A Curse for True Love (Once Upon a Broken Heart, #3)

“Doesn’t matter,” said the boy, voice cracking. “Nothing could hurt more than this.”

“No,” Apollo agreed. “I’ve never seen anything so horrific, which is why I’m here. I want to make sure whoever committed this atrocity is caught so that it can never happen again.”

“You can’t catch him,” the boy murmured, rocking back and forth. “He’s not human.”

“Why do you say that?”

The boy finally looked up. The terror on his face was so raw he looked like a skeleton with skin painted on. “He moved so fast. I was up here when I heard the first scream. It was my sister. She’s always so dramatic. I ignored it at first. Then there was another and another.”

The boy brought both hands to the sides of his head and covered his ears as if he were still hearing the wails.

“I knew it was bad—evil. I ran downstairs, but as soon as I saw all the blood, I hid in the closet.”

“Did you see who did this before you hid?”

The boy nodded shakily. “He looked feral.”

“Did he look like Lord Jacks?”

“No.”

“Are you certain?” Apollo asked.

He didn’t actually believe it was Lord Jacks. Only one type of creature could cause this sort of devastation. But he wanted the boy to say it was Jacks. It would make everything so much easier.

“It wasn’t him. I would have recognized him. Lord Jacks was friends with my grandmother before she passed. This man—I don’t think he was even a man . . .”

The boy brought the palms of his hands to his eyes and quietly cried.

Apollo, never having been comfortable with crying, pushed up from the bed and took a quick survey of the room. There was a desk near the window with an easel to the side of it. It seemed this boy was the family artist. Propped against the easel was a half-finished watercolor that looked rather nice. On the desk there were even more drawings and sketches and notebooks. He seemed to favor animals and people. Although there was one drawing of an apple.

Apollo hated apples.

Just the sight of the fruit brought his anger back to the surface. He looked from the outline of apple to the blood on his boots to the boy still crying on the bed.

There was nothing he could do for the boy or about the blood. But all the artwork and the apple made Apollo realize there was something he could do about Jacks.

“You’re quite talented,” Apollo told the boy. “Some of this art is good.”

“Thank you.” The boy sniffed.

“Do you think you could draw something for me?” Apollo picked up a notebook and a pencil, then he handed the items to the boy.

“You want me to draw you something now?”

“Yes. Art is supposed to be good therapy for the soul.”

Apollo told the boy what he’d like him to draw.

The boy replied with a quizzical look, but he made no attempt to argue with the prince. Most people usually didn’t, though it might have been better for this boy if he had.

As it was, the boy quickly went to work on his sketch, bowing his head over his book as he feverishly outlined and shaded and did whatever it was that artists did. When he finished, he carefully tore out the page and handed it to Apollo.

“Excellent,” Apollo said. “This is really good work, young man.”

“Thank you.”

“Do you feel any better now?”

“Not really,” muttered the boy.

Apollo clapped him on the shoulder. “I truly am sorry for your loss,” he whispered, “but soon you won’t feel any pain at all.”

Then Apollo took his knife and stabbed the boy in the heart.

Shock and pain briefly crossed the boy’s face before he fell back on the bed, as dead as the rest of his family.

Apollo felt a moment of sadness. He wasn’t really a monster. He just did what had to be done. A boy this trusting and this cowardly wouldn’t have made it long in this world; his family was all dead now, anyway. And Apollo would make sure his sacrifice was put to good use.

The prince wrapped the boy’s hands around the dagger, making it look as if the death was self-inflicted for whoever found him later. Then, after a quick glance in the mirror to make sure his shirt didn’t have any blood on it, Apollo stepped into the hall and quickly shut the door behind him before the waiting guard could see inside the room.

“How did it go, Your Highness?” asked the guard.

Apollo shook his head mournfully. “Such a tragedy. The boy feels guilty for surviving. I fear he’ll never be the same. But he did draw me a picture of the man who murdered his family.”

Apollo handed the drawing to the guard. “Have new wanted posters drawn up. Mention this massacre and then add this picture of Lord Jacks.”





Chapter 20


Evangeline


Evangeline ran out of the door right as two guards burst through into her room. She quickly dodged past, expecting them to give chase. But she was the only one running. Her bare feet clapped against the cold hard stones as she ran after Archer and cried again, “Wait—stop!”

He couldn’t have gone far. She could hear the fall of his boots around the corner. Hall after hall after hall she heard him in the distance. But every time she turned a corner, Archer wasn’t there. All she saw were portraits of Apollo that looked far more accusatory than she remembered.

The prince’s painted eyes watched her as she ran down a particularly narrow hallway. Some of the lights had been snuffed out, making it darker as well, until she reached another portrait of her husband. The sconces flanking this picture seemed especially bright, glistening off the golden frame as if to make up for the lights that had gone out.

It looked like another portrait of Apollo in the magical phoenix tree, lounging across the branches. Although it was difficult to be sure. The portrait had been slashed down the middle.

Archer stood beside the mutilated picture, cape tossed back behind his shoulders, arms crossed over his chest, as he eyed the mangled portrait. “I think I like this one best.”

Evangeline didn’t see a knife in his hand, but there was a sharpness to Archer’s gaze that felt like a blade. If anyone could cut with a look, it would be him.

“Did you do this?” she asked.

“That wouldn’t have been very kind of me.”

Evangeline’s eyes drifted toward the blood spattered on his pale shirt. “Would you describe yourself as kind?”

“Not at all. But I think you already know that.” He shoved off the wall and stalked closer to her. The hall was quite narrow, so it wasn’t much of a walk. Two steps and he was there, near enough that everything smelled of apples and her head felt suddenly light.

Yesterday morning when she’d met Archer in the hall outside her room, just standing next to him had made her feel as if she’d made a bad decision, yet she had still wanted to follow him. She had supposed herself delirious from lack of sleep. But she wasn’t delirious now. She wasn’t mad. It was just him.

Standing this close to Archer made her feel as if she couldn’t catch her breath, as if her blood was made of champagne bubbles all rushing to her head.

“What are you to me?” she asked.