The Cursed Prince's Strange Bride

As Alicia walked down the hallway to her bedroom, she heard someone call her name just before she took the last turn that led to her bedroom, and turned around to see Tyra, who still had a guilty look on her face. She guessed Tyra was here to apologize for how she ran away earlier today. She couldn't blame her for doing so.

"I'm sorry for leaving the way I did."

"You don't have to feel bad. I'm okay," she assured Tyra when she noticed that Tyra was still avoiding eye contact with her.

"Are you sure?" Tyra asked as she slowly raised her eyes to meet Alicia, and Alicia gave her a nod.

"But you don't look too well. Are you sure everything is okay?" She asked, sounding worried.

Alicia smiled gently at her. "I just feel very tired and exhausted. I can assure you that this has nothing to do with your brother."

"You should go in and rest. Curfew is starting soon." Tyra informed Alicia, who nodded and thanked her.

"Yes, thanks. Maybe you can show me to your bedro... chamber another time. I'm eager to see how it's decorated," Alicia said, and Tyra beamed a smile at her, happy that Alicia wasn't going to hold the incident earlier against her.

As Tyra walked her down to her chamber, she asked, "What was that about earlier? I mean, my brother in your chamber? What did he want?"

Alicia thought about it too. She had thought he was going to do something crazy, but he had simply led her out to show her what she was going to get herself into and also brought a balm for her hand.

"Nothing serious. Temper issues." She said, waving it off.

"I hope you two get along as soon as possible," Tyra said, smiling.

"I don't see that happening any time soon," Alicia said with a scoff as she opened her chamber door and walked inside.

That night, after the last bell rang, the whole palace plunged into darkness, and the night guards patrolled the palace. Some of the guards were patrolling indoors while most of them were outside the palace. However, there was a particular wolf that wasn't a night guard but was outside.

It was Harold, in his wolf form, staring at a particular window in the palace building from far away.

Any wolf who happened to bump into him scurried away as they wondered what he was doing in the vicinity. He was usually not seen at night.

Meanwhile, whenever Harold noticed that a wolf was approaching, he would take his eyes off the window and pace around. If any of the guards knew whose window he was looking at and reported it to the queen, she would assume he cared about his bride.

Just like every other night, his shifting was excruciatingly painful as he felt his entire bones break. For the first few years, he would shout and cry out in pain, but as he grew older, he learnt to live with it, but it didn't make it any less painful.

So that was how he watched her window for the rest of the night instead of going for a run like he usually did every night before she came here. Tonight, however, he was slightly concerned, wondering what was wrong with her. He had heard her tell Tyra that she was exhausted. Was that just it?

Standing there and keeping watch over her window, his mind drifted to his conversation with Paulina. Although she didn't seem to know much either, from the little he knew, which he had shared with Paulina, he had been able to convince her to speak. He wasn't proud of himself for threatening her into talking to him, but that seemed to be the only way he could have gotten her to speak.

"I want to help your mistress too, but I need to know some things. What do you think the king is going to do to the both of you when he finds out that he has been deceived and that she didn't grow up in the palace as they have been made to believe?" Harold had asked after she remained quiet for a while, despite his command for her to speak.

Paulina's eyes had rounded in fear when she heard that, and her entire book trembled from fear. If it wasn't prince Harold speaking, she would have probably asked how he knew about Alicia growing up in the mountains. Did her mistress disclose it to him?

Seeing the surprise and fear on her face, Harold continued, "Why does your mistress call herself Alicia Queen?" Harold asked again, and this time Paulina almost fainted from worry. Why was Princess Amber trying to get them both killed? How could she have said that name to Prince Harold?

"I... I..." She started crying for lack of something to say.

"I'm waiting," Harold said in an impatient voice, and she quickly dried her tears.

"She is Princess Amber. She only started calling herself by that name after she fell into a river and almost drowned to death," Paulina explained tearfully.

