Sold To The Cruel Prince

Aveline tried very hard not to cry again.

She really did.

But her lips trembled so badly that the sob she had been holding back only rose higher in her throat, hot and humiliating and impossible to swallow down.

"You still didn’t have breakfast?" Theron asked.

That was all it took.

Aveline burst into loud, catastrophic tears.

The kind of tears that made the birds in the nearby trees scatter into the sky as if the forest itself had cracked open. Even the knights, who had probably seen wars, deaths, and scandals of all possible sizes, looked momentarily alarmed.

Theron, however, only drew her closer.

"There, there..." he murmured, patting her back in slow, steady circles. Then, as if that were not already enough to ruin her dignity completely, he bent and pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head. "I should not have left my little hare unattended. Oh, my poor little hare is so hungry..."

Before she could even protest, he lifted her, again, as though she weighed no more than a bundle of feathers and carried her in his arms.

Aveline cried into his shirt with abandoned misery, staining it with tears and whatever else was trying to escape her face. Her nose was red, her cheeks were wet, and her pride had long since gone into hiding.

Theron looked down at her, and to her complete mortification, he smiled.

He had thought something had stirred in her when she watched him change earlier. Apparently, the thing that had awakened in her was not a bold, dangerous woman at all.

It was a hungry, weepy baby.

"What am I going to do with you?" he muttered, and kissed her forehead this time, gentler still.

Her sobs thinned into sniffles.

After that, the knights brought her warm soup.

Aveline sat bundled up and red-eyed, and still managed to drink it down as if it were the finest meal in the world. The warmth settled into her stomach, soothing the ache there, and little by little her breathing steadied.

Then came bread.

Then cheese.

Then, because she had absolutely no shame once food was involved, she asked for her medicine too. She could not afford to miss out on growing her breasts. Some things required commitment.

Theron watched her in silence, a small smile tugging at his mouth the whole time.

There was never a dull moment with her.

Without thinking, he reached out and brushed a few strands of hair away from her cheek.

Aveline looked up at him, her mouth full of nuts, and smiled around them.

Theron blinked.

Then let out a laugh.

Not a polite one. Not a restrained one. A real laugh, warm and helpless, like she had caught him off guard and decided to keep him there.

Aveline pouted immediately. "Why are you laughing at me?"

He tried to answer. He truly did. But all that came out was another quiet laugh, because he could not seem to stop.

Only she could make him feel this much at once—amused, soft, helpless, and oddly undone.

What a woman!

There was silence for a while as Theron watched her and Aveline kept eating, steadily filling her stomach as though she intended to make up for every meal her body had ever missed.

Theron rested his cheek against his hand, his gaze lingering on her with quiet attention.

"What did you pray for?" he asked at last.

Kael had already reported it to him as though she had committed some grave offense. Theron did not care whom she prayed to. She could pray to the goddess, the god, the stars, the river, or a particularly persuasive pebble for all he minded.

She could do anything her heart desired.

Well.

Almost anything.

Crying was still a problem. That, for reasons he had not yet fully forgiven the world for, made his chest hurt.

Aveline looked up at him, her expression immediately stubborn. "I can pray to whomever I want to."

Theron reached over and tapped her head.

Not gently.

Aveline jerked back with a scandalized little sound, rubbing her forehead as she glared at him from beneath a pout. "Are you trying to knock my brain out?"

"I asked what you prayed for," he said dryly, "not why you prayed to the goddess."

She frowned at once and tried to smack him back, but remembered too late that both hands were occupied. She glanced down at the nuts in her lap, clearly unwilling to abandon them, then attempted to sneak the rest into her pockets with all the subtlety of a guilty squirrel.

Theron caught the movement immediately.

"I’ll give you a pouch full of raisins for later. Do not put them in your pockets."

Aveline looked up at him with suddenly suspicious hope. "You promise?"

He nodded.

Without hesitation, she shoved the entire handful of nuts into her mouth.

Theron simply watched her chew.

It had become increasingly clear that her affection for food rivaled her affection for almost everything else in the world. Perhaps even surpassed it. It was a deeply practical devotion, and he found that, maddeningly, he did not object.

"What did you pray for?" he asked again once she finished chewing.

Aveline swallowed, then straightened as if she had decided to launch a new campaign. "Can I have wine?"

Theron stared at her.

She lifted her chin. "I am old enough to drink wine. You have plenty of wine. I want some. Give me wine."

His expression did not change, but the silence that followed was somehow even more judgmental than words.

"Your tits will not grow if you drink wine," he said at last, sounding mildly annoyed.

Aveline’s eyes dropped immediately to her chest. She thought about it with visible seriousness. Then she gasped, horrified. "You lie."

Theron exhaled through his nose.

"Ellie drank a lot of wine," Aveline went on, pointing a finger as though presenting evidence to a court, "and she had the biggest breasts I have ever seen."

That, at least, explained everything in her mind.

Theron closed his eyes for a brief moment, drawing a patient breath that did not help nearly enough.

He was not giving her wine. Not out of principle. Not out of etiquette.

Out of self-preservation.

One sip, and she would become even less manageable than she already was. One glass, and her eyes would shine brighter, her mouth would go softer, and that ridiculous little mouth of hers would say things he would not survive hearing.

Her body was not ready for what he was trying very hard not to think about.

And honestly, he was not sure he was ready either.

"Fine," Theron said, offended. "Then do not tell me."

He stood at once, as though he were done with her, and turned as if to walk away. His expression shifted back into that infuriatingly boyish one she could never quite read properly, the one that made him seem younger and more dangerous at once.

Aveline caught his hand before he could take a step. The movement was so sudden she seemed almost as surprised by it as he was.

"Do not go," she said.

Theron scoffed softly, though there was no bite in it. "You do not want me. I am going."

Her fingers tightened around his.

She did not answer.

That was answer enough.

He turned back to look at her.

And there it was again... that trembling at the edge of her nose, the faint quiver in her lips, the unmistakable look of someone trying very hard not to fall apart in front of him.

Theron sighed and crouched in front of her immediately.

"Alright. Do not cry," he said, his voice gentler now. His hand came up to pat her head, once, then again, as though he could smooth the distress right out of her.

Aveline blinked at him, then let out a shaky breath.

"I just..." she began, and her eyes flickered down before returning to his face. "I asked the goddess for many things."

Theron’s hand stilled on her wrist.

"What things?" he asked quietly.

Aveline looked at him. "I don’t know if I should tell you."