Sold To The Cruel Prince

Chapter 172: Just Kev

Clutching her robe tightly to her chest, Aveline moved slowly toward the window and hid herself beside the curtain before daring to peek outside.

"Young lady!"

The voice that reached her was unfamiliar, belonging to a middle-aged man she did not know. His tone was not hostile, but it was loud enough to startle her, and the strangeness of it made her frown at once.

"I come in peace!" he called up. "I only want to speak with you for a moment."

Aveline’s brows drew together. This was odd enough to make her wary, and yet there was something about the scene below that tugged at her curiosity despite herself.

She looked out properly then, and saw him standing beneath her window in dark linen clothes, his hair disheveled, his feet bare, and a rake held loosely in one hand.

He looked like a gardener. Or perhaps one of the cleaning staff. But something about him did not quite fit that impression.

Maybe it was the paleness of his skin, or the calm, unhurried confidence in the way he stood there, waving up at a girl in the dormitory as though this were the most natural thing in the world. There was a subtle force to him, an ease that made the disguise feel deliberate rather than accidental.

No, he was not a gardener.

And he clearly wanted her to think he was.

The realization reminded her, oddly enough, of Theron and the strange disguises he wore when he wanted the world to see only what he chose to reveal.

That thought made her study the man below more carefully, and when she did, something in her chest gave a small, uneasy twist. There was a familiarity to the set of his face, something she could not place but somehow wanted to understand.

Her curiosity sharpened.

"I will get dressed and come down, Mr...?" she asked, lifting her brows.

For a brief moment, the man seemed to search for a name, or perhaps to decide how much of himself he wished to give away. Then he answered, "Kev."

He paused, then amended it with a small shrug. "Just Kev."

"Oh?" Aveline’s expression brightened at once, her smile suddenly open and innocent in a way that made her look almost harmless. Almost like a trusting little hare, soft and safe and not at all dangerous. "I’ll be there soon, Mr. Just Kev!"

Then she drew the curtain closed.

The moment she was hidden from view, the sweetness in her expression vanished. Her face turned serious at once. She looked around the room quickly, alert now, her mind moving from curiosity to caution in a single breath.

Whatever she had sensed in the man below had not left her. She searched the room as though expecting to find something important, though nothing obvious was there.

Still, she got dressed without delay.

She did not forget the medallion Lucien had given her. She fastened it securely and glanced once toward Hamilton, who remained asleep and blissfully unaware of anything at all.

Satisfied that he would not be disturbed, she opened the curtain again and slipped out through the window.

"Lassy!" Kev called up immediately. "Take the stairs down."

Aveline gripped the windowsill and balanced herself with easy confidence, one foot braced on the ledge, the other testing the narrow support beneath her. She turned to look at him and smiled again, this time with the stubborn brightness of someone who had already made up her mind.

"This is faster," she said.

"But—"

The man’s face went pale.

He stepped closer instinctively, holding out a hand as though he might catch her if she slipped, and his whole expression shifted into one of alarm. The color immediately drained from Kev’s face.

"Take the stairs down!"

Aveline ignored him.

The man’s expression became increasingly horrified as he hurried closer, abandoning any pretense of calm. He extended both hands toward her as though preparing to catch her if she slipped.

"Lass, perhaps reconsider—"

Aveline continued climbing. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com

"Your footing!"

He pointed frantically.

"The stone there is loose."

She stepped on it anyway.

"Not that one—"

She stepped on another.

"Your left foot!"

Aveline obediently moved her left foot.

Only for Kev to realize she had somehow chosen an even more dangerous position.

His face turned paler. At this point, he was no longer attempting to convince her to use the stairs. He had shifted entirely into helping her survive the descent.

"Right side." freeweɓnovel.cѳm

Aveline moved right.

"Lower."

She moved lower.

"Careful."

She immediately jumped.

"Lass!"

Aveline landed lightly on the ground.

Landing lightly and cleanly, she looked up at him with the pleased, almost triumphant expression of someone who had just proved a point.

"See?" she said. "This is faster."

For a moment, Kev could only stare at her, helpless and tense and very much aware that she had no intention of treating danger with the respect it deserved.

Yet Aveline only stood there in the morning air, calm and self-assured, with the medallion resting against her and the faintest hint of mischief in her eyes, as though she had already decided that whatever came next, she would meet it on her own terms.

And now that she stood close enough to study him properly, the vague unease she had felt beneath her curiosity finally settled into recognition.

The shape of his eyes was familiar in a way that made her stomach tighten. There was the same sharpness to the bridge of his nose, the same severe line to his jaw, the same unmistakable sense of authority in the set of his face, as though even standing in borrowed clothes and pretending to be something ordinary, he could not quite hide what he was.

Most of all, it was his eyes.

They were not Theron’s exactly, but they were close enough to make her breath catch. The resemblance was too strong to ignore now. Theron had his father’s features, though softened by youth and sharpened by his own temperament, and seeing them gathered together in this man’s face made the truth fall into place with sudden, quiet force.

He looked like Theron.

Only older.

Only more restrained.

Only far more dangerous in the stillness he wore like a second skin.

Aveline’s thoughts slowed as the realization took hold, and for a brief moment she simply stood there, looking at him with a strange, startled stillness of her own. Her heart gave one hard beat, then another. The man before her was no gardener, no groundskeeper, no harmless stranger who had come asking for her by chance.

She knew exactly who he was now.

She was standing in the presence of Theron’s father.

The King of Greenvale.