Tamed

Chapter 44

Rowena's flashback.

Splash.

"Ahh…! It's hot! Hugh!"

The little blonde girl jumped when the hot tea was thrown on her. When she started crying, making eye contact with her big sisters who splashed it on her, they laughed in her face.

"What are you doing..!"

"You bore prostitute's blood. I was just trying to clean you up."

Mocked the 2nd princess after throwing hot tea on the new sister who was just brought in today with her mother. Rowena cried loudly not knowing what to respond, she cried so hard that the maids came running in. When she let her mother know that they were bullying her, the mother shook her head hopelessly.

"Bear with it a little, Rowena. We have to survive."

"They are so mean, mother… they don't want me near them either.."

The crying child responded in tears. The blonde mother kissed her head.

"Just a little more. I'll try to find a way to make you live well. Bear it a little, my dear."

And the bully went on for years until Rowena would constantly avoid them at all cost. When she tried to confront them to her father, she got beaten up like crazy. In the national ball, the 4 princesses were presented but her. Rowena was wandering around alone in the quiet garden and that was what led her to the young Mikhael.

It was the first time someone reached out their hand to her.
It was the first time someone talked to and treated her well.

He became everything to her from that very moment and she believed that he thought the same.

But the only dim light in her life started to collapse slowly starting from the day Mikhael brought her to see his mother. One thing the little Rowena was aware of was that his mother disliked her presence but she was too young to look deeper into it.

One day, after Mikhael left first to watch his sick mother, she was about to take her leave afterwards but before she knew it, her body was already in the middle of the lake. As she was struggling to survive, someone jumped in and helped her.

When she gained consciousness, all that hit the little girl's mind was the thought that her father would beat her up for drowning herself in the lake. The child who didn't want to get beaten up again and again began to act up so she could excuse herself from the violence act of her father. She didn't know how huge the accusations would cost the other person, all the child could think of was her own safety.

After that, she fell sick once every two days. She caught a cold without any reason and the last straw was when she suddenly coughed blood and collapsed. When she woke up, the young partner who promised to be together with her forever told her that his mother cursed her with black magic. It sounded ridiculous, she didn't believe what he said at all. But the boy was crying while saying sorry. He told her that he begged the devil so hard so they could give her another chance to live. He even called for the devils to show up in front of her so she could fully believe him and let go of everything.

"Let's stop meeting each other. Please take care of yourself."

Mikhael kissed her forehead and left. He didn't turn back when the girl who couldn't get up from her bed screamed his name and they had never met one another for years. When she tried asking about him from other people, they stated that he went to train with the soldiers.

The moment she heard about him again was from the mouth of noble ladies at her age who had slept with him. It made her blood boil when the person who promised to marry her when they grow up touched other women and she lost her reasons after witnessing him kissing some random woman in the palace's garden. She tried every way possible to make him stay with her and in the end, he became her personal knight. She was happy but the man was not. He refused to touch her at first but as time passed, he, who had no other choice, decided to give in.

They shared countless nights together. It was a contractual fling but she knew Mikhael did care about her because after all, he had no other important people to him. It was his mother and her alone. Now that his mother had passed away, she was the only person who had his care. Mikhael wasn't the typical gentleman who would treat everyone well. He was the black and white type of person. If he cared for someone, he would do anything for them. If he did not, then he did not. He doesn't give a shit about people who he didn't view as someone special. Rowena who couldn't make him love her again was okay with just him being her knight for life. She wasn't happy when he decided to marry someone else but she couldn't refuse. He had his legal rights to get married to a decent lady and make a successor for his household so she chose to provoke his bride's emotion instead.

Rowena was in denial.
She refused to believe the truth while Mikhael faced it and she made him give up on getting away from her but instead chose to live as her knight, taking care of her with no emotional tangled.

She never acknowledged the truth that they couldn't be together, not even once, even though she was fully aware the whole time and she believed that Mikhael would never give up on her.

She tried to make his contractual wife give up on her marriage.

If Alisa gave up…
Mikhael would come to believe that nobody could put up with a marriage like this… Then it would be just him and her alone again, forever this time.

But in the end, he chose someone else who just got to know him when she was here first.
He gave up on her knowing that she would face cruel things.
He was aware of how Henry would treat her but he still gave her up.

And that fact alone made her so devastated that her will to live vanished before her eyes. She hadn't gotten the courage to fight when the reason she was fighting for left her so brutally.

She could only question herself how... How could he leave so easily?

Back to the present.

The woman who never gave up on the man she wanted traced kisses over his face.

The woman Rowena wished to be.
The woman Rowena wished to break.

Next to them were the twin babies. They were sleeping soundly as their parents shared a kiss passionately. On the table, there were paper inks and loads of paperworks which meant Mikhael moved his work here to spend time with his wife and babies. Alisa gasped for breath when the kiss was getting too hot. Her neck was filled with the trace left by Mikhael's lips, the evidence from last night.

He kissed her earlobe, letting his wife catch her breath.

"Take a nap with the babies." Affirmed the large figure.

"I'm not sleepy.."

"You should sleep as much as you can. Let's take a stroll together tomorrow and get some fresh air."

Alisa clung her face to his firm chest. The more she spent time with him, the more Mikhael sounded like a dad.. not to just their babies but her as well. The fact made her giggle all by herself. It made the man raise his eyebrows in curiosity.

"What is it?"

"No, nothing…"

He became so different when he actually cared for her. It felt like she was dealing with two different people.