Sold To The Cruel Prince

Aveline had no idea where Helena was leading her.

The forest swallowed the little light that remained, and soon there was only the dark, the hush of trees, and the faint, uneven sounds of something moving ahead of her. She had let Helena out because the lock had already been open, because the creature had looked too exhausted to be dangerous, and because Aveline had not had the heart to leave her there.

She had expected the other creatures to cry out, to stir, to give her away.

Instead, they stayed silent... as though they understood, and as though they knew this was not the time.

That only unsettled her more.

They acted more like humans.

And Helena—freed, yet somehow still insisting on her company—kept nudging her onward, not away, but deeper into the woods. Aveline had no explanation for it. The creature was free. It could have run. It could have vanished into the dark and never looked back.

So why was it still drawing her along?

Why her?

She went where Helena led, uncertain and increasingly uneasy, until the trees thinned into a cave mouth so dark it seemed to swallow even the moonlight. No silver glow reached inside. No trail of stars. Nothing.

Aveline stopped at the entrance and stared into the blackness.

She was not afraid of the dark.

At least, not usually.

But this forest felt wrong. The silence felt wrong. The strange sounds shifting somewhere beyond her sight felt wrong. Every instinct in her body had begun to whisper that she had wandered too far, too deep, and too alone.

Helena was behind her now, laboring hard.

Aveline looked back once, her expression pinched with helplessness.

She had no idea what to do.

Even if Helena had been a human woman, she would not have known how to help. She had no knowledge of childbirth, no skill, no medicine, no comforting words she trusted enough to offer. And this was not even human. This was a creature she had only learned existed days ago.

What could she possibly do?

So she sat down in the cave mouth, knees drawn up, elbows resting on them, hands cupping her cheeks as she watched Helena with a baffled little frown.

"Can you hurry up?" she asked at last, half out of concern and half because the waiting was beginning to make her anxious.

The only answer was a frustrated grunt.

Aveline blinked.

"You are free now," she said, genuinely puzzled. "Can I not leave?"

Helena gave another grunt, this one sharper, more insistent. Almost offended.

No. Wait.

Aveline stared at the creature. That sounded almost like a refusal. Or worse—almost pleading.

She let out a slow breath and sank back onto her heels. "All right. I will stay. But what exactly are you planning?"

Helena did not answer.

Aveline supposed she was too busy with whatever painful, urgent thing was happening inside her body to conduct a proper conversation.

She folded her hands in her lap and sat in silence.

For a while.

Only for a while.

"How long will this take?" she asked again, softer this time, the question more sincere than impatient. "I only mean... I would like to see your baby."

That earned her a sharp, irritated grunt.

Aveline winced and raised both hands a little. "All right, all right. I am calm. Truly."

She was not calm at all. But she sat still.

A few more moments passed before she asked, "Do you need anything?"

Helena said nothing.

Of course, she could offer nothing useful. She had not packed snacks into her pockets. Theron had made sure of that.

And immediately, as if the thought had summoned him, Theron entered her mind.

Aveline’s chest tightened.

Her thoughts slipped away from the cave, from the creature, from everything except the silence between them earlier that evening. She had not understood it. She still did not understand it. But she could feel the ache of it now, deep and unsettling, like a small bruise pressed too hard.

She could not bear his silence.

It hurt in a way she had no patience to name.

And now, in the darkness of that cave, with Helena laboring beside her and the forest pressing in around them, her eyes grew red and damp all at once.

She looked down quickly, but the tears came anyway.

She had no idea why the thought of Theron not speaking to her hurt so much.

Only that it did.

And just because he had told her she could do anything, she was now here—in some forsaken place, with a creature that could kill her in an instant—and still, absurdly, she was thinking about him.

Aveline barely had time to swallow the ache in her chest before another sound reached her.

A howl.

Then another.

Wolves.

Her head snapped up. The low growls were closing in, joined by the thunder of hooves crashing through the forest floor. The sound grew louder, nearer, until her heart began to pound in frantic rhythm with it.

Her fingers tightened around her skirts.

What should I do now?

-----

Theron searched the ground again, slower this time, eyes cutting over the forest floor for any sign of her.

There was nothing.

The monsters never left trails. For all their bulk and rage and monstrous noise, they moved through the woods like shadows swallowed them whole. It was one of the reasons they were so difficult to track, so difficult to capture. Even when they attacked, it often seemed as though they had simply appeared out of nowhere.

But Aveline... Aveline should have left something behind. Crushed leaves. Broken twigs. A footprint. Anything.

There was nothing.

Theron stopped in the middle of a clearing, fists clenched so tightly the tendons in his hands stood out. By now his throat was raw from calling her name, again and again, until even the forest seemed to have grown tired of hearing it.

Still, she was nowhere.

Panic tightened in his chest.

The woods were not empty. Other monsters still roamed nearby. And if not a monster, then wolves. There were always wolves in this part of the forest.

What was his little hare supposed to do against a pack of wolves?

Or another beast?

One of the knights stepped forward hesitantly. "Sire, perhaps she..."

He trailed off at once under Theron’s glare.

Another knight, less fortunate or simply more reckless, stepped forward as though he had decided someone had to say it.

"Sire... the cage was broken from the outside. Perhaps the lady helped the monster escape as a distraction... so she could flee herself."

Theron’s jaw locked.

His hands curled into fists at his sides.

Could that be true?

Aveline had always wanted to escape. He knew that. She had tried in her own way, over and over, each attempt awkward and earnest and impossible to forget.

Had she finally managed it?

Did she see this as her chance?

Had she left him even after she promised him that she wouldn’t?