EOK Gifford-Smith

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

We were silent, save for the constant crackle of the fireplace. Minerva's hand found mine and squeezed it tightly. I got the sense she was trying not to tremble with... rage? Fear? Disbelief? All of the above were reasonable reactions.


Leon went with the latter. "That... that can't be. That would mean..."


"A threat to Andan supremacy," General Dayton said. "If another country gains access to the Imperative, then we have lost our greatest advantage--more so now that there are so few living heirs."


I shot him a glare, but he didn't seem to notice. Knowing the General, he hadn't actually meant to pin some of the blame on Minerva, he was just evaluating the problem with blunt efficiency.


"How did this happen--where did he go?" Leon's eyes were fixed on his mother, he still didn't seem to believe what she had said.


Chapter 43: Implied Catastrophe