Celine blinked away her surprise, seeing Lucian lash out like that at her for the first time.
Her eyes softened, eyeing him in a daze before she came to her senses and realized she was acting like a smitten maiden in love instead of a rejected lady.
She coughed, clearing her throat and turning her attention to her knees.
"How can Edmund deal with the mess when he can barely move?" Celine suddenly spoke up, startling Lucian, "I should be the one dealing with it. How many survived? I have to contact them and regroup."
She set the marriage topic aside and returned to the present, her mind working as if she were trying to cut her losses and make a counterattack.
"He seems to have advanced his rank and is now capable of moving on his own," Lucian said, not wanting to tell her about Edmund's death. "You haven't slept for days, so I will be in charge of you until you are back on your feet."
"I feel like I'm missing something," Celine rubbed her temples, "Did the smoke get into my head? My lungs can't withstand as much as men...but I've trained my body for years to handle such situations..."
She looked down at the shirt and pants she was wearing, her eyes narrowing in confusion, "Why did you change my clothes?"
"Your bladder gave up on you. There, I said it," Lucian replied, hoping that the embarrassment would keep her from asking more questions.
It worked.
Celine hid her face in her knees, curling up into a ball. Her actions said she would rather be dead than live with the embarrassment of having wet her clothes in front of Lucian.
Lucian stroked her head gently, "I'm sorry. I tried to keep it a secret."
She slapped away his hand, "Not my husband yet. No touching."
"..." Lucian's hand hovered in the air, not sure what to do with it anymore, "I saved your life..."
"Should I reward you with my body regardless of who you are, just because you happened to save my life?"
Lucian pointed at himself, his mouth agape. She was right, actually. What if it were someone else who saved her? Would she have been grateful and willing to let them touch her?
"But I'm your Lucian and not just someone," Lucian pointed to himself.
"You can be anyone, but my body belongs to my husband from now on," she hugged herself tighter, "And I belong to him."
Lucian's lips quivered in an unspoken response.
"You are fine with just us staying together," she continued, "Alright then, I'm fine with just us staying together as well. No need to go further, right?"
An eyebrow joined Lucian's mouth in the quivering.
"No need to rush into anything, right?" she tilted her head.
"Right..." Lucian slowly nodded his head. He was digging his own grave with his words, and she was happily throwing dirt over his coffin.
At the end of the day, the reason why they were here today was due to her rushing things between them. What they had now was the result of her persistence to get what she wanted, and it would not be here if she didn't push for it.
The corners of her mouth lifted into a small smirk, as if saying, 'Serves you right, you hypocrite.'
He wanted to kiss off that smirk. It looked too cute not to kiss it.
Lucian could be quite convincing, but not enough to persuade someone of Celine's level.
He could reason all he wanted, she would respect his decision and go along with it, but not without taking advantage of the situation and getting something out of it in return.
They were so similar that it hurt. Her behavior reflected his own, like a mirror image, showing him how he truly was, not how he liked to imagine himself to be.
"Only my husband can look at me like that without getting their eyes gouged out," she was enjoying every second of Lucian's misery.
"You are cruel," Lucian looked away from her in embarrassment, "Mean."
"Loyal and loving," Celine corrected him, "Only towards my husband, of course."
Lucian turned his back to her, covering his face with his palm when she tilted to the side to see his reaction, "Go to sleep."
"In a presence of a non-husband, I am afraid not."
"..." Lucian couldn't believe he was feeling sorry for her just a while ago, and now was the one in need of mercy. His insides tingled in a weird way, making him feel alive, happy, excited, but also flustered and angry.
His smile widened, and he finally let out a long, hearty laugh. She hated being miserable, and would rather die than spend her days crying. So she did what she always did best: she took control over her misery, and turned it into her weapon.
"Go to sleep," Lucian repeated, "Your husband must be waiting for you."
"He better be," Celine whispered, finally closing her eyes to rest after she successfully cheered him up, "I'll make you pay for this."
Lucian made a small laugh at her sleepy threat, "Me? What have I done?"
"You took me hostage, instead of letting me live my dream," Celine's voice became weaker with each word, until she finally stopped talking.
Lucian took a deep breath, calming his heartbeat. It pained him sometimes to see her smile through her pain, but it was a beautiful thing to see.
Instead of a tragedy, she chose to make their story a comedy, a story of two fools in love.
He was grateful for it.
After that one breakup, they never parted on bad terms. It made them vulnerable to attacks from all sides.
They didn't want their last moments with each other to be filled with sadness and anger. So no matter how much they bickered or argued, they always had to make sure to reconcile before going on their separate paths.
They wouldn't be able to function normally otherwise.
Lucian's gaze returned to Celine. Of course, he wasn't fine with how things were between them. He wanted more. He wanted everything she had to offer. All of her.
She agreed to wait longer, but would the world wait for him before it tried to separate them?
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Meanwhile, thousands of Rochefort soldiers marched through the forest, stomping on everything in their way.
The ground was shaking, the trees were swaying, and the birds were flying away in fright.
And all Lucian could do was hide and watch as she was getting taken away from him.
The amount of helplessness he had felt in the past few days could easily fill an ocean.
He couldn't depend on Celine to lift him again, not when she was in a worse situation.
'War is definitely on the way.'
Instead of stopping it, Lucian was trying to figure out a way to profit from it.
'You can't win against time with honorable ways.'
And Lucian was running out of it.
Not only was time against him, but so was everything else. Power, authority, money, influence, reputation...
When people get cornered, they become desperate, and when they become desperate, they start to do things they normally wouldn't do.
Lucian was at his wits' end, and if this wasn't enough of a corner, he didn't know what was.
╔═══ Author's note ════╗
This chapter reminds me of a quote, "a hero in one story is a villain in another".
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