The Cursed King

"It was my pleasure, wifey." Loriel kissed her forehead and brightly smiled. "Now that the play is finished, what do you have in mind to do next? Are you in the mood to eat dinner? A little wine and dine…?"

"No.. Not really," Elise said with a sheepish smile. "It\'s actually a bit late and I don\'t want to eat a heavy meal anymore…"

"That\'s fine… how about something light like gelato?" Loriel suggested. "We weren\'t able to get some earlier before the start of the show."

"Oh, now I actually like that." 

A blush appeared on Elise\'s face that made Loriel chuckle. While it was true that their time at the theatre took a bit longer than he expected, it was also because Elise enjoyed sweets more than dinner.

Loriel wanted to treat her if that was the case.

"We should go find a dessert place then." Loriel reached out for Elise\'s hand and kissed the back of her hand. "There are numerous flavors for us to try and if you\'d like, we can also get them all."

Elise grinned at Loriel\'s words. "Didn\'t I say that I didn\'t want a heavy meal? We can\'t have too much ice cream. Gelato is just Italian for ice cream, right?"

"Not quite, the Italian recipe for their dessert has less cream added into it than most ice creams, instead there is more milk added into it, which otherwise results in more flavor and density of a scoop of gelato than the average scoop of ice cream." 

Elise reached out and placed her hand on Loriel\'s cheek. "You should have told me that you love gelato and wanted an excuse to get every flavor. You must really adore Italian food, including desserts."

Loriel coughed and shook his head. "I simply wanted to enjoy the experience of eating it and enjoying it with you, that\'s all. I\'m not that too fond of sweetness."

"If you say so." Elise smiled at her husband. 

Loriel was well put together and quite unfazed with a lot of things. Her husband was so dependable that it was rare for Elise to find anything that would make him shocked or surprised.

It was a welcome change to also see a cute side to Loriel\'s character.

"Shall we go now?" Loriel asked. "I think I recall having checked a great gelato place on GoogleMaps earlier."

"Ah, should we take a taxi then?" Elise asked him.

"If you don\'t mind walking, the two of us can get there in just a few minutes." Loriel squeezed her hand.

"You do remember that I always walk to Marc\'s company, right? We\'ve also been walking in most of our visits, so it\'s absolutely fine with me. Let\'s go." Elise tugged him to start moving and so Loriel did. 

While the two of them could easily get a cab or even have their own private chauffeur pick them up from there…

It was a great opportunity to take advantage of their honeymoon. 

Loriel wanted to enjoy every moment with Elise and not have any other individual interrupt their time together, be it a driver or even other spectators in the theatre from earlier. 

The two of them strolled the pavement streets of Venice, passing bridges, and taking in the sights of beautiful street lights that gave life into the breathtaking city. Loriel and Elise encountered several other pedestrians also strolling, but otherwise, the city was peaceful that night.

Soft, almost magical, the nighttime at Venice was simply stunning.

Everything felt beautiful and peaceful…. until Elise saw and recognized a face amongst the people in the streets. 

Her heart skipped a beat.

It was impossible for this man to be here… but Elise knew that it was the same person that she encountered back in New York.

This man caught Elise accidentally killed a drunk man who tried to harass her and, instead of reporting her to the police, he helped her covered up her tracks.

He easily and leisurely destroyed the evidence, just with a flick of his finger.

This memory made Elise\'s heart pound uneasily and she unconsciously held her breath. 

It was Alexei.

What was he doing here???

Elise recognized his long ash hair and blue eyes. They were strikingly familiar. The young man was conversing and talking leisurely with a companion. It was another young man around his age with beautiful features.

This other young man had cropped hair, making him look carefree and nonchalant.  It was as white as snow and he shared the same blue eyes as Alexei. One could easily assume that they were brothers of some sort.

Both of them were holding sundae cones and enjoying their own scoops of gelato as well.

"Elise, are you okay?" Loriel stopped in his tracks once he noticed that Elise stopped walking with him. There was something else that was bugging Loriel, a prickling in the back of his head which was something he didn\'t think he\'d ever encounter again.

It was an annoying sensation.

But Loriel prioritized Elise above all. So, he brushed off that feeling of annoyance.

Elise quickly lowered herself to the ground and grabbed the back of her heel and winced. "I\'m sorry, Loriel. I think I suddenly felt a cramp in my foot… I\'m not sure if it\'s the shoe pinching me or something else."

Loriel quickly knelt down to check on Elise.

"Let me check. Do you need to sit down and take a seat? There\'s a nearby park bench here somewhere." Loriel worriedly asked her. He wondered if he made her walk too much and this was his fault.

Elise gave her husband a pained smile. It wasn\'t because of the pain from her footwear… but it was because she knew for a fact that Loriel cared too deeply to notice anything else when she was in pain.

Not waiting for an answer from Elise, Loriel picked her up and carried her bridal style.

There was no moment to lose and so Elise was brought to the nearest park bench, which was thankfully just a couple steps ahead of them. Loriel gently placed Elise down on the bench and assessed her condition.

"Do you want me to stay here with you until you feel better? Maybe I can go around and find the nearest drugstore and find you some first aid treatment… Actually, why don\'t I just carry you until we reach the gelato store? Or just get back to our hotel. I\'ll get us a taxi?"

A genuine look of panic and concern was etched on Loriel\'s face.

Elise felt instantly guilty, but she didn\'t want Loriel to meet Alexei and vice versa. What if… Loriel found out she was not normal when he met Alexei? 

What If Alexei told him about what happened after Alex\'s blind date? What would Loriel think of Elise if he knew she had killed someone?

Elise didn\'t want her husband to think she was a monster….

.

.

***********

From Missrealitybites:

Thank you so, so much for your support to this book. I am sorry, I couldn\'t publish chapters in September because I was focusing on Loriel\'s story in "The Cursed Prince". I will resume new chapters on October 1.

However, I published this chapter today, to give you 10 vouchers that you can redeem for 100 coins each because you have purchased the highest tier privilege in September but you didn\'t get chapters.

Go to your Profile page and click the REDEEM tab (next to the STORE tab). Put the codes and redeem. With 10 vouchers, you can get 10 x 100 coins = 1000 coins which you can use to read books on AllNovelFull or purchase the privilege for TCK in October, if you wish you renew the privilege.

Each code can only be used by 10 people. So, it\'s a first-come-first-serve basis. I am very sorry, if you came late and the codes no longer work. That means 10 people already claimed the coins.

I will give mass release on October 1 to compensate for the lack of chapters in September. I hope you are okay with that. xx

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