Assistant to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain, #1) (67)

The Villain darted around his guards, who continued to wave furiously and keep the guvre distracted. The grass made no noise beneath his feet as he crept closer and closer to the creature’s back. He had one shot to get it into the beast’s mouth before he let out another wave of his venomous breath.

This, upon reflection, was not my most well-thought-out plan.

Of course, Blade wouldn’t have been a helpful solution, either. His résumé, full of raving accounts of all the magical creatures he’d worked with, had been pure exaggeration, clearly.

With a sigh, The Villain realized that his office and its workers were beginning to resemble a badly drawn cartoon sketching. But there was no time for letting that manic imagery weigh him down.

There was a stiffness in his legs as he ran, thighs burning, heart pounding. He dove around one of his guards, Andrea, shoving her out of the way from a blast of the guvre’s breath.

She rolled and landed expertly, then screamed at another of his guards, Dante. “Wave your arms higher, you fool!”

Dante’s arms were already flailing so hard, he looked like a drunk ballerina. “I’m waving them! Trying not to die, Andy!”

Trystan was close enough now to leap onto the creature’s back, but the serpent’s head was too high, too far away. His original plan had been to come at the creature from behind, waiting for him to open his mouth so he could thrust the sleeping draught in. But he only had one shot—he couldn’t waste it.

This was suicide, and it was very probable Trystan was going to die. But dying in the pursuit of revenge was every villain’s dream, so he couldn’t find it in himself to mind very much.

“Hey!” The Villain yelled. His power seeped from his fingers, that familiar gray mist flowing out and around him as the creature turned with a screech so forceful, it blew his hair back from his forehead. Trystan looked for weak points, but a death blow wasn’t an option; he needed the beast alive. Only one weak point was visible on the creature’s foot, highlighted in yellow, barely enough to give it a paper cut.

The guvre shook his magic off, and almost immediately, any sort of hold Trystan had crackled until it shattered. He wasn’t powerful enough to hold a creature of this size for more than a few seconds, but those few seconds were enough.

The guvre’s mouth opened wide, a swarm of purple smoke beginning to fog out. The heat of it hit the top of Trystan’s forehead, and he felt his skin singeing, burning. But The Villain smiled through the pain, for he had waited just long enough. Uncapping the vial with his teeth, he threw the draught right down the creature’s large throat. It disappeared into the now-aggressive wave of heated breath that was burning through his skin so fast, if he stood there a second longer, the bone of his skull would see the sunlight.

The draught didn’t take as long as expected, but neither did the damage from the swamp of breath that melted the bramble where he’d just been standing. A little close for his liking, but he didn’t die, so there was that. The animal teetered to the left, his head jerking and swaying, still spraying the noxious mist.

“Move!” Trystan yelled. “Get out of the way!” His people scattered, flipping and rolling away from patches of melting ground, a rankling cry ringing out as a lick of mist brushed against Dante’s leg.

“Fuck!” he yelled, jumping away and gripping the back of the red leathers he wore. “That hurts!” Dante leaned his neck around to look at the burned-away fabric of his pants, revealing a sliver of his…ass.

The guvre swayed drunkenly for a beat and then finally dropped to a heap with a resounding thud. But his guards barely noticed, too busy laughing at Dante being stripped by their prey.

Trystan sighed; he was so very tired. Wincing and reaching up to feel the wound on his forehead, he added being in pain to his list of complaints, along with the fact that his orderly life seemed to no longer exist.

“When you all cease that annoying sound coming out of your mouths, may I kindly ask you to do your jobs and get the animal to the cart?” The Villain gestured toward the incredibly large, carted cage he’d had made specifically for this purpose.

As soon as his sentence was complete, his guards were already dragging the creature onto the tarp and moving him inch by inch toward his future of imprisonment, as humanely as Trystan could manage. It couldn’t be helped—removing the dragon’s collar had opened up a level of…compassion. It was a hindrance already, but it needed to be minded.

He couldn’t believe he’d done it. Something Benedict had been trying to accomplish for years. This was and would forever remain Trystan’s victory over the man who had ruined everything, had ruined him. A yellow flower among the undergrowth left in the forest caught his eye, and his mind conjured an image of Sage.

Ruined.

He didn’t feel ruined with Evie, though. He felt reborn.

What a fucking disaster.





Chapter 30


Evie


“It’s crooked,” Becky insisted.

Evie pushed the frame higher onto the wall, nearly stumbling from the ladder she was already precariously close to falling from.

“So is your face,” Evie mumbled under her breath, feeling the burn in her biceps from pinning up the sides of the heavy artwork.

“What was that?” Becky called up. Even a couple of feet below her, she still found a way to look down her nose at Evie.