Assistant to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain, #1) (44)

“Before I became…what I am now.” There was a sharpness punctuating the sentence, like the very idea was painful.

“A monster,” Clarissa snapped, a bitter, wounded expression on her face. Before Evie could assess her boss’s reaction, though, Clarissa spun around and stormed back inside her home. She slammed the door, and the daisies painted on the wooden surface seemed to jump from the force.

“Sir, that’s not— I don’t think you’re—um.” Evie couldn’t think of the right thing to say, so instead she settled for asking, “What happened between you and King Benedict?”

The Villain’s face was unreadable as he said, “I don’t see how that is important for you to know, Sage.”

The words weren’t said to be cruel—Evie could tell he meant them as a dry and logical statement. Still, it felt pointed, and it stung. The blow of it must’ve shown on her face, because his mask seemed to crack just the tiniest bit.

“Sage, I did not mean—”

“I think it’s time to head back, don’t you?” she said, then started to walk into the forest without waiting to see if anyone followed. She kept her shoulders back, ignoring the prickling along the sides of her neck and cheeks. The grass crunched under her boots as she walked, helping drown out the sound of Tatianna’s calls for her to wait for them. Evie just wanted to return to the manor before one more ridiculous thing left her lips.

Tatianna’s voice grew distant, but Evie still heard her say, “Were you always this dumb, Trystan? Or is it a recently acquired skill?”

“As always, thank you for your help, Tati,” The Villain replied as the heavy fall of his boots caught up to her.

Sunlight brushed against Evie’s cheek, but she no longer felt the heat as keenly as she did before. Branches brushed against her arms as she was suddenly struck by all the things she didn’t know.

And all the ways that lack of knowledge could get Trystan killed if she didn’t find a way to stop it—soon.





Chapter 18


The Villain


His assistant was being painfully silent.

The two of them walked slowly back toward “Massacre Manor” after another disastrous family reunion. What spiteful god did Trystan anger to endure seeing not one but two of his family members in so short a span of time?

Trystan glanced over his shoulder to check on Tatianna, but his healer, one of the only tolerable people in his acquaintance, was staring at his sister’s front door with a longing expression.

He shrugged and continued bounding after his fleeing assistant. Tatianna would follow when she was ready.

More importantly, Benedict’s angle was beginning to become clear, sending the traitor through Trystan’s family members. To hurt him? Possible but unlikely. The king knew very well Trystan’s nature didn’t leave room to be hurt by petty power plays.

Though if anything stung, it was the anger Clarissa had inflicted when she’d called him a “monster.” It had not been his first experience with that word—he was quite at home with it, in fact; he’d learned to enjoy the sound of it. But it had been said with Clare’s face and her voice that was so like his mother’s that it felt like his chest had been cleaved in two.

In Trystan’s deepest, most private thoughts, he imagined what it would be like to walk into his brother’s tavern a different man. Clare and Tatianna would be sitting there, hands linked, waving him over with a glass of wine outstretched for him. Trystan would sit with them all, enjoy their company, and feel a sense of belonging among his family.

But that would never happen.

More proof that emotions were a useless inconvenience he needed to shove aside at every opportunity. Because of them, things kept going wrong in every sense of the word. Malcolm seemed to think there was some sort of truce between them, his sister looked at him like the scum on the bottom of her shoe, his workers were growing more restless by the day with the impending threats, and his assistant…

His assistant was walking in long strides, swinging her arms so hard that she looked a bit like a windmill. “You’re being quiet…which is unusual,” he blurted out and almost smacked his palm against his forehead.

She halted abruptly and shot him an astonished expression.

Yes, I did just make an ass of myself. Thank you for noticing.

The regret he was feeling must have been a direct result of spending too much time with his assistant, for he never wasted time on it if he could help it.

Trystan blinked away from his thoughts and attempted to listen to the words spilling from Sage’s lips. But her nose was scrunched, and that seemed to be a confusing source of distraction for him.

“Are you listening?” she demanded, snapping him from his imaginings.

The tip of my sword appears to be a fine place to rest.

Empirically speaking, his assistant was beautiful. It would be inaccurate for him to even attempt to deny it. He’d thought it the moment they met in the forest, the sunlight spilling over her shoulders and the sharpness in her eyes softened by misplaced kindness. But beauty was inconsequential to him. Well, it usually was.

The women he allowed himself to be intimate with, when he did seek out such things, possessed a jaded view of the world that was familiar to him. He looked at sex like taking care of an intrinsic need, like eating or sleeping. He saw no sense in affection or admiration, though he felt a panicked twinge of both things when looking at his assistant’s face.