Chapter 197: Doubts
The King’s heart gave a sharp, uneasy skip when Lucien appeared in the room, ready to strike at him.
Yes, being in a twenty-one-year-old girl’s chamber in the middle of the night was enough to invite suspicion, but Lucien was doing the very same thing, and with far less grace. The sight of him there, fierce and protective, made the King’s jaw tighten.
"And what might you be doing here?" the King asked, his voice controlled despite the irritation curling beneath it.
Lucien’s eyes were cold. "I promised to protect her," he said. "And it appears I must protect her from you, royal rat."
The King’s expression hardened at the insult. Lucien had never been known for restraint, but calling a king a rat was perhaps a step too far, even for him. His fists clenched, but the pain from his earlier struggle flared, stopping him from moving further.
He did not bother arguing. He rose instead, slow and composed, and moved toward the window as though the confrontation had already bored him.
"You should ask your wife to remain safe," he said lightly, one hand braced on the sill. "Just in case. The chickens are coming home to roost."
Lucien’s eyes flashed. "Keep my wife out of your filthy mouth!"
The fireball left his hand before the words had even finished, hot and sudden with anger. But the King was already gone, dissolving into the night before the flame could reach him.
Lucien stood there for a moment, breathing hard, then turned back toward the bed.
Aveline was still asleep.
Peacefully. Deeply. Utterly unaware of the storm that had just passed through her room. The medallion still rested against her chest, the one he had given her, and the sight of it softened something in him despite the tension still lingering in the air.
His wife’s face came to mind then, and he could almost hear the disapproval in it. She had not been pleased when he gave his gold chain to this girl. She had thought it too much, too personal, too strange.
But what else was he supposed to do?
He had made a promise to his Leveret.
And he meant to keep it.
Still, the King’s words lingered in his mind.
What did the rat from the royal family mean by that?
Lucien frowned, his brows drawing together as he tucked the blanket more securely around Aveline. Whatever the King had meant by that, it had not sounded like idle provocation. There had been something pointed in it, something unsettling enough to remain beneath the skin.
Lucien stood in silence for a moment longer, staring down at the sleeping girl as the weight of that warning settled in.
Then, with one final adjustment of the blanket, he turned and left the room.
-----
Aveline and Theron found themselves back in the meadow, as if the dream had simply folded itself around them again and restored the world to its softer, brighter shape. The wildflowers swayed gently in the breeze, and the last traces of the battle they had just won were gone, as though the darkness had never existed at all. For a moment, the peace felt almost unreal.
Then Aveline looked at him more closely and noticed the redness around his eyes.
"You cried?" she asked softly, her expression changing at once.
She reached out to touch his face, but Theron turned away and hurriedly wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt, as though the simple fact of being seen like that had suddenly become unbearable.
Aveline’s face lit up into a smile.
"Are you shy?" she teased, her voice warm with affection. "Come on. Show me your face."
She reached for him again, and Theron, still trying to hide, caught her hand. Aveline only laughed and tried to grab at him with her other hand, playful and insistent, and in the middle of all that laughter and movement he slipped on the grass.
The next second, Aveline lost her balance too, tumbling forward with him until she landed on top of him in the meadow.
And then everything stopped.
Silence settled around them.
Not the kind of silence that felt empty, but the kind that arrived too suddenly, too intimately, as though the whole dream had drawn in a breath and forgotten how to let it out.
Aveline could feel the warmth of his body beneath her, the hard shape of his chest, the way his breathing had changed without either of them saying a word. Her heart fluttered. Her chest tightened.
The closeness of him made something deep inside her stir awake, something quiet and aching and impossible to ignore.
Theron’s breath caught too.
He had forgotten too much and remembered too little, and yet the feeling of her there, lying against him, was enough to make instinct overpower restraint.
He had been trying so hard to behave carefully with her, to keep whatever distance should have existed between them, but the moment she fell into his arms, the last of his composure seemed to thin.
His hand slid beneath her neck, gently but firmly, and he drew her closer before he could think better of it.
Their faces were so near now that neither of them could pretend not to feel it.
A kiss was almost there.
Aveline’s lips parted slightly, her excitement and longing mingling in the soft, breathless hope in her eyes. She had missed him. She had missed his voice, his scent, the strange and steady comfort of being near him, and now that he was this close, she wanted the kiss so badly that it made her almost dizzy.
But Theron was hesitating.
Just enough to stop it.
Just enough to make her notice.
Aveline looked at him then with a small, uncertain frown, her heart still racing but her smile fading at the edges.
Something in him felt different in that moment. Not wrong, exactly. But distant, as though some part of him had stepped back even while the rest of him remained with her.
Was he afraid?
Was he remembering something she could not see?
Or was this not the same Theron she had been dreaming of after all?
The thought slipped into her heart before she could stop it.
For the first time, lying there in the meadow with his arms around her, Aveline wondered whether the man looking back at her was truly the same Theron she had been waiting for.
And if he was not... where had her Theron gone?
