Once Upon A Broken Heart

【 13 】

ᴏɴᴄᴇ ᴜᴩᴏɴ ᴀ ʙʀᴏᴋᴇɴ ʜᴇᴀʀᴛ | єναηﻭєℓιηє

                 【CHAPTER THREE】

Don’t turn around.
Don’t turn around.
Don’t—
Evangeline only meant to look for a second.

Just to make sure he was really there, that the phantom cold covering her skin was not from some unseen ghost or breeze.

Her eyes went toward the arch first.

Jacks was just beyond it, fog from
the other side still clinging to the buckles on his boots as he cut across the
clearing.

The ice at the back of Evangeline’s neck traveled around her throat and across her décolletage.

What was he doing there?
Since the last time she’d seen him, Jacks had changed his hair to a striking shade of dark blue. If his sharp face weren’t so unmistakable,
Evangeline might not have recognized him so quickly.

But even his face looked colder than before.

His lips were two wicked slashes, his eyes ice,
and his perfect skin more marble than she remembered, pale and smooth
and impenetrable.

In his church, there’d been a hint of twisted playfulness that softened
some of his merciless edges. But all of that was gone.

He’d lost something since she’d last seen him as if he’d been a touch human before but now he was not..

Now he was all Fate, and she needed to make sure he didn’t discover her.
“Ah, you’ve spotted Lord Jacks.” Evangeline quickly spun back to her new friend.
“He’s a close confidant of Apollo’s,” the girl said. “But he won’t help you win the prince.”
“I—I just thought he looked familiar,” Evangeline babbled.

And she tried, she really tried, not to look at him again.

The last time she’d seen Jacks, he’d walked away as she’d turned to
stone. She didn’t want to know what else he might condemn her to if he spotted her.

But she was like the tide drawn by the tremendous force of the moon.

It was no wonder waves were always crashing; they must have hated
the pull as much as she did.

When she turned, Jacks was still cutting through the party, all coldblooded
grace and disinterest.

Instead of a traditional doublet, he wore a loose shirt of gray linen, raven-black pants, and rugged leather boots, the
same dark color as the fur-lined half cape casually slung over one of his
straight shoulders.

He didn’t appear to be dressed for a party—the buttons
on his shirt weren’t even all done—but he captured more than just
Evangeline’s attention.

People looked away from Apollo, lounging across
his balcony rail, simply to watch Jacks rudely ignore everyone who
attempted to engage him.

No one appeared afraid of him the way they should have been.

No one
flinched or paled or ran.

Evangeline had never found out exactly what sort
of trouble Jacks had gotten into during the Week of Terror, but since then,
he must have decided to conceal his true identity. Here he was just an
insolent young aristocrat with a ruthless face and the ear of the prince.

Jacks walked straight toward the phoenix tree and was immediately
given permission by the guards to climb the stairs winding around it.

Not
once did his gaze drift from his path or venture anywhere near her.