Chapter 164 - Family

"ARGHHHHH!" Alexa screamed, feeling the flesh being pierced but once. It was a searing pain, capable of waking the dead. With sore and flooded eyes, she looked at the injured area in her flank, where someone was sewing the wound with a needle. 

"AHHHHH! ... Why are you doing this?!" she whimpered, feeling all the nerves in the body she was inhabiting, hypersensitive. Tears were streaming involuntarily down the Prince's face now. Strong, tenacious hands held Alexander's wrists, and on his forehead another hand was trying to keep the Prince from squirming. The young Prince's ankles were also being held tightly. 

Looking up, Lex saw Gutard's face, the Sovereign Prince's dismayed eyes watching his son's reactions. He was the one touching his forehead. Balbo was the one holding his wrists, and greeted Lex,

"Just one more moment, Your Highness. You got your first real scar."

"It's not ... my first scar!" the words came out of his mouth, and Lex flinched.

"What is happening?!" she asked, looking out of the corner of her eyes for the person who had said that.

"Shhhh! My son is delusional, doctor," said the Sovereign Prince, stroking Alexander's sweaty hair with concern.

"His feverish state escalated quickly," commented the doctor. "Please hold him tight again. I need to give a few stitches more."

"Dad, protect Alexa. Please. Don't let anything happen to her. Who made this?! OHHHHHH!" 

The stab site pulsed as if it had a life of its own, and each touch spread pain throughout Alexander's body.

The hand on his forehead and hair stopped for an instant, and the green eyes of the Sovereign Prince scanned his face, with a mixture of surprise and suspicion.

'Wait ... Alexander? Is that you?' she asked in her mind.

'Alexa?! Are you here? Please, I don't know how long this will last! Let me talk to my dad! ' She heard the voice in her mind. No, not exactly in her mind, but 'next to her'. 

Without waiting for his response, the Second Prince said,

"Father. Forgive me for what I did. I just wanted to help ... But ... I don't know how much time I have, so ... I don't want this wedding. Alexa has to be free! The marriage has to be annulled!"

'Is that the first thing you have to say when you see your father again?' Alexa did not know how they got to that unusual situation, or what to think about it. However, 'hearing' other words coming from 'her' mouth, and that bullshit out of everything, was more than scary, it was surreal.

'Yes. It's a priority. It needs to be said in case you pass out.'

'And why am I the one who's going to pass out?'

'Because you actually 'passed out ', Alexa. I don't know what's going on, and .... MMMMHFF! '

"OHHH!" Alexa m.o.a.ned involuntarily out loud. One thing was certain, arguing with Alexander distracted her from the pain. 

"Alexander ..." said Gutard, "Where is she? She is fine?"

"She's with me ..." Alexander gasped as he replied, and locked his jaw to keep from groaning, while the doctor finished sewing his flesh.

"Who made this?" the Prince Regent's voice made it very clear that he was addressing Alexa. It was a command.

Didn't they know? She had lost consciousness before the guards came in attracted by the noise, but she imagined that at least they had found the unfortunate Ambassador Duvignes ... Why the hell had that man followed and attacked Prince Alexander?

In fact Alexa knew the answer and was just irritated for underestimating the whole situation. Her recent successes have made her very sluggish, in fact.

However ... Should she reveal that Narses was the murderer of the French Ambassador, and that he had tried to kill Alexander? This would cause a hunt against her brother!

"I think ... that Ambassador Duvignes got it all wrong ... I'm sorry," she struggled to say.

'What happened?' Alexander asked internally.

'I… I killed a man.'

"Ready. Your Highness will be able to get some rest now," said the doctor, with one last tug on the line that almost made Alexander wet his pants.

'Oh V.i.r.g.i.n Mary!'

'Believe me ... The stab hurt less ...' Alexa let out a long breath. Helga brought a cup of tea, and started making him drink. The warm drink was a strong poppy tea and other herbs that were used to make you sleepy and take away the pain. That was very welcome, at the moment.

"Dad… Promise me. Let her go at the end. I want to ask for annulment ..." the real Second Prince said, after dipping his lips in the drink.

"Shhh, don't say anything else. You are confused ..." Alexander's father replied, rubbing his thumb gently in the middle of his younger son's forehead in a circular motion. "Save your energy… I promise. Now be well and recover ..."

Alexa watched the tired expression of Alexander's father with amazement. She had seen him looking so dejected only a few times. He was still the proud Prince of Holstein, but he was also a long-suffering man. However, her eyes were blurry due to tiredness and she couldn't even smile in sympathy.

