Sold To The Cruel Prince

Chapter 167: The Question

Aveline had discovered that morning that her monthly cycle had returned.

Again.

She stared at the evidence with a deep sense of betrayal.

Who had decided this was a reasonable thing for women to endure every month?

The inconvenience alone was irritating enough. The cramps were worse. The strange heaviness in her body made her want to curl into a blanket and refuse to acknowledge the existence of the outside world. If she ever met the person responsible for designing the female body, she had several complaints she wished to file.

Still, beneath all her grumbling, there was a quiet relief.

At least she was healthy.

After everything that had happened in recent months, it was a reassuring reminder that her body was functioning as it should.

That did not mean she had to like it.

She spent the entire day resting and did not fully wake until the sun had gone down. When she finally stirred, the room was dim and quiet, wrapped in the soft hush of evening.

Hamilton was curled at her feet. He had grown absurdly large. What had once been a creature small enough to fit in her hands was now the size of a large hunting dog and at least three times chubbier than any hunting dog had a right to be. Yet somehow, Hamilton remained completely convinced that he was still a tiny garden lizard.

The result was disastrous.

Every so often, he would attempt to climb onto her lap or, worse, sit directly on top of her chest because he wanted affection.

Aveline had nearly died twice that week.

Still, she reached down and scratched beneath his chin.

Hamilton made a pleased sound and promptly tried to climb onto her again.

"No," she informed him firmly.

Hamilton ignored her and maybe he pitied her, he only rested his head on her thigh.

Eventually, her attention drifted toward the pill she had recreated.

She had nearly finished recreating the pill to perfection. Nearly.

Only when she was about to feed Hamilton did she suddenly remember that Theron had placed a spell on it before giving it to her. The realization struck her with such abruptness that she could only stare at the thing in her hand before letting out a long, miserable sigh.

Her own carelessness felt almost embarrassing now, and beneath the annoyance there was something else too, a small ache of disappointment that she refused to examine too closely.

The next day, she stayed in her room again.

She did not want to deal with anything. Not the classes, not the noise, not the strange tangles of thought that had begun to gather around her since the previous day. So she gave herself one more day of rest, one day to do nothing and think as little as possible.

Lydia asked whether she wanted company, but Aveline shook her head and sent her off to class instead. She would not have Lydia miss lectures because of her, not when there was nothing to be gained from keeping her there.

So she remained alone. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

Lying in bed, she let the cramps drag her mood lower and lower until even the smallest annoyance felt intolerable. At one point, the pain was so irritating that she could almost hate the world for continuing to exist so loudly while she had to endure it in silence.

She pressed a hand to her stomach, closed her eyes, and tried to breathe through it. Through all of it, one stubborn thought kept returning.

Theron.

She did not want to think of him, and yet her mind wandered there anyway, drawn by some quiet, persistent pull she could not quite name. Even when she hugged Hamilton, though the creature clearly did not approve of being used as a pillow, even when she muttered to herself and tried to focus on the ceiling, Theron remained there, tucked into the edge of her thoughts like a memory that refused to be set down.

At some point, exhausted by the discomfort and the gloom of it all, she fell asleep.

When she woke again, he was still there in her mind.

Theron.

Then, as if the world had decided to answer her thoughts, she heard him.

Not his voice exactly, not at first. Just the faint whisper of the wind brushing against her window, carrying something with it, something so familiar that her heart gave a sudden, startled leap. His scent reached her before her eyes did, and she was moving without thinking, crossing the room toward the window with her pulse quickening in her chest.

And there he was.

Standing outside, as though he had been drawn there by the same invisible thread that had kept her thinking of him all day.

Aveline’s breath caught, and a smile rose before she could stop it, soft and bright despite everything.

"Oh, there you are," she said, relief and delight slipping naturally into her voice.

Her eyes softened as she looked at him.

"I was just thinking about you."

And she meant it so sincerely that she did not even realize how dangerous those words were to a man who had spent days trying—and failing—to stop thinking about her too. ƒrēewebnovel.com

Theron looked genuinely shocked, and for one confused moment Aveline could not understand why.

"Get in before someone spots you," she said, already moving aside for him. "This is a girls’ dormitory. Boys aren’t allowed."

Then she held out her hand.

Theron was still in a daze, as though his body had arrived before his mind had caught up, but after a beat, he gave her his hand. He could have slipped in on his own if he wanted to. He knew that. A breeze and a single step would have been enough.

But somehow, because she was offering, because she was smiling at him so naturally, he took it anyway.

Aveline had only just remembered, with a sinking feeling, that she needed to change again. Damn the period. Damn the inconvenient timing of her own body.

"I will change first," she said quickly. "Wait here."

And with that, she headed for the divider.

Theron remained where she had left him, staring after her as though the entire scene had become unreal.

She had let him in so easily.

No suspicion. No hesitation. No careful distance the way most people would have shown a boy in a girls’ dormitory. She had simply pulled him inside as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world, as though she had welcomed him into her room before and would do so again without thinking twice.

Then he noticed something else.

Aveline had already begun stripping off her outer layers before she even reached the divider.

Theron’s eyes widened, and his face turned hot so quickly it felt almost violent. He stiffened at once and looked away, his jaw clenching hard enough to ache. It was not proper to stare. It was certainly not proper to look. Even he knew that much.

He fixed his gaze on the nearest object he could find and tried very hard to convince himself that he had suddenly developed a profound interest in the arrangement of the room.

Aveline, meanwhile, hurried through changing, too distracted by her own discomfort to notice the effect she was having on him until she was already behind the divider. Only after a moment did something occur to her, and she paused.

She leaned her head out from behind the screen.

"I have boobs now," she said, as if she were reporting a simple fact about the weather. Then she tipped her head and looked straight at him with a cheeky smile. "Want to see, Theron?"

Theron, who had been making a valiant effort to appear fascinated by absolutely anything except her, made a choking sound on nothing at all.

His head snapped toward her for half a second before his soul seemed to leave his body entirely.

What now?