But alas, after an uneventful journey, she was returned to her room, where she found herself undressing for bed and thinking words like alas.
She didn’t know when she crawled into bed exactly, or how long she’d been there. She was somewhere between asleep and awake when she heard the floor creak beside her. It didn’t sound like Apollo’s confident stride. It sounded like someone sneaking in. Evangeline dared to imagine it was Archer as she opened her eyes—
A broad hulking figure loomed over her bed.
Not Archer or Apollo.
She tried to scream.
But the assailant moved faster. In the time it took her to open her mouth, he was on the bed, slamming a large gloved hand over her lips and pressing her down with the weight of his body.
He smelled like sweat and horses. Evangeline couldn’t see his face—he wore a full mask that left him with only a pair of dull eyes exposed.
She tried to scream again. Tried to bite his hand. Archer hadn’t taught her what to do in this position. But she could hear his words from this morning. If you stop fighting, you die.
She kicked, aiming between her assailant’s legs.
“It’d be better if you stayed still.” The assassin flashed a knife the length of her forearm.
Help! Help! Help! she cried wordlessly, frantically fighting to buck him off.
He lowered the knife, parting the top of her nightgown. Then she felt the blade’s sharp tip carve a painful line beneath her collarbone.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” growled Archer.
Evangeline hadn’t even noticed him enter the room, but suddenly he was there—golden and glowering and possibly the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. He ruthlessly grabbed the assassin by the neck, yanked him from the bed, and pinned him to a bedpost, holding him aloft so his legs dangled as uselessly as a doll’s.
Evangeline scrambled off the bed. “I tried to fight him.”
Blood streamed down her chest as she tightened her robe with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking.
Archer’s eyes narrowed on the blood and Evangeline swore they flashed from blue to molten silver. He looked back at the assassin and snarled.
The sound that came out of his mouth was purely animal. He ripped off his mask, pulled out a knife, and brought the blade to the man’s left eye. “Who hired you to harm her?”
The assassin paled but gritted his teeth.
“I’ll ask you one more time, then you lose the eye. And I almost hope you don’t answer, because I’d love to cut out your eye. Who hired you to kill her?”
“It was anonymous,” the assassin rushed out.
“That’s too bad for you.” Archer lowered his knife.
“I swear, I don’t know,” the man spit out. “I was just told to make it slow and painful and bloody.”
Evangeline went numb all over. It was one thing for someone to want her dead, another to learn they wanted to torture her.
“Did they say why?” Evangeline asked.
The assassin clamped his mouth shut.
“Don’t be rude. The princess asked you a question.” Archer lifted the man higher and roughly shook him by the neck until his head rocked to the side. “Answer her.”
“I dunno why,” the man spit out. “I was just told to make it hurt.”
Archer’s nostrils flared.
“You’re lucky that I’m kinder than your employer.” He cocked his golden head, looking almost thoughtful. “This will hurt, but not for long.” Then he took his knife and stabbed the assassin in the heart.
Chapter 18
Evangeline
The assassin fell to the floor with an ugly thud. He twitched, convulsed—Evangeline wasn’t quite sure of the proper words, only that he didn’t die immediately.
It was all rather horrifying, but she couldn’t say she was sorry. She could still feel her own blood staining the robe she held to her chest. It had been such a pretty gown, periwinkle blue and lined in delicate cream lace that was turning dark with the welling blood.
The assailant made a few gurgling sounds that resembled curses.
“You’re wasting your last words,” said Archer. “I’m already damned.” He leaned down and twisted his knife. When he pulled it out, blood spattered on his dark cloak and the pale shirt he wore beneath it, but he didn’t appear to care.
He stepped over the body and stalked along the edge of the bed, glowering at Evangeline.
“Why is it that people are always trying to kill you?” His voice was low, on the edge of something deadly. “You need to be more careful.”
“How is this my fault?”
“You have no sense of self-preservation.” Archer took another angry step. “If someone labeled a bottle poison, you would drink it. You take warnings as invitations. You can’t seem to stay away from all the things that will hurt you.”
Like me.
She swore she heard the last two words in her head as he took another step toward her until he was standing so close, she could practically feel the hot fury pouring off him.
She needed to back away, to call her for guards, to tell him to leave. Her heart pounded impossibly fast.
But she found herself saying, “You’re not here to hurt me.”
“You don’t know that.” A muscle ticked in his jaw. “This morning I nearly tossed you over the side of a bridge.”
“You also just killed someone to save my life.”
“Maybe I just enjoy killing people.” Archer wiped his bloody blade on the sheets, but his blazing eyes never left hers. He still looked furious and feral. There was blood on his hands, and his eyes were shot through with it as well. Yet she’d never wanted anyone more.
She must have lost her mind sometime during the night because she wanted him to move closer. She wanted his hands on her. She wanted him holding her, restraining her, teaching her to fight. She didn’t care, as long as they were touching.
She told herself it was just the fear, the excitement, the blood rushing through her. It would fade in a minute. But the mad part of her didn’t want it to vanish.
Before she could think better of it, Evangeline reached for his hand.
The touch was electric. As soon as her fingers found his, the world started spinning. Her room turned into a kaleidoscope of night and sparks, and suddenly she was elsewhere.
She was in another memory.
It was dark and wet and for a second, she couldn’t breathe.
The icy water hit hard as earth. She thrashed on instinct, but someone held her tightly. His arms were unyielding, dragging her up through the crushing waves. Salt water snaked up her nose, and the cold filled her veins. She was coughing and sputtering, barely able to suck down air as he swam to the shore with her in tow. He held her close and carried her from the ocean as if his life depended on it instead of hers.
“I will not let you die.” A single bead of water dripped from his lashes onto her lips. It was raindrop soft, but the look in his eyes held the force of a storm. It should have been too dark to see his expression, but the crescent moon burned brighter with each second, lining the edges of his cheekbones as he looked at her.
Evangeline’s entire world tilted as she recognized his face as Archer’s.
The crashing ocean felt suddenly quiet in contrast to her pounding heart, or maybe it was his heart.