"We only regret things because we know they can never be taken back. If we could control time, there would be no such thing as regrets. But that's the funny thing about time. It's completely out of our reach."

— Forbidden Love

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

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"Adrien?" Chat Noir had barely made his way it through the double doors of the dining hall when his father approached him. "Where have you been? We have not even finished dinner yet, and... and where is Miss Marinette?" He took a look around the room, puzzled, as if the king were surprised to find his son returning to the hall with no woman on his arm. Marinette to be exact was missing.

With a heavy sigh, Chat Noir didn't even bother to meet his father's eyes. "Marinette will not be returning, father." he muttered.

"I am severely confused." Replied the king, bewildered slightly by his son's response. "What on earth happened? Everything seemed to be playing out wonderfully."

Shoulders slumped and eyes narrowed, Chat Noir barely continued to avert his eyes from his father's co fused gaze. "It just... did not work, father. She saw things differently than I did. Marinette wanted more to life, whereas I was just beginning to feel content with my own." With an exasperated sigh, his eyebrows knitted together in frustration. "Hell, she does not even love me."

Instead of receiving sympathy like Chat Noir had thought his father would give him, the king suddenly let out a loud chuckle, the echo of it filling the entire hall. "My boy, you sound mad. Of course, she loves you."

Bewildered, Chat Noir finally lifted his head to meet his father's eyes. "Father please, do not give me false hope. I can assure you she does not love me. She told me so herself... straight to my face. She even said I was nothing more but a figment of the imagination—that I was not even real, and that everything I was revolves around nothing but magic."

"Well, she was right about one thing," Answered the king, and with a tender hand, he placed it on his son's shoulder. "The only reason we are alive is because of that wall. Because of the magic it holds."

With narrowed brows, Chat Noir held his father's gaze. "It is nice to know you so easily agree with her."

"Ah, but she was wrong with quite a few other things as well." The king continued, once again catching his son's attention. "If we were simply just a figment of the imagination, I do not believe we would be able to converse between one another. We would not have to worry about being seen by human beings." With both of his hands now resting on his son's shoulders, the king gently squeezed them as a sign of reassurance. "My boy, I do not believe I have ever seen you so mesmerized in a woman before. I swear, her entry in a room would brighten your eyes!" He chuckled.

"Father please," Chat Noir could feel his cheeks heating up by the second, because hell, he knew it was the truth.

"Besides, why would she say such a thing to begin with?" Questioned the king, "Would she not be insulting herself as well by claiming we are only a figment of the imagination?"

And that was when Chat Noir remembered his father had no earthly idea that Marinette was actually a human being. How could he have been so foolish to almost reveal such a secret? His father would probably damn him to hell if he heard such a confession!

Trying to cover up what he almost revealed, Chat Noir cleared his throat and shrugged his shoulders. "Sometimes people say absurd things when they are upset, father."

"Indeed, you are right, my son." With a nod, his father agreed.

With a nod of his own, Chat Noir bid his father goodnight. Though he was also unwilling to finish their evening, the king understood, and excused his son. Even though he and Marinette had quite the explicit argument, and had said some hurtful things to one another, Chat Noir would still never abandon the woman he had deep regards for. She was probably at his hut now—her fragile figure draped under his sheets in a deep sleep. Well, that is what he hoped. That she had returned to his cottage.

He had left her to stand all alone in the middle of a dark forest. Her words had deeply hurt him, pierced his heart even, and he had allowed his emotions to do the same to her. Suddenly, Chat Noir felt terribly guilty. He needed to apologize to her, whether she would accept it or not. He needed her to hear his pleads for her forgiveness, even if she refused to listen.

So, he bounced to his house. The branches of trees and thickets smacking against his cheek as he hurried towards his home. The pain was indefinable. The only thing that concerned him now was the safety of Marinette. The safety that concerned him, because he wasn't sure if she was safe anymore.

Why had he left her standing in the woods alone? What kind of man was he to abandon the woman he wanted—no needed—trust from? Clearly after all this, she would never trust him again, and probably rebuke him from her life. Why would she want anything to do with him after he had deliberately proved he could be like any other man?

He could leave.

Just like that he could leave, allowing anger to get the best of him. He could easily walk away whenever he pleased, and somehow Marinette must've known that. Anticipated it, even. He left when she needed him the most, even though she had pushed him away. He left when things got complicated. She pushed him away because she thought he would do it first, because despite growing fond of him, she struggled to fully trust him. And maybe somewhere deep down, despite his growing love for her, Chat Noir struggled to trust her too.

Slamming his front door open, Chat Noir's night vision scanned the darkened room. What he'd been concerned about was beginning to play out before him like a haunted nightmare. His eyes widened in fear at the sight of his empty cottage. Marinette nowhere in sight. Only her belongings remained scattered across the bed and floor—a mess that he didn't really mind, since it was from her.

A roll of thunder echoed throughout the sky, and he began to internally panic. If Marinette was not here, where was she? And maybe the better question is, was she okay? Suddenly, it was almost as if a lightbulb has been switched on above his head. Chat Noir violently turned around and strode out his door, slamming it behind him with a loud bang.

He did not care if he woke up the whole damn neighborhood.

"That sick red-headed son of a bitch." growls Chat, his eyebrows knitted together ferociously. There was no other explanation. He had been so foolish and wrapped up in his own emotion, that Chat Noir had completely forgotten about the threat that had been lurking through these very woods. The threat that was only here because of Marinette.

They had taken her.

That red-headed lowlife who wore a ridiculous feathered hat had taken his love. Kidnapped her. Forced her to return home with him so that she could be wed to him - of course, an action that would be done against her will.

"You picked the wrong person to steal from." Growled Chat, his fists clenched tight. He could practically feel his claws digging into his palms. With narrowed eyes, his gaze follows the direction in which if he follows, he'll find the stone wall dividing their two worlds. "You humans already took someone from me who I loved dearly, and I will not allow that to happen again."

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