Sold To The Cruel Prince

Chapter 173: Her Father

The understanding that she was standing in front of the King, sent a thin thread of tension through Aveline’s chest, though not enough to frighten her into retreat. If anything, it sharpened her focus.

Her gaze stayed on him a moment longer, taking in the expensive sort of presence that could not be fully disguised, not even beneath plain linen and a rake. He had come himself... here, in person, to the girls’ dormitory, before she was even properly dressed.

Aveline’s expression changed only slightly, but inside her mind, everything had become very still.

Whatever he wanted from her, it was clearly important enough to bring the King himself to her window.

She let an innocent smile bloom across her face, soft and sweet, so convincing that no one would have guessed she was quietly building walls inside her mind.

"You were not calling me over for snacks, were you?" she asked lightly. "I did not bring any, Mr. Just Kev. Should I go get some?"

She lifted a finger toward the window and tilted her head with a cheeky little grin, as though she were about to run back up the sill.

"Should I fetch some?"

She even took a step back, pretending to turn away.

At once, the man’s composure cracked.

"No, no—do not climb back up there," he said quickly, and for the briefest moment Aveline caught the panic beneath his voice. It was not the sharp anxiety of a stranger, but something older and more instinctive, the kind of alarm a father might feel when his child casually announced she was about to do something foolish and dangerous.

The realization made something in her chest shift.

"Come sit with me," he added, his tone gentler now. freeweɓnovel.cøm

Aveline looked at him for a moment longer, then allowed a little of her guard to ease. She walked closer and lowered herself beside him beneath the tree, where the roots rose from the earth in twisting ridges that made a natural seat. The morning light spilled around them in slow, golden layers, and the breeze moved softly through the leaves above their heads.

She rested her hands against her cheeks and studied him.

Up close, his shadows seemed to move more restlessly than before, as though they reflected the thoughts he had not spoken. There was conflict in him, unmistakable and unsettled, a tension that ran beneath the surface of his calm.

Aveline wondered if he had come for the same reason everyone else seemed to come toward her lately. Perhaps he had heard of the girl who had caught Lucien’s attention. Perhaps he had come to inspect the woman his son had become entangled with, to judge her, to search for flaws, to decide whether she was worthy of being near him.

But there was something else too.

Something quieter.

Something that did not fit the suspicion she expected.

In his gaze, beneath all the caution and the weight he carried, there was a softness that made her pause. It looked almost like relief. Like happiness. As though he had not expected to see her and was, against his will, glad that he had.

"I have seen you around," he said.

Aveline only smiled.

The sun had begun to rise higher over the horizon, painting the sky with a tender wash of gold. The wind lifted his hair, and for a moment the man beside her looked less like a stranger and more like a figure caught between burdens he could not set down.

She turned her head slightly and studied him with the kind of careful curiosity that always came before she asked the wrong question.

"Are you Lucien’s friend or his enemy?" she asked.

Her voice was calm, but there was purpose in it. She was not sure what he wanted from her, and she wanted to make it clear that she had not mistaken him for some harmless gardener. She was not naive enough to believe that.

The effect of her question was immediate.

The King’s expression stiffened.

Aveline noticed it at once.

And then, because she had started paying closer attention, she saw something stranger still. The colors around him were not still. They shifted and tangled in ways she did not yet understand, layers of purple wound through with black, the combination twisting subtly around his chest like a living stain.

She had no idea what it meant.

Only that it did not feel simple.

Before she could ask anything else, he suddenly threw his head back and laughed.

It was not a polite laugh, nor a restrained one. It came from deep in his chest, rich and hearty, the kind of laugh that bent him forward as he held his belly with one hand.

The colors that clung to him remained, but the tight shadows on his face loosened all at once, as though her question had reached some buried place in him and cracked it open enough to let the light in.

He looked, for the first time, like someone who had been denied this kind of relief for far too long and had only just remembered how it felt to laugh without restraint.

And Aveline, watching him carefully, began to suspect that whatever he had come here to ask her, it was not going to be simple at all.

"I do have a lot of people interested in me because of him," she said, her tone light but not careless. "Are you one of them? What else do you want from me?"

The King’s laughter had not quite faded from his eyes when he looked at her again. There was still warmth there, still a trace of amusement, and for a moment he seemed almost disarmed by how directly she had spoken. Then he gave a small, almost helpless shrug, as though her suspicion were not unreasonable and he could respect it.

"Can I not simply wish to be your friend?" he asked.

Aveline studied him then, really studied him. The wind moved softly through the trees around them, stirring the leaves overhead and brushing faintly at the edges of his hair. He looked like a man who had learned how to carry authority so well that he could nearly erase it when he wanted to. Nearly.

There was still too much composure in his posture, too much gravity in the set of his shoulders, for her to mistake him for an ordinary man pretending at something harmless. But his expression, at least, seemed sincere.

She narrowed her eyes a little.

"You are old enough to be my father," she said bluntly.

And he was Theron’s father. That alone should have been reason enough for her to put distance between them. Why would she want to befriend him? Why would she ever be foolish enough to invite a man like this too close, even if he looked at her as though he had not come here with dangerous intentions?

Something shifted then.

Not on his face.

Around it.

Then it vanished so quickly she almost thought she had imagined it.

"And what about your father, Young Lady?" he asked softly.

The question seemed harmless.

Almost casual.

"What does he do?"

Aveline looked at him.

The shadows that clung to him seemed to sharpen, as though her words had brushed against something buried and unpleasant. The change was subtle, but Aveline caught it. Her expression quieted a little as she looked more carefully, and that was when she saw it.

Malice.

Not loud, not openly hostile, but unmistakable all the same. It flickered through the dark around him like a blade catching light for a split second before being hidden again.

Aveline’s breath slowed.

Does he know my father?

The thought came to her with sudden clarity, cold and uneasy.