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

Leon found me in a small antechamber off the Great Hall. He was panting, clearly exhausted from having run to get here. His suit, rich black with faint maroon highlights, was certain to be damp with sweat.


"Where have you been?!" I hissed. "We start in less than five minutes!"


He rolled his eyes and caught his breath. "You would not believe how difficult it was to find Lord Brux in that crowd. And he was so insistent on telling me just how tricky it had been to find the original--"


I cut him off. "Don't worry about it. You have it?"


Leon grinned and pulled a small box from his pocket. I snatched it and slipped it into my own suitcoat--a deep blue ensemble with a brighter turquoise shirt beneath it. Once, I might have balked at the cavalier back-and-forth between the prince and I, but we had grown closer over the last few months. He was like a brother now, full of joy and mischief.


Chapter 50: A Coronation