A Cheap Promise

A To Be Loved Prequel

A cold chill iced my skin, colder than the breakfast fruit sherbet my maid had torn me away from, already souring in my stomach. Breathing a forgotten luxury, I stared at the royal messenger standing stiff in our doorway, his crisp uniform bearing our kingdom’s stars-and-swords emblem.

“Come, Lady Evangeline,” he repeated, tone edging on a snap, hatred in his eyes as he impatiently held out a white-gloved hand. “Do not keep His Most Royal Highness waiting.”

Everything within me warned that this unexpected summons from King Lukas heralded disastrous tidings—but what had I done that could possibly involve me in it? Fingers curling into the silky folds of my cheerful lemon-yellow gown, I tipped the messenger a bare half-nod and dragged my feet over the threshold, suppressing a flinch when the messenger’s hand clamped hard around my arm.

“Gladys,” I called over my shoulder to the poor maid trembling at the double doors, “please, tell my parents I’ll”—oh, what can I even promise them?—“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Huffing, the messenger jerked me down the white stone steps with a muttered “don’t count on it.” I winced and scrunched my nose as we rushed into a drizzle of rain, which turned into a light drip-drip-drip on the roof of the waiting carriage as the messenger prodded me in, none too gently. Jaw tense, I kneaded my hands while the messenger climbed into the carriage after me, face a tight-lipped mask.

“Kind of you to join me, sir,” I murmured, taming my damp, unruly caramel curls into a plait.

Lightning flashed as he ignored me and signaled the driver to go.

My heart pounded a sickly, steady rhythm, stomach seizing with each jolting bump of the carriage over the slick cobbled roads.

Nothing I did could stop the fear that whatever was wrong, it was all my fault. Of course, it couldn’t have anything to do with the meeting I’d held with those spies several months ago… because both they and I had vowed secrecy in regards to that midnight conversation.

Promises are cheap, Evangeline.

Quivers trailed my body when the carriage finally jerked to a halt and the messenger offered me his arm in a show of feigned courtesy, guiding me up broad stone steps flanked by soaring marble columns. Reed’s eyes assaulted my vision the second I entered the chilly throne room, his stare gray and stricken, ratcheting up my pulse to a thunderous gallop—he would be there to watch what transpired, working as the king’s private investigator, with the rest of the court. Sounds of male chattering died as eyes riveted to me… as Reed straightened with a fierce fold of his hands and a heave of his chest… as King Lukas, appropriately intimidating in that heavy gold crown, shifted on his throne to spear me with a cold glare.

Then one of four men standing in front of the king twisted around to eye me, face pale but lips in a thin line.

Unable to stifle a gasp, my knees turned to jelly as I recognized him as Xavian—one of the five spies with whom I’d conducted the secret meeting… yet only four were here. Void of any last remnants of hope, I lifted my gaze to King Lukas, breathing out desperate, silent prayers.

Why am I so reckless, so heedless of consequences? I thought in despair, already knowing that had to be the cause of why King Lukas had summoned me.

Xavian faced the king again with the rest of the spies, his head hanging in a way that almost brought up my breakfast.

Years seemed to pass before the king rose from his throne, passed the spies, and slowly paced forward until he loomed close enough for me to catch the tiny twitch in his eye.

Zeroing in on me like an arrow trained dead on the bullseye, King Lukas finally spoke, voice cool yet pulsing with barely-contained fury; “Tell me, Lady Evangeline… how does it feel to be a murderer?”

Read “To Be Loved”