Apprentice to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain, #2)

by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

He wished to find Sage. He wished to tell her he was sorry. He wished to be better about revealing how he felt, bit by bit. And perhaps, most importantly—he wished to have a godsforsaken tea party with her little sister, Lyssa.

When one spent their entire life feeling weak, it was quite thrilling to be viewed as a threat.

She was afraid, but she knew now: fear usually meant you were standing on the edge of something new, something self-altering, something potentially good. Fear was not something she would shy away from ever again.

“I hope you remember that whatever happens next—” She tilted her head, grinning through her final damning words. “I did so try to warn you.”

“Get the deadlands away from my family or I’ll liquify your bones.”

“It is fiction for a reason, you menace. By the gods, what if you carried out every impossible act you read about?” It was a rhetorical question, but she couldn’t resist the urge to slip into the normal ease of their cadence, like no time had passed. “Oh, I suppose that I would need to become very, um—flexible.”

“I did not think you wished to be impaled.” She couldn’t help it—she snorted, clamping her lips shut to keep the inappropriate response in. But he saw, shaking his head and sounding annoyed. “You are unbelievable.”

It was only Sage who could see his magic. How unreasonably terrifying.

“When a knight is willing to betray his king, it always makes me wonder: Was it the knight’s shortcoming”—now her brows raised in satisfaction—“or the king’s?”

“I sure missed your foreboding speeches, sir; my nightmares didn’t have nearly as much fodder while you were away.”

“Oh, come now, sir. There are some beings you simply cannot keep apart; they’ll always find their way back to each other.” The dragon trainer’s eyes landed on him meaningfully. “You should know this better than anyone.”

“There is nothing written in any text, gods-created or not, that says we cannot be more than one thing. You’ve been told for a very long time that you are made for destruction, but there is nothing that says you cannot be more. You can be capable of bad and do good. You can do good things and still be bad. Nothing is set in stone, and if it helps, I’ll stand by you no matter who you choose to be.”

“Does your mind live in the gutter?” She shook her head, tapping a finger against her lips. “No, but it rents there on occasion.”

“Because we are always expected to plaster a grin on our faces even when we don’t wish to. I used to do it so often, I stopped being able to tell when I was smiling for me or for someone else. So now, I don’t smile unless I’m one hundred percent sure it’s something I want to do, not something someone else wants me to do.”

“I’ve been hurt plenty by the world, by people, by men. Just because you bury your bad experiences behind revenge schemes and scorn doesn’t mean that I must join you in your misery. Being a cynic doesn’t make you wise. It makes you a coward.”

She was charming the thing into a stupor. He could sympathize with its plight.

“Sometimes family isn’t a thing we are born into but a choice we make. Sometimes”—Evie smiled—“the people who love you most in your life are the ones who choose you.”

“I was checking on the female guvre, but it’s difficult for me to get close without the male freaking out and getting violent.” The dragon trainer hesitated, smirking at Trystan before saying, “You know what that’s like, don’t you, boss?”

“That is what happens when people are bored of mundane existences. They have to pick at extraordinary ones.”

“You think I do not care? As if thoughts of you and your well-being don’t plague me daily. Nightly. Every second we are apart! I watched you die! I thought I’d never see you again! I have never known such darkness, and I never wish to again. If you think that makes me overbearing, so be it. But do not ever claim I do not care about you. You are wiser than that, Evie. Do not be a fucking fool.”

But she was inevitable, from the moment he first saw her and every moment since.

“You slipped?” Though he was attempting to hide it well, she knew he was laughing beneath the shaking appendage. “In the blood of your victim?”

“I do not lack equilibrium,” she argued. “The ground merely lacks the courtesy of letting me know when it is coming closer.”

“It’s true, my lady. I have no association with my father any longer. I am disowned with no footing in society. No title. I am a beast trainer, nothing more, and certainly not your daughter’s partner.” Renna absorbed the information with a nod. Becky frowned, and Blade grinned as he tacked a word on the end: “Yet.”

“I would sooner take the scraps she lay at my feet,” he stated, “than commit myself to a cheap imitation.”

They had an evening to kill, and if she wasn’t going to spend it in his arms, then she would take some delight in throwing sharp things at his head.

“I think I am very sad. But I won’t be forever.”

Beware the wrath of a kind heart.