Page 29 of A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart)

Evangeline went very still, or she tried to. It was surprisingly hard not to move with a blade to her throat and a hand intimately wrapped around her stomach. “Are you insane?”

“Undoubtedly.” He slowly moved the dagger, drawing a careful line over her pulse. He didn’t pierce her skin, but the effect was still dizzying.

“Neverimagine you’re safe,” he scolded. His knife traced a line from the hollow of her throat to the center of her chest all the way down to the laces of her vest.

Her breathing hitched. The tip of the blade hovered just beneath the laces. All it would take was one little flick and they would be undone.

No.

She wasn’t sure if he thought the word or if she did. It almost sounded like his voice in her head.

Then in one impossible move, Archer hauled her to her feet and released her just as quickly.

She staggered back on quivering legs.

Across from her, Archer was soaked. Water dripped from his golden hair to his pale cheeks, but he didn’t even shiver. He just stood there, gripping the knife he’d just held to her throat. His knuckles were white, but that might have just been the cold. “We’ll try again later.”

“What if I don’t want to try later?” she panted.

He smirked, an expression that said it was cute that shethought she had a choice. “If that’s what you want, then you’ll need to do a better job of fighting me off when I come into your bedroom. Until then you carry this.Everywhere.”

Archer tossed her his dagger.

It flipped, handle over tip. Jewels sparkled in the light, and suddenly Evangeline saw an image of this knife. But it wasn’t in the air, it was on a dark floor. And this wasn’t just a picture, it was a memory.

Many of the gems were missing, but the knife’s hilt still glittered in the torchlight, pulsing blue and purple, the color of blood before it was spilled.

The memory was quick.

As it faded, she looked at the knife in her hand. It was definitely the same blade. It had the same blue and purple gems, down to the ones that were missing.

She didn’t know if it had always been his, or if it had once been hers, but one thing she was certain of was that Archer had lied about knowing her.

She wanted to ask him why, and she wanted to ask him about the knife.

But once again, he was suddenly gone.

13Apollo

Apollo stood in front of the fire of his private study, hands clasped behind him, chin tilted up, eyes down. It was a pose he’d frequently struck for portraits, like the one that currently hung above the fireplace mantel. Of course, he had been younger in that portrait. It had been painted before he’d met Evangeline, before he’d died and seen himself replaced within a week by an impostor. And an unimpressive one at that.

Apollo knew he was still young. He’d lived only twenty years—and they’d been twenty peaceful years, which made it rather hard to live a life that inspired bards and minstrels. He liked to think that had he lived a little longer before his supposed death, his legacy wouldn’t have been so quickly discarded.Yet Apollo was still disappointed in himself that he’d squandered so much time.

Coming back from the dead had given him an edge in building a legacy that would not be so easily forgotten. But he knew that this alone wasn’t enough to forge the future that he wanted, to ensure that no one would curse him again or use him in any other way to harm Evangeline.

He had to do more.

Apollo unrolled the scroll that Lord Slaughterwood had given him two days ago. Just as before, it began to catch fire, not enough to burn him, but enough to destroy the page and render it into ashes. It started with the words at the bottom of the scroll; they always caught fire before he could read them. But he’d read enough of the story. He knew exactly what he had to do.

But first Apollo had to make sure Evangeline was safe.

The knock on the door came precisely on time.

Apollo took a deep breath, bracing himself for what he feared he would have to do next.

“You may enter,” he said, turning down his mouth as the door to his study opened and Havelock stepped inside.

The guard immediately noticed the burning page in Apollo’s hand and the ashes on the ground. “Have I interrupted something?”

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