Page 36 of A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart)

“No,” Evangeline repeated calmly. “I’m married.”

Aurora twisted her mouth. “That usually doesn’t stop other people. There’s really not a guard or handsome stableboy who has caught your eye?”

“There’s only Apollo,” Evangeline said firmly. Although, even as she spoke, her thoughts flashed to Archer. She pictured him standing there on the bridge in the rain, shirt clinging tohis chest as his eyes clung to her. But she didn’t want him as a lover. He was reckless and uncivilized and he’d lied about knowing her. She only wanted to find him so he might spark a new memory.

But it seemed that wouldn’t be happening tonight.

Footsteps had begun to pound down the hall. Aurora had waylaid Evangeline long enough for her guards to notice her absence and finally catch up.

Disappointment made Evangeline tired. As her guards had walked her to the room, she kept looking over her shoulder for Archer. She didn’t know if she really thought he could appear, or if she just wanted him to arrive so much that she thought she could will it to happen.

She imagined colliding with him in the hallway and regaining all her memories in a sudden rush that made everything in her upside-down world make sense.

But alas, after an uneventful journey, she was returned to her room, where she found herself undressing for bed and thinking words likealas.

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.Whohired 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.”

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