Transmigrated Into The Body Of The Cursed Prince Wife-Chapter 284: Changes he noticed

Ave sent Lucian’s lunch to him through a servant as she needed to go and check on Princess Thalia, who she had just learned the moment she left their chamber had refused to speak to her other sisters, who came to welcome her.

The twins had said she’d walked past them when they tried to talk to her and went straight to her chamber after she parted ways with her elder brother. No doubt she was still angry about the fact that they had left without her that day.

When Ave reached the princess’s chamber, she knocked on the door a few times, and when there was no reply from the inside, she turned the doorknob and realized it was locked from the inside. She called her name, and when the princess didn’t reply, Ave decided to leave her be for now.

Perhaps she wanted to be alone to think. She’d gone through a lot in their absence and had been forced into a marriage she didn’t want. Though Ave would like to console and explain to her how they had managed to leave without her, she knew when not to disturb someone’s alone time.

There would be a royal dinner this night, and Thalia would have no choice but to be there as all the family would be eating together now.

With that thought, Ave left the chamber and decided to check on Lucian since she didn’t want to give in to the sleep that was drawing her in. She had become lazy lately, and she hated that. There were many things to do in the palace before the coronation, and she had told Lucian she would take charge of everything while he focused on the other works, but she had not been able to do anything so far but choose the theme decorations for the banquet after his coronation.

Ave reached his study room and knocked twice before pushing the door open but stopped at the threshold at the sight that greeted her. Lucian sat behind his desk, his head bowed over a stack of documents piled high in front of him. His hair was disheveled, strands falling messily around his face as though he had repeatedly run his fingers through it. The room was cloaked in near darkness, the heavy drapes tightly drawn, with only the faint glow of a single lamp illuminating his workspace.

His long, slender fingers gripped the quill he used to scribble notes and sign papers, while his untouched lunch sat off to the side, forgotten. He was so absorbed in his work that he didn’t notice her presence until she strode to the window and pulled the curtains open, flooding the room with natural light.

Lucian’s head jerked away from the documents abruptly at the sudden brightness. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and opened them again to see his beautiful wife standing in front of him.

He had been too absorbed in his thoughts to notice her come in, something that never happened. Though he might appear like he was working, his mind was barely on the documents as he was lost in the constant thought that always plagued him. The Empress.

She had not been found, and no traces of her. Not even Rylan had been able to track her when Lucian sent a message to him with his witch powers to help him look for her whereabouts. Rylan had said something was blocking his powers from tracking her down.

She must have sought out another black witch’s powers to hide herself from being found. Rylan had set out on the journey to come to the imperial palace and try again, but he hadn’t arrived yet. They needed to find her as soon as possible because Lucian would never be at ease until she was eliminated as well and every threat to his wife’s existence was gone. He couldn’t afford to let what happened the other time happen again.

His Ave had gone through a lot, and he wanted nothing more to threaten their now peaceful life together.

Lucian knew he had placed men to protect his family, but he couldn’t help but worry about what the woman was up to and when she would decide to attack. After losing everything, she surely wouldn’t accept defeat that early, and that was what worried him so much that he could barely concentrate on anything he was doing.

"Do you need something, love?" Lucian questioned with a smile on his face at the same time he moved his chair back from the desk to make space before he reached out and pulled her down on his lap because he needed that physical closeness to feel reassured that nothing would take away his life and happiness. Having her close almost seemed to work, and feeling her soft rump against his lap seemed to ease away his worries.

Ave didn’t bother to get up from his lap when he pulled her onto it; instead, she made herself comfortable and turned to glare down at him in disapproval. "What do you think I want for coming here?" she said with a scoff, and he grinned as he suddenly reached his hand down her waist and grabbed her hips to place her squarely on the bulge that had formed against his trousers. He ground her down on him and watched her face heat up.

