The Cursed Prince's Strange Bride

After leaving Harold and Alvin, Alicia returned to join Luciana, who was waiting for her by the entrance of the royal garden, where she had agreed to meet her so that they could both have lunch with the Queen. She could not wait for this to be done and go find Harold since they both had something important to discuss. Or rather, she needed to ask him for a favour, and she had to do it in a way he wouldn't suspect it was part of her plan to escape.

If only she knew she had divulged every detail of her plan to Harold already, she wouldn't have been this confident.

She glanced at the guards who were standing by the entrance. They were the same guys who had been there the previous day. She briefly contemplated asking them if they knew what had transpired between her and Harold while she was drunk, but she doubted that they were going to tell her anything, so she decided not to waste her time.

Luciana smiled once she saw Alicia approaching her. "You have resolved the horse issue with your husband?" Luciana asked curiously, wanting to know if Alicia had succeeded.

"Yes. I told you he would agree," Alicia said with a confident smile as they both walked into the garden.

That seemed to get Luciana's attention, who stopped walking and faced Alicia.

Alicia realized Luciana wanted to ask her something, so she also stood and raised a questioning brow at her.

"How do you do it?" Luciana asked curiously, her confusion evident.

"Do what?" Alicia asked as she looked around the garden and noted that the queen was yet to arrive.

"How... do you make Prince Harold do whatever you want?" She asked with interest. Even she, who had a good relationship with her husband, could not always get Ivan to do what she wanted. But Amber was able to treat Harold the way she pleased and always got away with it.

"Do whatever I want?" She scoffed. "I wish."

If he did whatever she wanted, she wouldn't have been here by now. From the onset, he would have sent her back or at least agreed to let her escape.

"He wasn't always like this, you know?" Luciana said as she led Alicia to a table, and they both sat down, waiting for the queen to join them.

"What was he like?" Alicia asked curiously, even though she already had a vague idea from the rumours she had heard.

"You can't tell him I told you anything," Luciana said as she leaned forward in her seat while looking at Alicia earnestly and waiting for her to give her word.

"I have no reason to tell him about my discussion with you. We are not that close," Alicia said with a roll of her eyes. Although she knew that Luciana wasn't trustworthy and had an ulterior motive for coming close to her, she also knew that Luciana was eager to bond with her and would be more than willing to give her information about Harold.

Luciana looked at her skeptically before giving her a nod. "He used to be very cold and scary. He never talked to anyone apart from the King, Alvin, and sometimes princess Tyra," Luciana explained, reminding Alicia of something else she was curious about.

"He didn't like to stay around the palace either. He was always out. I think the only thing that interests him in this palace is the palace library. I heard he likes poetry."

"Harold? Poetry?" Alicia asked in disbelief.

"Dark poetry. Poems about the most painful way to kill. Those kinds of poems."

"That's more like it," Alicia said to herself before remembering about Amber's diary. Maybe he could help her understand the writing? She was lost in her thoughts until Luciana spoke up.

"So?"

She looked at Luciana, wondering what she was talking about.

"How do you get him to do what you want?"

"You mentioned something earlier. Why does he seem to have a bad relationship with the King?" Alicia asked curiously, ignoring her question.

Luciana's brows furrowed as she contemplated whether or not it was in her place to tell Alicia about that. She leaned even closer and said in a very low voice, that even werewolves would not be able to hear her from afar.

"All I can tell you is that his mother was a slave, and she died shortly after his birth. I think your husband feels that the king didn't protect his mother," Luciana explained in a whisper, and Alicia gave her a nod.

If she were to go by all the movies she had seen, she would bet that Harold's mother didn't die a natural death, and Harold probably knew about it; hence he was angry.

"And his brother? Did he really kill his brother?" Alicia asked in a whisper.

Luciana gave her a nod. "Yes. I can't give you the details either, since I wasn't there. But my husband told me Harold killed him. He was the older son and heir to the throne," she said cautiously.

"Hmm." Alicia pondered it. She wanted to ask Luciana if they thought Harold had killed him for the throne because she had heard something like that before, but she didn't dare ask that because she didn't want to put ideas into Luciana's head. If the prince had been killed by Harold because of the throne, why did Harold leave out Ivan, since he was next in line? Didn't that mean Ivan was his next target?

However, she didn't believe that. Harold didn't seem like the type of person interested in the throne to the point where he would kill his brother for it. There had to be something nobody was talking about.

"How long have you been living here?" Alicia asked.

"Since I got married into this Kingdom. Four years ago." She informed Alicia, who looked a little surprised.

"You got married four years ago? How old are you now?" She asked, not realizing how rude it was to casually ask people this question in this time and age.

Luciana was a bit flustered as she said, "I'm 21. I got married when I was 17."

"17? That's early. How did you cope? Did you like it here?" Alicia asked, taking on big sister duties, forgetting she was in the body of a 19-year-old girl right now.

Luciana looked at her, still flustered, especially seeing how concerned Princess Amber looked. It suddenly made her remember how she had rebelled about getting married at first and didn't want to leave her family, but her parents had insisted without caring about her happiness. All they cared about was marrying off their daughter to the heir of the Moon Kingdom.

She was lost in her thoughts when Alicia held her hands, bringing her back to reality.

"If you ever have a tough time, you can always come to me. I can guess you do not like me too much, but I will do my best to console you," she said, making Luciana emotional as she looked at the warm smile Alicia was giving her.

"I'm fine," Luciana said before pulling her hand out of her grasp, reminding herself that Princess Amber was supposed to be her enemy.

"It wasn't easy at first, but when I got here, I liked this place, and fortunately, my husband liked me, and I liked him too," she said with a sincere smile because that was the truth.

"Then that's a relief," Alicia said, smiling.

"Still, it must feel stuffy to be stuck in here all day. What do you think? Would you like to get out of the palace one of these days to see the market? You are going to like it," Alicia assured her, smiling eagerly at the thought of showing these people what real fun was. She couldn't wait to take Paulina and Susan out too.

Luciana, who had never thought about leaving the palace walls, was about to consider it when she saw the queen approaching, so she stood up immediately. Alicia noticed the queen and stood up as well.

The queen looked from Luciana to Alicia before sitting down, "How has your training been going?" The queen asked Alicia curiously.

"Very well. Princess Luciana is a better tutor than Beth," Alicia said, ignorant of the fact that Beth was the queen's person.

"I'm glad to see that you're both getting along. You both have to get along even though your husbands do not," the Queen said, giving them both a pointed look just as the maids came to serve them.

"Yes, my Queen," Luciana said with a bow, and Alicia did the same.

"How are you feeling now, Princess Amber?" The queen asked, and Alicia gave her a polite smile.

"I feel much better. Thank you for being so concerned, my queen," Alicia said with a bow.

"You seem to be getting along with your husband now," the Queen noted, causing Alicia to roll her eyes inwardly.

Why did it seem like everyone was interested in her relationship with Harold? What did her relationship with him have to do with them?

"We are still trying to understand each other," Alicia said with a small smile and then decided to change the topic since she doubted they would let it go.