"Balbo! Dear Helga!" Alexander spoke, greeting his fencing master and his nanny, but his voice also dragged a little from physical exhaustion. 

Helga now wiped the sweat off the Prince's body with a cloth, and the soul-joined couple was grateful, falling asleep soon after.

°°°

"You won't be able to do this all by yourself, this time. You should accept my offering ..." the White Queen's composed, yet chilling voice sounded in the darkness, before they could see her.

Alexa was back in the cave, listening to the incessant and methodical drip, which acted as a marker of time. She and Alexander were holding hands halfway. The figures once carved into the stone walls seemed even more faded than Alexa remembered, if that were possible.

She knew it was a dream, and she looked at her mate, feeling his hands tighten on hers and intertwine his fingers.

He looked back at her, but before she said anything, they noticed Gisela's presence with them.

The White Queen was sitting on the stone floor, watching them.

"You did it?" Alexa asked, referring to the fact that she and Alexander are sharing the same body and the same dream.

"You know I don't," the White Queen shrugged. "But my son was on the verge of death because of you!" she finished the sentence aggressively, and her cracked face surface let slip some of her impending disturbance.

Alexa already felt guilty and mortified enough to not want to hear a scolding from her mother-in-law. Especially since she was a powerful Shade.

"Mom ..."

"Alexander."

Son and mother stared at each other for a while in silence, and Alexa could only imagine what was going on between them. Alexander seemed to struggle to say things that didn't come out of his mouth. The Princess then interfered,

"You should go on your way, Princess Gisela. Staying didn't do you or anybody any good."

"You know little… You still open your mouth to pass judgment. With each passing day, my words are scarce here. So listen carefully."

Alexa swallowed hard at the severe reprimand, 

"The lighthouse's witch's spell has been weakened, which risks the bond between you two."

"Alexander can stay in his body and can I go back to mine?"

The White Queen shook her head, and spoke in a scary way.

"You made a promise to the gods of death to share your life with Alexander. So your life is needed to recover his body..."

Alexa gulped. 

"Alexander's soul was attracted back by the death of his body. Yet his body won't die because of you. While the body is recovering, both can share the body, but I guess that, as soon as the body recovers, both will be trapped together… It's better that one of you leaves."

Alexander turned to Alexa, with concern in his beautiful eyes,

"You can't live like this!"

The prognosis was not encouraging; it was true.

"So only one of us can stay, is that what you mean?" Alexa was pragmatic when asking.

"You stay, Alexa," the Second Prince spoke hastily.

"What will happen? The one leaving will wander as a shade?" Alexa turned to Gisela.

The Shade shook her head.

"Can't I really return to my body?" 

"Yes, you can. But then the spell is totally broken and Alexander's body will wither."

"Isn't there a way for at least Zand to go back to Romeo?"

Shade turned her face to Alexa, with a slight smile on the corner of her lips, "Yes, there is."

Alexa hated her ghost mother-in-law for being so enigmatic, but even Gisela seemed to be forced to follow some rules of the dead ... even if only a few.

"Alexander will stay with me, where can I protect him ... Now ... Son, do you trust her to come back for you?"

"He wants to get a divorce!" Alexa spoke without thinking, and bit her lips reprimanding herself for being so spiteful. Besides, what was she even doing, complaining to her husband's ancestor?

"Alexa!" the Prince looked at her in alarm. "This is another matter. And yes, I trust you! You could not leave Mildred behind… I hope you will continue to help me."

"I should charge you for this, since I won't be your wife anymore!"

Again, her feeling of not being valued and being dismissed after being useful spoke louder, and Alexa pursed her tight lips, feeling so dumb and foolish.

"I will pay! Do your price!" Alexander bluntly replied, a little astonished.

The White Queen heard it all silently, and turned to Alexa,

"I admire your tenacity. You have the blood of heroes."

"Ah. Thanks," she replied without thinking. She didn't know what to say to it, anyway.

"I'll look over Alexander ..."

Alexa swallowed.

"Don't forget, the deadline is the total recovery of the body. After that, nothing comes in, nothing comes out."

The princess nodded, feeling an anxiety never before felt stun her senses.

"As for the evil lingering over Holstein… You need to bring me back. I will tell you how. And you will… because it is your best alternative."

The White Queen's last words were the worst of all. They kept ringing in her ears when Alexa woke up in Alexander's body, sweating profusely from fever and infection.

"Wait ... you didn't say how ... I remake Sigrid's magic ..." she murmured, realizing even in her fevered mind, a flaw in the plan.