"Isn’t that why you are here? Just like the last time?" he whispered in her ear teasingly as he nibbled her earlobe. The last time she had been in his study to get him off the work he was doing, they had both ended up doing something more interesting on his desk, and from the flush on her face, he knew she recalled the day.

Ave slapped his shoulder and moved back to avoid his teeth nibbling her ear. "You’re a big pervert!"

Lucian chuckled in amusement. "Am I?" he drawled as he began to loosen the strings of her dress after she nodded at his question. "Then let me show you how perverted I can get when it comes to you." He slipped his hand into her blouse after loosening the strings and palmed her breast, kneading and stroking with a smile on his face, a smile that slowly transformed into a frown, making Ave, who was arching against his palm, question,

"What’s wrong?"

She smoothed back the locks of hair falling on his forehead and ran her fingers against the frown and his nose bridge as he seemed to be checking for something in her breasts as he transitioned from one to the other, with that same frown not falling away.

Lucian’s hand stilled for a moment, his frown deepening as his amber eyes flickered up to meet her blue ones. "They feel... different," he murmured, his voice soft yet inquisitive. His thumb traced a gentle circle over her areola and nipple, as though testing his observation and the changes he was noticing today.

Ave’s breath hitched for a moment, her heart involuntarily thundering in her chest. She had become aware of every little change in her body after the physician told her about her pregnancy, and she had associated every change now with it, especially her breasts. She hoped her husband wasn’t educated to that extent to put two and two together and figure it out himself. But just to be safe, she cupped his cheeks.

"Different how?" she asked casually.

He tilted his head slightly, his wandering hand weighing and cupping her breast in his palm with a serious look on his face. "Softer, fuller," he said slowly, his fingers brushing against her with an almost sensational touch that made her bite the inside of her cheeks to hold back a little moan. "And warmer, too. Is something wrong with you? Are they swollen for some reason? I heard the physician came to our chamber this morning; are you sick?" he asked, slightly alarmed about it.

The men he kept to stand around his wife and their chambers in his absence had reported to him about the physician being summoned when he asked them to report his wife’s activities to him. He asked to feel close to her even when he was many corridors and hallways away from her. He had been surprised and alarmed about the physician visiting her because he was certain she had recovered completely from everything; her wounds had begun to fade.

Unless it had something to do with how she had thrown up last night at supper, he’d panicked and almost killed the kitchen cook as he’d almost believed they’d poisoned her, until he realized the others had eaten it and nothing had happened.

She had said it was because the chicken soup wasn’t prepared the way she liked it, and something in it triggered her to vomit. She had looked fine after that throwing up that he had not bothered to call the physician as she said she was fine. And this morning, when he heard that she’d summoned him, he’d sent his guard to call the old man. He had questioned him about why he visited Ave, and he’d told him.

"It’s nothing, Your Highness. The princess called me to check on her maidservant who sprained her ankle while carrying a bucket of water."

Lucian had no reason to doubt the man’s words and had dismissed him and resumed his work as he knew how Ave worried about Lydia like she was her sister and would get the royal physician to treat her regardless of how small the injury might be, just like she would even allow her to ride in the royal carriage.

She was that generous and considerate. But now that he felt the difference in her breasts and how it seemed like it was swollen, he couldn’t help but worry that she might have been sick and was hiding it from him. He sensed the skip in her heart when he told her the changes he noticed.

Ave chuckled to hide her nerves, then she pulled his hand away from inside her blouse. "If I am sick, why will it affect my boobs? Do I look sick to you? Aren’t you the one who keeps feeding me more than usual at every meal we eat? My boobs are growing naturally, don’t you want them to grow?" She arched her brows in question as she began to tie back her string while making a mental note to not allow him to touch her anyhow he used to before to hide whatever changes that might make him suspicious of what she was hiding.

He shrugged at her question. "I don’t care for as long as it’s yours."

Ave laughed. "The changes are natural; I am not sick." She assured him as she stroked his hair and face.