She watched that ridiculously perfect head turn to the empty spot beside him and then back toward where she was helplessly sprawled on the ground. Back stinging, shoulder aching. With the addition of a large bruise forming after hitting the ground for the second time that day.
The voices were closing in, and they sounded angry. Evie attempted to climb to her feet to at least find a hiding place. But a familiar hand appeared in front of her, and she gripped it despite the shock overriding her decision-making skills.
“You fall down often.” The Villain looked her up and down as he said it, seeming to catalog the fact like he was making a scientific discovery. “Let’s move, Sage.”
Ignoring the formality in his usage of her surname, she blustered, “The first time I fell, it was because you pulled me down!” She gripped his offered arm for support, and they moved away from their pursuers as quickly as they could manage.
“But you fell so easily. I barely tugged.”
“You cannot possibly be blaming me for not being sturdy enough to withstand someone yanking me by my wrist?”
He didn’t dignify her question with an answer, just gripped her tighter as they hustled through the forest like a pair of bandits. Eventually, the scenery of unending trees began to take on a darker tone. Not only because of the fast-fleeting sunlight, but the color of the trees was a different kind this far in. Long, twisted trunks and branches held warped leaves of a lush moss color, and the high-pitched screeching of strange birds filled the thick air, sending deep, unsettling chills through her.
“Where are we going?” she asked hesitantly. The little light that was left in the sky seemed to vanish within seconds, and night cloaked over them like an unwelcome blanket. Well, unwelcome to her, at least. The Villain looked around at the blackness, and for the first time since she had encountered him, she saw a truly wicked glint in his eyes.
He belonged to this, the night, the darkness. It was his.
And Evie…was still not afraid.
So incredibly odd.
“To safety. My home and where I conduct my business.”
Evie attempted to pull her arm from his and turn in the other direction. “Safety in a place the public has nicknamed Massacre Manor? I’m okay, thank you. I’ll take my chances with the village brutes.”
His arm was a steel hook around hers, and she couldn’t move an inch. She may as well have been welded to him. “If I’d wanted you dead, I would have left you back there.”
She arched a brow. They were moving at a far more leisurely pace than before, the low buzz of voices behind them fading into almost nothing.
They’d lost them. For now. The safety in that caused Evie’s inappropriate curiosity to get the better of her. “Why were they chasing you in the first place?” she asked, angling her head at him and the pouch he gripped at his side. “Did you steal something? Weapons? Money? Someone’s firstborn child?”
The Villain halted for a moment, and Evie yelped as the pouch moved. Before she could protest, The Villain reached inside and pulled out a larger-than-average-size frog, so green in color that it nearly blended against its gold-rimmed eyes. It sat peacefully in The Villain’s hand, staring at her. She stared right back at it.
“Is that frog wearing a crown?” Evie asked after a few beats of silent staring.
The Villain ignored her question, holding the frog up a little higher. “I will not deny that thievery is one of my better traits. However, in this case, those men were attempting to rob me.”
The dots were connecting, just in a way that was too strange for even Evie to understand. “Rob you of…a frog…that’s wearing a crown?”
The Villain turned and continued to walk, and Evie followed quietly. “This is no ordinary frog,” he reasoned. “He can…understand and communicate with humans as well as if he were one.” The frog let out a healthy ribbit as if to demonstrate his fine communication skills, but The Villain ignored him. “And he is in my care.” The words prickled over Evie’s skin like a warning. “Magical animals get auctioned for quite a bit of money. The men from your village thought it would be prudent to find out how much stealing him on my daily stroll would cost them.”
Evie gasped in horror. “And the crown is because…？”
The Villain paused, raising his hand holding the frog toward Evie as though the reason were obvious. “His name is Kingsley.”
Evie blinked at him for a moment. “Are you serious?”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”