Accomplice to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain, #3)(48)

Together, they rode without speaking for nearly an hour, until eventually they felt safe enough to slow to a trot. The threat was behind them, and Evie’s heart could finally rest its relentless pace.

“Evie, dear, are you all right?” Tatianna’s worried frown made her feel stripped raw.

The smile Evie gave was bright and practiced. “I’m fine. Just a little winded. Are you?”

Tatianna leaned over her horse, putting an arm around Evie. “Would you believe this wasn’t my worst workday? I’m okay. We’ll catch you up on what Lionel told us.”

Evie smiled again.

“Sage?” The Villain’s gravelly voice queried. His hand closed around her upper arm, and she blanched at how the touch burned. “Ride ahead, you two. A few of the Malevolent Guards are waiting just up the path.”

Tatianna and Clare nodded, as did Kingsley on Clare’s shoulder, and as the three of them rode on, each nearly broke their neck to keep glancing behind them.

He gave them a glare so fearsome all three spun around at once. Evie, however, merely poked him in the cheek. “Stop doing that with your mouth. It looks odd.”

“What happened? Why are you so upset?” he asked abruptly.

She fumbled to steady herself, nearly losing her seat. When she was sure she wasn’t going to slam into the earth, she said, “I was just surprised. I…I’m not upset. I am worried for you, of course, and I hope whatever curse you’re suffering from is a mild one. Although I’m not sure how you didn’t know you were cursed in the first place or what a mild curse would be. Like, a head cold, maybe? Kingsley’s would probably be likened to the Mystic Illness.”

The sun was beginning its descent, the pinks and oranges mixing against the white clouds visible through the trees overhead. She’d always liked the sunset, but not in this moment.

“You’re lying. That smile is fake.”

Riding ahead of him, she scoffed. “Forgive me, but I don’t believe you to be an expert judge on that subject, Sir-Frowns-A-Lot.”

He grabbed her arm again, and the intensity of his stare, of the seriousness… The tears nearly came again. “It’s. Fake.”

This time, the smile on her face was real, but she could feel it stained by sadness. “So what?”

He blinked at her. “So what? What do you mean, so what?”

“Who cares if it’s fake?” She attempted to urge her horse away again. But he tugged her back once more, and her horse seemed more loyal to him, as the beast refused to budge an inch. This time, it wasn’t sadness driving her; it was frustration.

“I care, you urchin,” he bit out. “Stop faking it for other people. No one is asking you to. What is wrong?”

“Stop pushing me!” she yelled, leaping from the horse and stalking into the trees, her temper a long and now broken cord. “I don’t have to tell you anything. You insisted on this distance. You are the one who has been pushing me away! Stop trying to have it both ways.”

“That wasn’t for me!” Branches cracked with each step as he swung off his stallion and followed her, placing a hand on her shoulder to stop her. “You think this is the choice I wanted to make? I can’t protect you if my magic isn’t cooperating when we get too close. I can’t lose—”

“To Benedict. I know,” she snapped, shaking off his hand.

“You!” He spun her around, grabbing her face, and bent, pressing his forehead against hers, inhaling deeply as if to breathe her in. He whispered, “I can’t lose you. I will not survive it.”

Her hands drifted up to wrap around his wrists, and the mere brush of their skin made her burn.

His lips drifted closer to hers. “My magic is hardly the whole of it, even if it’s cursed,” he added.

This made her reel back, but he couldn’t seem to stop touching her yet. His hands found purchase on her upper arms.

“What is the curse?” she asked.

His throat bobbed, and a cool breeze made her shiver. “Lionel thinks someone placed a curse on my magic. He thinks before my magic was awoken, someone tampered with it. So, when it was triggered in the cell all those years ago, it wasn’t working the way it should.”

It didn’t make sense. Nothing was adding up.

“Sir, what are you saying?”

“My magic has been under a curse for more than ten years.”

She swallowed.

“And I think Benedict is the one who cast it.”





Chapter 31


Blade


Meanwhile, back at the manor…

Blade Gushiken had very few rules in life. Likely because he’d had so many growing up with his politician father and socialite mother, so when he left home, all those things he hadn’t done before became his favorite things to do. A new way of life.

He tallied the few and only rules he had left.

1. Bring as many strange or unique animals into the house as you please.

2. Leave mud on the floor anytime it’s possible.

3. Be best friends with a dragon.

4. Be best friends with some humans, too.

5. Wear colors so loud that your father can feel the defiance all the way in the capital.

6. Never shy away from telling someone how you feel.

“My brother is here.” Rebecka Erring…or Fortis, or…well, whatever name she was going by these days appeared at his side in a pale-yellow frock. She looked like a daisy. A perfect, angry little daisy. “He’s here, and he’s looking at the thorn hedge.” She began pacing the courtyard, and Blade tried to make sense of her concern.