Accomplice to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain, #3)(66)

A unicorn, Trystan tentatively hoped. There was nothing remotely sexual about a unicorn. Surely his depravity didn’t extend to being attracted to someone with a horn stuck in the middle of her forehead. Hardly as alluring as Trystan, who had two rising from the sides of his head.

“Sage, hurry up and let’s get this over with.” Trystan checked his wrist, and Kingsley leaped to his shoulder, wearing a tiny court jester hat atop his crown. The bells jingling in Trystan’s ears were akin to nails scratching against concrete.

The traitorous frog held up two signs.

No

Timepiece

?

Never mind, the question mark made three.

“You’re not helpful,” he growled, keeping his head pointed toward the room where guests were amassed, the buzz of social enjoyment making his brows draw together in contempt.

There was a light clicking sound against the stairs as Sage descended, and Trystan had an internal war within a matter of seconds. If you look at her now, it will be quick, like ripping off a bandage…or a fingernail. But the longer he waited, the longer he was displaying that he was in control of himself and the miniscule amount of emotion he carried. Oh, this is ludicrous. She’s one person! He was a living legend of evil.

A living legend of evil who locked eyes on her and felt a brick thrown into his skull. Metaphorically speaking, of course, but the pain level seemed an apt comparison. He had the authority to say so—he had been hit by a brick before, and it did fucking hurt.

But this, incredibly enough, hurt more.

Her hair was loose, cascading down until it brushed the tops of her hips, her warm, dark tresses catching the candlelight. The pearls and shells pinned throughout the mass of raven-colored locks gleamed. They sparkled. But her hair wasn’t even the whole of it; the gown she wore clung to every curve, a clear mesh revealing large patches of soft skin. The skirt looked like it had been sewn together with bits of fishing net—hardly enough to cover the fronts of her thighs and certainly not enough to cover the sides of them.

The netting climbed, ending at the wide part of her hips. His hand itched at his side, and he slapped it against his leg as if it had fallen asleep.

But nothing in his body was asleep at this moment.

She pulled her thick locks behind her shoulders, revealing that the skirt was attached to a small scrap of fabric in the middle of her stomach. He followed the line of fabric up and up until it stopped, covering her breasts. Trystan was suddenly grateful that he was having such a violent reaction to her; if he didn’t, it would surely mean he had fallen over dead.

Years of practice at hiding his emotions was the only thing keeping his lips from falling open farther than a brief parting before he pressed them back together. But he had a strange feeling Sage saw it, that she watched his mouth and found something telling.

“Are you a mermaid?” Clare guessed, adjusting the ivy leaves around her skirt.

“A siren.” The voice that cut in sounded so foreign to his ear, lower and hoarser than his usual unemotional deliveries. It took Trystan three heartbeats before he realized that the voice was his.

Sage stared at him. Her eyelids were painted a glittering gold color. Though he supposed the gold could be considered more of a bronze? What in the deadlands was the difference?

Trystan only knew that he was morbidly appreciating glitter and that he had to stop immediately.

Sage quirked a brow, stepping forward, flicking one of his horns in a playful gesture. Not knowing how close Trystan was to dragging her into the nearest closet and tearing the netting away from her body. It didn’t look very sturdy. One hard tug and it would probably fall clean off.

Dear gods, man. Stop it.

A distant, raucous laugh reminded him that the lot of them were about to be in a room with all of Fowler’s closest acquaintances, and if the lord rubbed elbows with Trystan so readily, he could only imagine the other people Fowler kept company with.

He was no longer eager to enter the room and place Sage, Tatianna, and Clare in a space so wrought with dishonorable presences. His met their quota. If even one person made a wrong move toward any one of these three women, Trystan would…

No. They likely frowned upon violent murder before dinner was served. Could Trystan hold out for dessert? No. He was asking the wrong questions.

Could he hold out until appetizers?

Sage flicked the horn again, snapping him back to the present, where she was looking him up and down with a mock pout. “Aw. They didn’t give you a costume?” She admired the horns like they were of her own doing—

Oh, that little—

“You did this, didn’t you?” Anger cast a dark enough shadow over his attraction to her for him to be sufficiently incensed.

She bestowed her usual wide-eyed innocence upon him. “I merely reminded Lord Fowler not to forget your horns.”

You drew me? he’d asked when they searched her father’s house a few weeks prior. When they were in her old bedroom and he’d found the sketch she’d attempted of him.

Yes. She’d been irritated that he’d found it. But I forgot to add the horns.

Dear gods, she must have been stewing on this for weeks. Waiting for the right moment to exact her revenge for teasing her. Trystan was impressed…and minutely terrified. But only minutely.

He wondered if it would make it better or worse if he told her he’d stolen the sketch and had been carrying it in his pocket every day since. Including right now.