EVELYNI stood there for a moment, utterly taken aback.Mistress Anastasia wanted an audience with me?When I stared at Mrs. Porter in confusion and remained frozen in place, the head maid glowered at me, her icy blue eyes flashing with disdain.“Did you not hear her?” she demanded, gesturing at the dowager queen’s personal maid. “She told you the dowager queen requires your presence and you’re standing there like a bloody fool. Get properly dressed at once, Evelyn.”Her glare grew deeper and a shiver, as well as a phantom pain, ran down my spine. I knew well what happened when orders were disobeyed, and I could not risk punishment at the hands of Mrs. Porter.“I’m sorry,” I apologized quickly and offered them a small bow. “I will dress at once.”As I turned on my heels, the maids closed the door to grant me some privacy, and I readied myself at once. I removed my nightgown and traded it for another dress, this one a deep navy blue. It was similarly simple as the dress I’d worn to the
EVELYNSkyla’s eyes looked feline as they stared into mine and for a moment. We remained frozen, as if testing who would make the first move. The candle flickered in her hands, and after a minute, shadows underscored her raised chin.“It is indeed you, Evelyn Caddel,” she said, her honeyed voice cruel and arrogant. Her lips curled into a smirk as she moved the candle toward me.I frowned. “Where is Her Grace?”“Her Grace?” Skyla repeated back with a small laugh. “You didn’t think it was Aunt Anastasia who wanted to see you, did you?”I gritted my teeth a little and my temper swelled within me.I wanted to wipe the smirk right off of Skyla’s lovely face.“Look at you,” she laughed again, and she cocked her head to the side as she assessed me. “The proud Evelyn Caddel, reduced to a maid in the royal palace. How does it feel, I wonder, to be a peasant servant, forced to clean up after the people you once thought were your friends? I have to say it suits you well. You look so much better w
COLEI gazed down at the golden crest resting on the center of my desk. The embossment gleamed in the candlelight, its rich hue standing out from the ivory countertop and I felt my lips settle into a frown of discontent.I had recognized the crest immediately when I first spotted it at the House of Crawford. It was unmistakable- an image of a griffin spreading its wings, talons clamped around a rose.As I stared down at it, discontent turned to frustration.This crest had belonged to my brother Jack’s soldiers.And it had been found on two attackers who attempted to kill me the night we arrived at Lord Crawford’s.None of it made any sense at all. I had been invited to Crawford’s wedding personally, only to be met with attempted violence and a mystery I had yet to solve.A year had passed since the war ended, but the memories haunted me almost every night. My dreams were all nightmares now, each more vivid and brutal than the next. No matter how much soothing tea I forced down, no mat
COLEI frowned deeply as I took in the sight of the head servant before me. I had never seen Mr. Barrett look so horrified. He was known for his statue-like composure, so to see his eyes so wide and his chest heaving with heavy breaths, I knew something was wrong.“I-I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” he apologized as I rose to my feet. Alarm painted his expression, and his mouth trembled. “I-I didn’t mean to burst in unannounced.”“What happened?” I demanded, not out of anger but concern. Flynn stood too, flanking me with a hand on the sword he wore at his side. I glanced beyond him, but there was no one else there but Skyla Fox. “Where’s Aiden?”My King’s Guard should have stopped the servant and the lady before they reached my office, as was his duty.Why was he absent from his post?“M-Mr. Moran h-has gone ahead,” Mr. Barrett stammered as he pointed vaguely to the hallway. “T-there has been an accident in the garden, Your Majesty.”The head servant tried to maintain his composure, but it w
EVELYNI felt myself sinking rapidly.Darkness crept toward me, its tendrils of shadows reaching for me eagerly.At first, I could hear Skyla screaming, her shrill voice growing thinner by the second, but the sound of her cries quickly faded. Soon, it was as if the sound had never existed at all.As my lungs screamed in pain, I tried to free myself from the plants around me, but it was no use. I felt a strange force pulling at my ankles, dragging me deeper into the water.I kicked and fought, but no matter what I did, it was no use. No matter how much effort I expended, no matter how hard I tried, it was no use. I wasn’t getting anywhere. I was trapped, doomed to die beneath these waters just as I nearly did as a child.Water began to fill my nose and mouth when my lungs gave out, and just before I lost consciousness, the water around me seemed to warp. I knew it was nothing more than a delusion, but I could see a vision of my father rushing toward me, jumping into the river, and pulli
EVELYNI didn’t know what to say to Elsa as she stared at me with those large, doe-like eyes of hers. She was so innocent-looking, so sweet… it felt difficult to tell her anything.She seemed to sense my discomfort and spoke quickly.“It’s okay if you don’t want to say,” she assured me. “I’m not trying to pry. I just… I hope I can be of help to you.”I smiled at her weakly, acknowledging her kind offer. “I appreciate it, Elsa. You’ve been helpful enough already.”I paused for a moment as images danced in my mind.“In fact, I’m not entirely sure what happened,” I admitted.“What do you mean, Evie?” Elsa prompted me softly, reclaiming her spot in the chair next to my bed. She took my hands again as if to comfort me, and it soothed me more than I expected. She was warm and kind, something I hadn’t experienced much of since arriving in the palace a year ago. It was refreshing to feel like someone cared for me, and I was grateful to call Elsa my friend.“I was awoken by Mrs. Porter and Mis
EVELYNNo part of the royal crypt was dedicated to Mistress Claudia?Had I heard Elsa correctly?I frowned at her, unsure of what to think about all of this. Though it was no great secret that the late King Theodore had abandoned his first wife in favor of Sylvia, letting her die lonely of illness, it surprised me to think that the former Alpha King wouldn’t honor her in some way. She and King Theodore had two children together.Wouldn’t that fact alone warrant a place in a crypt, even if their marriage was in shambles toward the end?As for the rest of the tale, the idea of a ghost wandering the river sounded too ridiculous to be true. Though Elsa seemed to believe it blindly, I knew Melanie and her band of gossiping maids were no strangers to conjuring grand lies. I had been the victim of enough of them to no longer trust her words.Rather than crush Elsa’s spirit, I made some sort of excuse after releasing a yawn and mentioned that I was feeling exhausted after my ordeal. My friend
COLE“Nonsense!” Lord Marcel Fox roared. His eyes, uptilted and narrowed, made him appear more like his namesake than a werewolf, and I sat back and watched patiently as he scolded his daughter. His angular face went scarlet with anger as he stood over Skyla, who was kneeling on the ground, sobbing. Her face was pale and her light green eyes were bloodshot as she wept.Anastasia was perched on a settee beside them, a bored expression on her face. She gazed down at her long, perfectly manicured nails as her relatives quarreled.As Skyla’s wailing continued, I gritted my teeth in frustration and gripped the chair beneath me. The sound of it was grating and I wanted nothing more than to finish with this business. “I’m sorry, F-F-Father,” Skyla stammered and sniffled. “I just wanted to m-mess with her-”“Mess with her?” Marcel thundered. “Have you lost your mind, Skyla? Look at what you’ve done! You’re lucky that nothing more happened out there!”His daughter’s shoulders tightened as sh