her tearful eyes in his dreams and heard her apologies in his mind.

She had haunted him for days, and it wasn’t until they left Pendragon that he’d managed to remove her from his thoughts completely. And now Lucian wanted him to go and bring her back. He would be forced to meet her again and see those innocent eyes that had haunted him for weeks on end.

He liked his life the way it was now and didn’t want anybody, apart from Lucian, of course, to mess with it. His loyalty laid only on the second prince and he wanted nothing to do with the other royal family members.

The first princess had always looked at him like a hawk, even when they were little, and he’d pretended not to notice because he hated all the Pendragon Royals back then. Now that his hatred for them had subsided, he still didn’t want her to disturb his life or his peace of mind.

He wanted to avoid her as much as possible. But then, would Lucian allow him to refuse?

"I will not force you to go if you do not want to, Zane," Lucian said when he noticed his friend’s expression. He then continued, "But I wish you would. Apart from you, I don’t trust any of the other soldiers not to keep whatever they find out there a secret. She has been married to this man for a month now. I’m afraid she wouldn’t be the same again, and worse, she might be with his child. This would cause a big scandal that will ruin her future, and Alden wants to avoid that as much as possible. The minister will also be taken under arrest. I don’t trust anyone to do this job better than you. If I didn’t have my wife to worry about, I would go bring back my sister myself."

Zane thought about everything Lucian said to him. He didn’t want to meet the princess again, but then something inside him clenched and snapped at the realization of how she had been forced to go with another man who was older than even her own father. Her gray, smiling eyes flashed to his mind, and his hands clenched into fists. He didn’t realize when he said,

"I will go. I will bring her back and deal with the old bastard!"

Seeing the determined look on his friend’s face, Lucian smiled. "Thank you." It seemed his wife was right to have given him the idea of sending Zane. "I have something for you after you return."

Zane nodded without giving too much thought to whatever Lucian had for him. "I will go and start preparing for the journey. I’ve heard how the snow in the south is much more than here. I will need one of Harry’s invented tents for the princess, if you don’t mind?" Zane asked.

"Of course not. I will give it to you. You can take it from the armory in the doomed palace." Lucian gave him permission to take whatever he would need for his journey. And then they talked about a few important things before Zane left to go and start preparing. Not seeing why he should remain in the study when he knew his wife must have woken up by now, Lucian smiled to himself and returned to his wife as he had to discuss with her his plans for Zane and also eat lunch with her.