~HEARTS & FANGS~

62: DOWAGER EMPRESS✨

...62...

DOWAGER EMPRESS✨

Ever since he had told her the true state of his heart, she had almost always avoided him.

For the past two days since he had said to her that he married her because he loved her, she had evaded him, being rather successful at it.

She had an inkling that she succeeded at doing so because he actually let her.

She was doing so because the revelation had left her quite befuddled for a while as she could not describe the conflicting and confusing emotions that it had made her to feel.

It was all happiness yet sadness, excited yet unenthusiastic, remarkable yet unprepossessing-plain half and half.

They all contrasted, everything.

She had doubted him at first.

But as she continually pondered on it, perusing their eight months story, she found that his words seemed genuine and indubitable from all of his actions so far.

Oh yes, maybe he did.

Maybe he really did love her.

Or maybe he was joking around with her, who knew?

But what were the chances?Especially with a man like him?

A man who really didn't need to do all that to her.

That and every other thing made her feel guilty because she was yet to decipher the state of her confused heart, unable to discern the emotions that plagued her.

She was unable to name what she actually felt for him even after all this time.

Indeed she did desire him.

She did care for him.

But could she, could she love a man such as he?

Could she actually love the man who had allegedly abducted her, taken her away from the world that she used to know and then married her in her unconsciousness?

Kidnapping.

Forced Marriage.

Could she actually love the man who had consummated their union in her unconsciousness on the excuse that she would not have agreed to it?

Lack of Consent.

Or was it not Rape?

Could she love the same man who had kept her captive in his empire all this while, held her hostage in his territory?

Imprisonment.

Could she love the man who had truncated her every attempt at escape ever since then?

Barricading.

This was the man who had always laid her out afore his eyes and spanked her rear, every single time that she had attempted escape.

Could she love him?

That thought, it had made her head and her heart hurt.

The only conclusion she could come to was that this might be some type of trauma bonding.

And she hated it.

Therefore she had stubbornly refused to mull over it least she discovered what she actually dreaded the most.

'She will be back,' the little prince's voice broke into her chain of thought, causing her to break that his deep mesmerizing gaze.

'I know,' the emperor said turning to him.