Sold To The Cruel Pr Chapter 68: A Happy Hopeless

Chapter 68: A Happy Hopeless

Aveline clutched Hamilton tighter, her heart hamring so hard she could feel it in her throat.

What was that?

Had the bigger creature co back? Was sothing else moving through the forest? The dark between the trees seed to shift in a way that made her skin prickle.

She leaned forward and squinted into the blackness. "Do you see anything?" she whispered to Hamilton.

Hamilton only wagged his tail and blinked at her with a serene, almost smiling expression, as though he understood nothing she had said and was deeply unbothered by this fact.

Aveline huffed. "Useless."

And because he looked so harmless and oddly pleased with himself, she kissed the top of his head again.

To her surprise, he seed to like that.

The little creature brightened imdiately, tail swishing faster, wings fluttering in tiny excited motions that made him look absurdly proud of himself.

Aveline stared at him for a mont, then laughed under her breath.

"All right," she murmured. "You are at least adorable."

But the noise in the forest still lingered in her mind, dragging her attention back to the dark beyond the tree.

Should she go check it?

Or leave it alone?

Normally, soone would have told her what to do, back in the Willowgrave mansion, and she would have done it whether she liked it or not.

But lately... Soone would have taken her hand, shielded her, decided for her. She had never really been the one left behind to figure things out on her own.

Now... she was.

The thought made her stomach tighten.

Her eyes dropped to the shadows gathered beneath the tree.

She rembered it then—the strange power she had felt only monts ago, the darkness that had answered her when she fought the larger creature, when she faced Kael. She had done sothing. She had felt it. So where had it gone now?

If she truly had a skill, then she needed it. Especially now. Especially here.

She focused.

Hard.

Hard enough that her brows pinched together and her fingers curled with effort.

Nothing happened.

The shadows stayed still. No pulse. No movent. No response.

Aveline frowned and tried again, more intensely this ti, until her fingers cramped from the strain.

How?

She had felt that power so clearly before. How could it disappear so completely now? Had she imagined it? Had fear twisted her senses? Was she losing her mind, or had the forest started playing tricks on her?

At last, she gave up with a sigh and leaned against Hamilton, where he had settled in the grass.

Fine.

She would focus only on what she could see. Only on what stayed beside her. Only on the small, warm, very strange creature who seed determined to be her problem now.

And from the shadows, a skunk darted through. So... that made the noise earlier? Aveline was relieved.

After a while, another practical thought nudged her.

"Wait..." She looked down at him. "What do you eat?"

At least she had dinner. This poor thing, on the other hand, had arrived in the world only hours ago and had not been handed a al plan.

Hamilton stared back at her with that sa blank, pleasant expression.

Aveline narrowed her eyes. "You do not know, do you?"

She placed her hand against his head, hoping for a reaction, to understand anything at all, but all she felt was his rough scales and silence. No fear. No resistance. No hidden thoughts.

She glanced at him suspiciously.

"You have nothing going on in that empty head of yours, do you?"

Hamilton blinked once, then stuck out his tongue just a little.

Aveline burst out laughing.

"All right, genius," she said, shaking her head. "That answers that."

Sohow, the ridiculous creature made her feel lighter. Maybe being empty-headed was not such a terrible thing after all. At least it seed to suit him.

Then her smile softened.

Look how happy he is... He did not even know his mother was gone.

The thought struck her gently, painfully.

"You think I am your mother, do you?" she asked in a lower voice.

Hamilton imdiately jumped in a small circle around her, wings fluttering, tail wagging with such earnest excitent that he looked ready to burst from sheer affection.

Aveline’s throat tightened.

"You poor thing," she murmured.

He might be large, but he was still only a baby. Probably hungry, frightened, and far too dependent on the first kind hand he had found.

Babies fussed when they were hungry, did they not?

Maybe he was not hungry. Or maybe he was just confused about how to express his thoughts.

And, more importantly...

Aveline frowned at the question and looked down at Hamilton.

What did creatures like him even eat?

Curiosity won over caution. She gently pried open his jaws, peering at the sharp, hard teeth inside. They looked perfectly capable of biting through bone, and yet the little fool did not so much as flinch when she slipped a finger into his mouth.

He only blinked at her.

Aveline’s chest softened with an almost embarrassing rush of affection.

"How are you this trusting?" she murmured.

Hamilton seed to answer by wagging his tail harder and bouncing in place, delighted by her attention as though she had just praised him for deep intelligence rather than checked whether he might accidentally eat her hand.

Aveline straightened, a little more determined now.

"First," she said, forcing a scrap of firmness into her voice, "we are finding a cave to stay in tonight."

She looked around the forest, then back at Hamilton, who wagged his tail as if this were the most sensible plan in the world.

Aveline drew in a breath.

All right.

She would act like soone who could survive the night, even if no one had ever taught her how.

Along the way, she gathered what little firewood she could find. Hamilton followed her eagerly, trying to help in the most useless way imaginable.

"No, not that," she said when he ca trotting back with a fresh green branch clamped in his mouth. "This will not burn. You need dry branches. Like this."

She held one up for him to see.

Hamilton stared at her with those round, blank eyes of his, then scampered off again with great enthusiasm and no apparent understanding at all.

Aveline sighed.

He was hopeless.

But he was a happy hopeless, which sohow made it forgivable.

As she searched, the forest opened into one stretch of trees after another, but there was still no sign of a proper cave. In the end, she found only a hollow beneath a thick root system, hidden enough to shelter them both if they curled up close.

It would have to do.

"Hamilton!" she called.

No answer.

Aveline stepped out of the hollow and looked around, her fingers tightening around the wood in her arms.

"Hamilton?" she called again, a little louder this ti.

Still nothing.

Then, behind her... A twig snapped.

Aveline froze.

Her hand flew to her chest as she turned sharply, all the hair on her arms rising at once.

There... was a wolf.