"If you lie to me, I'm going to kill you," Harold warned in a tone that made her step back involuntarily.

"I'm not lying. I'm telling you the truth," Paulina said in a shaky voice.

"She fell into a river? She can't swim?" Harold asked, watching her closely, and Paulina nodded her head.

Harold narrowed his eyes, "When did this happen? And where?"

"The river in the village close to the mou... Mountain. It happened two days before we traveled for your wedding," Paulina explained.

​

Was that why she had been walking in the woods alone the first night he saw?

"Before then, she never called herself Alicia Queen?" Harold asked, and Paulina nodded her head vigorously.

"What else changed about her?" He asked thoughtfully.

Why was he asking almost the same question that Alicia had asked? Perhaps if she explained to Prince Harold that her mistress wasn't always this stubborn, he might understand that something was wrong with her mistress and help them?

"Her character. She used to be very quiet and loved to keep to herself," Paulina revealed.

None of what she was saying made sense to Harold, but he kept listening to her, "What are her hobbies?"

"She... She always wrote poems in her journal, and... liked to take long walks by herself."

"Can she throw things? Like daggers?" Harold asked, and Paulina's eyes widened in alarm as she shook her head.

"She... She was never allowed to be with such things," Paulina said confidently.

Harold asked no more questions as he tried to process all that Paulina had said, "No matter what, you must not let her know that we had this conversation."

Everything didn't add up. He could still remember the shock on Alicia's face when she threw the dagger and it sank into his chest, yet she had lied about it being her hobby. What was she hiding? Harold wondered as he kept watching the window.

By morning, he was exhausted and wished he could sleep in like a normal person. But that was something he was not sure he was ever going to get. Resting was also impossible now since he had to have breakfast with the rest of the family. Exhausted, he did his best to freshen up and drank the potion Alvin brought him.

When he arrived at the hall to have breakfast with his family, just like last night, Alicia was nowhere in sight. Like last night, he had expected her to run in, panting like she had been chased by a ferocious predator, but even as time dragged, she didn't show up, even after the King and Queen were seated. He ignored Prince Ivan's useless questions, asking for his bride again and what he had done to her, and could see the concern in Tyra's eyes, wondering where Alicia was. But all of their questions were answered when Beth entered the room, bowed, and informed them that Alicia was ill and would not be able to join them for breakfast. From her tone and disposition, it was obvious to Harold that Beth wasn't pleased to relay the message to them.

"What is wrong with her?" The Queen asked curiously.

"I don't know." Beth had a feeling that the useless princess was lying that she was ill when a maid went to fetch her. She had also gone to her chamber and found the princess buried under a quilt, claiming illness. Since she could not force her to join the breakfast table, she only had to relay the message while gritting her teeth in anger and hoping for that day to come when she would be punished as she deserved and separated from Prince Harold.

"Instruct the royal physician to attend to her at once," the Queen ordered, and Beth bowed to them before leaving to do as she was told.

On hearing that Alicia was ill, Harold's first instinct was to stand up and leave the table, but he refrained from doing so. Doing that would only make them all think that he cared about her, and showing that he cared about her wasn't going to be good for either of them, even though he didn't really care.

All eyes moved to Harold, since some of them had seen him chase her around the palace the previous day, and those who didn't see them had heard of it, and they had all heard about how he had taken her to the place where prisoners were kept.

Harold looked back at them with a frown. "I didn't do anything to her," he muttered defensively, particularly to Tyra, who was seated opposite him and was looking at him accusingly since she was the only person who knew that he had been in his bride's chamber.

"You can go and check on her. She is your wife after all," the King suggested since there was no way Harold could leave without his permission when he was still seated.

"Her maids can take care of her," Harold said dismissively.

Princess Tyra wanted to say she would check on the Princess after breakfast, but as soon as she opened her mouth, a glare from her mother made her close it.

"I will check on her," Luciana said with a smile, thinking that it would be good to use this opportunity to get attached to Alicia.

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