Minerva batted her eyelashes at me and pushed her shoulders back. "Do I look lonely?" she said.
She looked like someone I wanted to push onto her back right then and there. Like someone I wanted to kiss until we were both dizzy. But there were things you didn't say to a princess, not when your station was so far below hers.
***
On her first day working as a maid, Eve finds the king dead on his throne. His murder kicks off a cascade of intrigue, and as the plots of the nobility come crashing down around her, Eve is torn between hungry princes, the ever-watching eyes of the royal court, and a mad princess who seems to know far more than she lets on. Complicating everything further is the Imperative, a magical curse through which the Andan nobles have bent the world to their whims. If she is to survive, Eve must learn what it means to find strength in the face of overwhelming power.
The Maid and the Monarch is created by EOK Gifford-Smith, an EGlobal Creative Publishing signed author.

The Maid and the Monarch

Princess Minerva's chambers had no guards. I made a mental note to speak to Brienne about correcting that oversight. Right now though, I was in a hurry.


I pushed through her sitting room and knocked sharply on her bedroom door. Proper etiquette would involve announcing my presence and requesting entrance. But proper etiquette also assumed you had never slept with the royal in question. And that you weren't magically compelled to murder the prince.


Minerva answered the door with a lantern in one hand. Soft candlelight flickered from within, casting an orange glow across her perfect, ethereal features. She might have been a ghost or spirit come to treat one's wounds in the night.


"Eve!" She hugged me fiercely. Unlike our prior two encounters, she shook with fear; I could feel her nails digging into my back.


"Princess," I said, speaking barely above a whisper, "might I come in? I need your help."


Chapter 18: Dark Reality