“No, no, no . . . this can’t be happening again.”
It was almost worse that Evangeline could remember everything so clearly now. That she knew this had happened before. That Jacks had chosen to push her away, and then he’d disappeared and she had never managed to tell him that she loved him, and love had lost instead of won.
Evangeline’s hands shook as they turned the bloody knob. And then they shook even harder. There was more blood outside the room, staining the floor in the hall.
“Jacks!” she cried desperately. “Jacks—”
She broke off as she remembered that Jacks was a fugitive. She wanted to find him urgently, but she didn’t want to alert anyone else that he might be near.
Without another word, she raced down the stairs. Now that she’d stopped shouting, she could hear rain pounding on the walls outside, but everything else was eerily quiet for an inn with a tavern. Wrong quiet. Too quiet.
Her final step down the stairs sounded like a clap of thunder. She knew something had happened even before she found the bodies.
There were three of them. Three lifeless, unmoving forms. Evangeline saw that much before her vision tunneled, going black around the edges and filling with dancing spots in the center.
She grabbed the banister for support, legs buckling. Something inaudible escaped from her throat. A scream—a curse. She didn’t know what words came out of her mouth or how long she stood there.
Numbly Evangeline forced herself to check for any life. The barkeeper, whom Evangeline approached first, was lying so close to the door, it looked as if she’d been trying to flee before her throat had been ripped out. The other two bodies were by the fire, and Evangeline imagined they’d been caught unawares.
It looked as if a wild animal had attacked them, but Evangeline knew better now that she had her memories all back.
A vampire had done this.
She must have been spared because of Jacks—but then, where was he? Why was his blood in her room? His body wasn’t among the others, but her mind spun with a million questions as she stumbled out of the tavern. Was he injured? Dead? Had he been bitten?
Evangeline vowed she’d return to cover the bodies with sheets and cloths, but first she desperately needed to find Jacks.
Outside, the rain was still falling in unrelenting sheets. She couldn’t see more than a few feet down the path, but she thought she could hear someone coming.
A familiar bird cawed, and Evangeline immediately froze.
A second later, a figure moved toward her through the rain. A figure who was definitely not Jacks.
Garrick of the Guild of Heroes was mostly obscured by his cloak and hood. But she recognized him from the awful bird perched on his shoulder.
She started to back away, toward the inn. But the path was slick. Her foot slipped.
“It’s all right, Princess. I’m not here to hurt you.” Garrick grabbed her arm, as if to steady her. “I’m here to rescue you.”
“I don’t need to be rescued.” Evangeline tried to shake free of him. But Garrick held her fiercely, like he didn’t care if he hurt her, fingers bruising in their grip. “Sir, let me go.”
“You’re soaking wet,” he grunted. “You need to get back inside.”
Evangeline took one step, but then she remembered she wasn’t just Evangeline Fox, she was Princess Evangeline Fox. “You need to let me go now,” she demanded. “I order you to release me.”
The hero cursed under his breath and added something that sounded like useless royalty. “Sorry, Princess, but you’re coming with me and my men.”
He snapped his fingers twice and more figures strode forward through the steady fall of rain. There were at least half a dozen men, all concealed by cloaks like Garrick’s, yet Evangeline could easily tell that all of them were larger than her.
She could not fight her way out of this. But maybe she could reason with them to let her go.
“You don’t understand.” She dug her heels into the muddy ground. “It’s not safe inside that inn. Go and see for yourself. But please don’t take me with you. I can’t go back in there.”
“Don’t worry,” Garrick said, “there’s no safer place than with us.”
“Then why do I feel like your captive?” she protested.
Garrick sighed behind his hood. “Fine, you’re a captive. But that doesn’t mean I won’t keep you safe.”
Evangeline continued to argue, but Garrick easily ushered her inside, followed by his gang of heroes.
The air smell fetid, metallic with blood and thick with death.
The barkeeper lay frozen on the ground in the same awful position Evangeline had found her.
Garrick’s fingers dug into Evangeline’s arm a little harder. It was the only indication that he might have been affected by the bodies.
He lowered his hood. It was the first time she’d seen him without a mask. He had a ruggedly handsome face entirely devoid of emotion.
But then he was barking out commands. “Leif, Raven, Thomas—you three go up and check the rooms. See how many others are dead.”
The men quickly marched up the stairs, making the wood shake as Garrick turned back to Evangeline. “Did you see who did this, Highness?”
“If you want me to answer your questions, unhand me.”
“We don’t need her. It must have been Lord Jacks,” said one of Garrick’s remaining men.
“No,” Evangeline said immediately, shooting the man a glare. “This wasn’t Jacks.”
“My wife is clearly stunned,” said a voice that immediately made Evangeline’s skin crawl.
Apollo was there. She could hear him, striding up beside her. Then she felt the brush of his hand on the small of her back.
Evangeline spun to the side and slapped him hard across the face. The sound of her hand hitting his cheek echoed through the inn, loud, cracking, and satisfying.
You loathsome, conceited, cowardly worm of a prince, she thought as she watched his skin turn an inflamed shade of red.
She didn’t tell him she knew everything that he’d done. She didn’t tell him that she knew what he really was and that she would never be his. She wanted to. But she wasn’t that foolish. Not when Apollo was surrounded by guards and heroes who could effortlessly subdue her if she picked a proper fight with the prince.
“Oh, Apollo!” she exclaimed instead. “You startled me.”
The prince rubbed his cheek. “I didn’t know you could hit so hard, my sweet.” The words were teasing, but she swore his eyes narrowed. Evangeline told herself that he couldn’t have known that she’d regained her memories.
And she realized then that he could never find out.
She needed to keep pretending, and not just because his guards and heroes for hire were there. If Apollo knew her memories were back, he might simply take them away again. Now she understood why he’d had physicians check on her every day. To ensure that if any part of her past started coming back, he could just erase it.
He was horrible. Evangeline knew he was horrible, but the depths of his deception hit her harder and harder. She wanted to slap him again, to yell and scream and rage, rage, rage, but she had to be more careful.
And she had to do it now.
She tried to make herself smaller. Garrick had finally released her after Apollo had appeared. She hugged both her arms to her chest and tucked her head, as if she were shaken up and frightened, which she should have been, but it was so hard to feel it through all the anger pulsing through her.