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

by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

She’d been called many disparaging things in her life. Alarmingly all beginning with the letter F. Flighty, foolish, forgetful, and, by a strange turn of events, she was finally able to add the final F. Fucked.

“Um, yes— The blood’s not great…but I was referring to the fact that you look like you were carved out of marble, and I just think that as a rule of thumb, inherently evil people should be grotesque-looking.”

“You just can’t kill people and be pretty. It’s confusing.” Evie began unwrapping the wool scarf her little sister, Lyssa, had given her on her last birthday, stepping closer to The Villain and holding it up like a signal of peace. “For the blood, Your Evilness.”

Shaking his head, a small dose of wonder in his eyes, he said, “You are chaos.”

“Normal” was for those who didn’t have the ability to stretch their minds past the unreachable end.

Don’t think about his personal life, Evie. Another good rule for the list she’d been adding to like clockwork since her first day there. Stop trying to get the boss to laugh, Evie. Don’t touch the boss’s hair, Evie. Don’t find torture attractive, Evie. Don’t tell Edwin the cauldron brew is too strong, Evie.

“My first what, you little tornado?” “Your first joke.” He grunted and opened his mouth to speak, looking quite outraged, if she were being honest. “Of all the—” He paused to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Sage, do you honestly think me incapable of humor?” “Of course I don’t think that,” she said earnestly. “You hired me.”

“I’ll remind you that, at your bequest, I haven’t actually killed an intern in several months.” Evie shook her head hopelessly. “Sir, I hate to belittle your successes, but there are people who go their entire lives without killing anyone.” His face remained serious. “How dull.”

That familiar, annoying buoyancy whirled through him, making him feel vile things like joy and the unmistakable need to laugh.

Sage gently scooped the frog into the palms of her hands and nuzzled him against her cheek. Naturally, Trystan began planning the amphibian’s demise at the sight. “Sage, do not make a pet of my prisoners.” “Then stop having adorable prisoners.”

He was a puddle on the floor, and every speck of dust in that room was his enemy.

There were many beautifully designed windows throughout the manor, but this private area tucked into the corner was her favorite. The tiles were haphazardly placed in a design that altogether formed the shape of a vibrant sun shining its light down on an old book. An accurate depiction in Evie’s eyes, since a good book often felt like the same comfort as the heat of sunlight brushing your cheeks.

Kingsley was holding another of his signs, this one reading Halp. The Villain reached back, quickly ripping the sign from the animal. “Give me that, you little traitor.”

“I’ve never felt more turned around than I have in the entire time I’ve made your acquaintance, Sage.” And then the dimple appeared. The colors of the sunrise were beginning to spread over the rest of his face, surrounding the back of him. Lighting him from the inside out.

“I only sold two jars in the last month, Trystan. The first was to a forlorn widower, and the other…”

I know I read this book but I can’t remember a thing! Early prediction. The “bad guy” is Evie’s own father!! 8/19/25

Ruined. He didn’t feel ruined with Evie, though. He felt reborn. What a fucking disaster.

Trystan became unexpectedly aware of his hands, which were somehow on the curve of her hips after Sage had pulled him closer. Feeling himself now breathing heavy for reasons that had nothing to do with his near brush with death, he lifted his gaze from his hands to her lips.

When it comes to the thing one loves most, Trystan thought before running out in the open toward the grate, the sounds of Sage’s screaming protests behind him, it is always better to be trapped together than free and apart.

“He told me that ‘the opinions of others are ever-changing.’ And to ‘never care quite so much of the world’s perception of you.’”

the darkness that lay beyond threatened to swallow him, but the moon once more caught on the gems in Sage’s hair. Trystan kept his gaze there, knowing he’d follow that light wherever it went. He’d never been this sentimental, and it was all her fault.

“Would you like to dance?” Her eyes widened even more, but a small smile graced the red bow of her lips. “With whom?” She looked around theatrically. Trystan smirked, because in all truth, she was very funny. “With me.”

When he bent his neck to take her in, he was knocked breathless by her joy aimed at him full force. It was so foreign to have someone so happy in his presence, or even because of his presence, that he almost missed a step.

This was a different sort of torture, one he’d never experienced before. He’d become so good at not wanting anything above what he could take—but this woman was not a possession. She was a person he greatly admired and respected. Someone he relied on more than he’d ever thought possible. Someone to whom he would never admit any of this. You get this one happy moment,

If it’s just a dream anyway… He sat up quickly, arms whipping around her, fingers pulling lightly through the soft locks of her hair. He tugged gently, nearly groaning when a gasp escaped her lips, and angled her head so he could taste her fully.

The Villain came to an unbidden realization then, so completely tragic that his mind tried to reject the words. But they were there, so plainly it was almost comical. He was in love with her.

She wasn’t light; she was color. Every single one, dancing otherworldly and bright over his unworthy eyes. She was the explosion of the vivid gleams and glows of the world around him, like a constant rainbow, shining not after the rain but during.

So instead of the green ink used in employment bargains, he’d used the gold, because unbeknownst to the public, its main purpose was protection. It warded against the strongest of evils, and when she’d face them, he’d know. He’d had the same gold ring placed around the circumference of his biceps, so that when she faced any true threat of death, it would tell him one way or another.

“We’re all monsters in the end. At least mine lives in the light.”

The Villain looked upon the frog with a different lens, and for the first time in ten years he found himself relieved that Kingsley remained a frog…and not the kind and noble human prince he’d been once upon a time. For if Kingsley was a prince once more, The Villain knew how stark his inadequacies would feel against his old friend’s benevolent chivalry.

“What could be better…for The Villain’s whore.” Evie closed her palm and her eyes, feeling the burn of pain in every pore, feeling it pulse in her blood. “Actually,” she rasped out. She opened her eyes. “I’m. His. Fucking. Assistant,” she whispered and smiled, before whipping the dagger up and slitting his throat.

The remaining knight, her unlikely hero, did not say a word. Merely stood there for a moment, assessing her, his whole face covered by a silver helmet, save for his eyes.

This has GOT to be Evies brother right?! The brother isn’t actually dead!?!

Quietly vowing to herself that she would save The Villain… Or become one trying.