Page 10 of Her Wicked Promise (The Devil’s Plaything #2)

Robin

T he next morning, I sit next to Eva at the impossibly long dining table, stirring my coffee slowly while watching her pretend to read through a stack of papers.

She’s aware of every move I make. I can feel her attention like heat against my skin, even though her amber eyes never lift from the documents spread before her. The way she holds herself—spine straight, shoulders squared, that careful mask of indifference—it’s all performance.

Eva Novak doesn’t fool me anymore.

And if I’m ever going to test her promises, it has to be today.

“I’m going to walk down to the lake this morning,” I say casually, keeping my eyes on my tea.

The rustling of papers stops. The silence stretches between us like a held breath, and I can practically feel Eva’s sharp gaze cutting across the table.

“As you wish,” she says finally, her voice carrying that familiar edge of boredom. She doesn’t even look up. “Better there than the village, anyway.”

“And why is that?” I demand at once.

“Because those superstitious peasants are observing some religious holiday today. Everything will be shut.”

I scowl at her rudeness but don’t respond, relieved that she’s not going to stop me. I set down my teacup with deliberate care and stand, smoothing my sweater. “I’ll see you later, then.”

Still no response. Just the sound of papers shuffling as Eva continues her performance of indifference. But I catch the way her fingers tighten on the documents, the slight tension in her shoulders that tells me she’s anything but casual about my departure.

I run up to my room to get a coat, and then with a sense of relief, I exit into the castle grounds by a side door. Outside, the air is crisp, carrying the scent of distant woodsmoke. I wrap my coat tighter around myself and set off down the winding gravel path that leads to the lake.

But as I reach a crest, I catch sight of the village below, and even from this distance I see it’s as bustling and busy. Children playing in the schoolyard. Laundry hanging from windows and balconies. Smoke rising from the chimneys of the businesses running through the center of the village.

Eva lied to me. The village is just as it usually is.

She just didn’t want me to go there.

I glance over my shoulder, wondering if one of Eva’s men is following me. I listen as hard as I can, but hear nothing. So, determined to be contrary, I take the turnoff to the village and head down that way instead.

Each step away from the castle feels like shedding a suffocating layer. Sticks crunch under my boots in a satisfying rhythm. The sun comes out, warming the cold forest. And for the first time since returning to this gothic fortress, I feel like I can breathe properly.

But the sense of being watched lingers like a chill at my back. I try to shake it off, telling myself it’s just paranoia, but Eva’s presence seems to follow me even when she’s not there. As if she’s carved herself into my very soul.

And then I hear it: a low, steady hum. A car engine , approaching from the direction of the castle. Without thinking, I duck behind a thick bush that borders the path. The rough branches catch at my coat as I press myself against them, trying to make myself invisible.

Is she following me? Did she change her mind about letting me wander freely?

Eva’s black car sweeps past without slowing, disappearing around the bend with its usual purr of expensive engineering.

Relieved that it didn’t stop, I shake my head and continue down the path, but the calm has vanished even though I keep insisting to myself that whatever Eva Novak is doing, it’s none of my business.

I’m here to get reacquainted with the village, to remind myself what normal human interaction feels like.

The village comes into view once more as I round the final curve—cobblestone streets winding between timber and stone buildings, flower boxes that I assume will come alive in spring, smoke stretching from chimneys like gray fingers clawing at the pale but cloudy sky.

And then my steps falter.

Before I get to the village, I have to go past the cemetery. It’s as picturesque and gothic as the rest of the village, and I’ve always enjoyed the melancholy feeling it gave me as I walked past.

But today, Eva’s car is parked at the cemetery gates.

What is she doing here? The question burns through me, followed immediately by a pull of curiosity I can’t resist. I should mind my own business.

Should explore the village again, reintroduce myself, maybe find a place where I can sit and pretend I’m just a normal tourist—not that I’ve ever seen a tourist in the village.

Instead, I find myself swerving toward the cemetery.

Eva once told me that the cemetery is older than the village itself, and I can believe it, based on its weathered headstones and elaborate monuments telling the story of generations buried in mountain soil. Ancient trees reach across the stones, and the air carries the scent of earth and flowers.

I’ve never been in here before, but it’s not hard to find Eva.

She and Leon are standing before a large stone crypt near the back of the cemetery, its heavy doors carved with intricate patterns.

The name etched into the weathered stone over the doors is written in an unfamiliar script, but I still know what it says.

Novak.

Eva holds a small urn in her hands, her head bowed in a posture I’ve never seen from her before.

Vulnerable. Human. The morning light catches the clouds of black hair framing her face, and for a moment she looks less like the predatory queen who rules from her castle and more like a daughter saying goodbye to her father.

Because that’s what this is, of course. The urn she holds—it has to be her father’s ashes.

Leon stands nearby, his hard face softened by something that might be grief. His usual stoicism has cracked just enough to show the man beneath the bodyguard. He’s mourning too. Zoltan Novak wasn’t just Eva’s father—he was Leon’s employer, maybe even his friend.

Something twists in my chest. Sympathy, pity, or maybe something more dangerous. I should leave. Should give them privacy for this intensely personal moment.

But I can’t seem to make my feet move, transfixed by the sight of Eva’s carefully constructed walls crumbling in the face of grief.

As if sensing my presence, Eva’s head lifts suddenly. Her eyes lock onto mine across the headstones and her expression hardens in an instant. That vulnerable woman disappears, replaced by the ruthless queen I know so well.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she snaps.

The words should send me running. Instead, I walk closer, stand next to her, turn to face the crypt. “Would you like to say something for him?” I ask softly.

For a moment, Eva looks like she might snarl at me again. Her jaw tightens, and I can see the internal battle playing out in her expression—the urge to lash out warring with something deeper.

Then her eyes drop back to the urn, and her voice becomes small. Raw.

“I don’t...” she begins, then stops. When she speaks again, it’s in her native tongue—low, halting words that sound like prayers and apologies all at once. I don’t understand the language, but I understand the emotion. The love. The regret.

And the vow of vengeance. I understand that, too.

I see Leon nodding along.

When Eva finishes, Leon opens the crypt for her with a key, and she disappears into the dark depths without another word. I see a flame gutter and grow strong from inside, but then the heavy stone door groans shut, and I’m left standing with Leon in the quiet.

He gives me a brief nod—not quite approval, but something close to it. There’s a flicker of curiosity in his dark eyes as they meet mine, as if he’s trying to figure out what I am to his employer. What my presence means.

“She loved him very much,” I say quietly, not sure why I feel the need to fill the silence.

“More than anything,” Leon confirms. “Except maybe...”

He doesn’t finish the sentence, but his gaze lingers on me meaningfully.

When Eva reappears minutes later, her mask is back in place. She walks past me without acknowledgment, her spine straight and her head held high. But I catch the redness around her eyes, the self-soothing motion I remember from the hospital as she smooths down her coat.

Leon locks the crypt again. For a moment, Eva meets my eyes once more. There’s something raw and unguarded in her expression, gone so quickly I might have imagined it.

She’s not just a monster, I think reluctantly. And oh, how I wish she was.

Because monsters are simple. You run from them, you fight them, you survive them. But a grieving daughter who cradles her father’s ashes? A woman who promises vengeance to the dead and looks at me like I might be the solution to her grief?

That’s much more dangerous.