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.

“You really shouldn’t look like that,” she said and surprised herself by almost thinking the befuddled look on his face was endearing. He’s a murderer! Her conscience rebelled, but the rest of her, the part that wasn’t attached to her very wise brain, found him far too pretty to care.

“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.”

He’s a professional killer, right? Maybe he’ll murder me now if I ask very nicely.

Shaking his head, a small dose of wonder in his eyes, he said, “You are chaos.” “Would you mind writing that out as an employment reference? I’d have a job within the week, and I desperately need work.”

“Safety in a place the public has nicknamed Massacre Manor? I’m okay, thank you. I’ll take my chances with the village brutes.”

“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?”

“Is that frog wearing a crown?” Evie asked after a few beats of silent staring.

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.”

There were severed heads hanging from the ceiling again.

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

But it helped that he didn’t seem as if he were expecting her to fail. She’d grown so alarmingly used to that look from the villagers, she’d cataloged it in her mind under things that made her want to commit acts of violence.

Don’t think about his personal life, Evie.

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.

Women? Have legs? Alert the town crier!

Evie had promptly asked what despair smelled like, but the other girls just returned to their whispering. She had never been very good at making friends.

when you spend most of your life trying to see the sun, you begin to wish for rain.

Don’t let the boss quiver your insides, Evie.

“Bend over.” Evie didn’t move. “Perhaps you could buy me dinner first.”

“A secret, if you please,” Tatianna said, turning back to her brewing potion. Evie paused in contemplation and then grinned. “I had a dream about the boss last night.”

“Have you seen the man? As if anything associated with him could ever be innocent.” She paused for dramatic effect, hands coming up with a flourish. “He’s a walking vice.”

“I adore you, Evangelina, but you are far from innocent.”

“You are corrupt by association, my dear.

Even the most “stand-up citizens” were capable of terrifying cruelty.

My stupidity is profound enough to be acknowledged, dammit.

Glorious. Ugh, not glorious, Evie. She needed to be sedated, clearly.

Anyone with common sense knew that the loveliest blades were always the sharpest, but for Evie there was no such thing. Her sense came and went with the wind, nothing common about it.

“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.”

Shoot, I forgot to restock the cheese. They are fiends for provolone.

“I like anticipating the good—that way it’s easier to see it…even when the bad happens.”

His voice was lower suddenly. A deadly tone that she’d seen make the bravest of knights shiver with fear. She, for some reason, found it comforting, which was…troubling. Danger isn’t attractive, Evie; it’s scary. Or…it’s both, her brain countered.

Don’t care more than you should, Evie. Sighing to herself, she headed for the stairs. Too late.

So even though the things he made often tasted like liquid shoe leather, Evie would be damned if she and Lyssa didn’t swallow every drop.

Evie was only twenty-three years old, and yet she felt like she’d lived a lifetime. Between the way she took care of her family and the mistreatment she’d been dealt by those crueler and larger than she, it was a wonder her hair hadn’t gone gray. It’s a wonder you made it to twenty-three at all with the ridiculous situations you get yourself into.

Even when she felt like her lungs would collapse, even when her heart felt like it would give out from the strain, she’d always managed to tug her lips upward.

Being evil wasn’t supposed to be joyful, and his migraine was proof.

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.

He sighed and tried to come back to who he was before this natural disaster of a person entered his hemisphere. You are evil incarnate. The world fears the very mention of your name. A cold-blooded killer.

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

She was smart, conniving in a way she couldn’t quite see, but there was a quiet ruthlessness to her that was so disarming coming from someone who seemed to dole out kindness like it was candy.

Nobody was ever truly innocent. Least of all, this secretly maniacal cyclone sitting across from him, even if he knew it wasn’t her.

Loyalty was easy to acquire when the only other option was death.

The damn organ between his ribs continued to pound relentlessly. He cursed again, gripping the windowsill until his knuckles turned white, but his heart wouldn’t slow. As if insisting on reminding him that he had one.

There was no pretense of being “better” here. They were all flawed enough to compromise any fantasy of moralistic value in favor of survival. It was beautifully comforting, in a world that had done its best to make Evie feel tragically alone.

Sometimes in the whisper of quiet, it almost felt like it answered her back.

She dared to want more of him, and that thought alone was far too dangerous to explore further.

“I can’t help it. Apologizing for things comes too naturally to me.”

MOOD

“There’s no need to overreact, little tornado. It’s just a name.”

Smiling crookedly, taking a step toward him, she dealt her first blow. “Fluffy.” The response was beautiful. His mouth gaped open like a fish. Opening and closing, trying to find the right words.