Accomplice to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain, #3)(5)
All not especially different from before…
Except for the groaning.
“I’ll take breakfast in my office.” Trystan halted halfway to the door. “Is your sister…coming to retrieve you?”
Lyssa shook her head innocently. “No. She’s just returning from an errand.”
Trystan’s expression did not change, but his eyes became more alert, his gaze sharp on the little girl, though it gentled as he bent a knee to match her height. “What do you mean, little villain? What errand?”
Lyssa shrugged and gestured an arm toward the door where Evie’s voice had just sounded. “I don’t know. She just said it was off the property with Keeley and that I couldn’t go.”
Alexander was not surprised at the clench in Trystan’s jaw or the obvious worry shadowing his dark eyes. The manor had been located, and Evie’s face was plastered all over Rennedawn on a wanted flyer with a generous award attached. The only protection they had now to ward against the Valiant Guard was a grove of thorns planted by a black-market gardener, which had proved to be an efficient deterrent for the king’s men thus far, but outside the manor doors…the danger was real. And it was great.
Still, Keeley—the head of The Villain’s guard—being present was an indication that Evie would likely have been in no serious danger. The young woman had been placed in charge for very sound, very violent reasons.
Logically, Alexander knew he need not worry. He suspected Trystan might know this, too, and though Alexander was a frog, not a mind reader, when you spent every moment of every day for ten years straight watching, you became somewhat of an expert observer. But that hardly mattered.
No expertise was required to look upon Trystan Maverine and know that the feeling boiling within him was the purest sort of anger.
But Trystan didn’t showcase any of that emotion to Lyssa, who looked at him with concern, her big brown eyes homed in. “Since Evie is so busy, shall we do our tea party today, Lord Trystan?”
Trystan looked relieved at the subject change as he nodded, a small movement upward tugging at the corner of his lips. “I suppose I can postpone my afternoon target practice.”
Lyssa squealed and made her way to the door—hopefully not knowing the target at said practice was the interns.
As both Alexander and Trystan watched Lyssa Sage’s dark head disappear, a somber mood descended upon the now empty and joyless space. Trystan sighed before moving to open the armoire and pulled out what Alexander knew was something of great import to his friend.
The scarf Evie had given him at their fateful first meeting sat in Trystan’s hands, and Alexander watched with a painful sympathy as Trystan brought the scarf up to his face and closed his eyes.
It was too sad even for a cursed frog to watch.
Alexander Kingsley turned his attention to the floor while his friend mourned a fate that Alexander swore he could prevent.
If only he were human enough to stop it.
Chapter 2
The Villain
Trystan Arthur Maverine took torture quite seriously, but the past fortnight was a newfound low even for him.
Attempting to stay away from Sage was akin to a horror spectacle he’d seen performed at a theater a few years prior: bloody, awful, and forcing him to question his ability to make sound decisions. The door was cracked open, and the morning buzz of the workers trickling in made an ache form near his temples. Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to close it.
Because while Sage was on the other end of the wide office space—and though he had to strain to accomplish it—he could still hear her humming.
He couldn’t close the door…and risk missing it.
Even if the sound ravaged as much as it healed.
The low din of the office beyond grew louder, the telltale sign of some new tidbit of gossip that would be in Tatianna’s ear before the day ended. He didn’t care to know; his foul mood had plowed through any sense of social decorum he might have had. Not that much had existed inside him even before he’d extracted himself from Evie for their own good. Sage believed their separation was in the name of protecting his magic, but in truth, he didn’t care about that. He cared for nothing but preserving the fragile thread between them without destiny cleaving it in two.
Evie Sage is meant to be your downfall, and you her undoing.
Destiny monsters were rare; most considered them mere myths. Creatures that existed before the creation of the magical continent, watching, waiting for the gods to paint it in magic and color.
The destiny monster at the Fortis Family Fortress had announced the tragedy of their future as if it were absolute, but Trystan declared to himself he could avoid it…if he avoided her.
His chair screeched against the stone floor as he threw it back so far it slammed into the wall. Wood creaked beneath his fist as he gripped the door by the edge, but before he could slam it closed and bring himself the peace he desperately craved, the entry to the main office space opened.
And what he saw bent the knob beneath his hand.
Sage appeared at the entry, one shapely pants-clad leg moving in front of the other, giving him no choice but to pull the door to his office open wider, treading away from his safe haven, the same space where her desk had once sat.
The ice pixies were wafting cool trickles of air through the office vents to compensate for the cloying heat outside. It brushed against the skin at Trystan’s neck to chill him. But it made no difference. It all felt like it burned.