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

by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

My gods, the woman was like the sun. He needed tinted glasses just to look at her.

Yes, she’d grown older, but she still had faith in goodness, in people, in magic.

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.

“You are the most frustrating person I’ve ever met, and I work with hardened criminals.” He shuddered. “And interns!”

“You know as well as I, Trystan Maverine, that humans demonize what they cannot understand. It isn’t our job to educate them, just to live the way we’re meant to with the knowledge that being called a monster does not make you one.”

“For what it’s worth…I do not think you a monster.”

“From you, Trystan Maverine, that means a great deal.”

She had a family. It was filled with villainy and mischief, but it was honest, and it was the one truth she could hold on to.

Losing someone didn’t mean the end; it merely meant the beginning of the life you’d lead without them, the beginning of letting in the people you’d gain in their stead.

“Is this a little tornado, sir?”

“Sage, do you have any enchantress or siren lineage in your family?”

“This is a very strange place,” Gideon said in astonishment.

“Oh, the wanted flyers of me are spreading, sir! How exciting.”

A tragic inheritance, seeing your mother’s flaws crop up within yourself and having the awareness to know it but no idea how to stop it.

“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.”

He kissed her.

He kissed her tenderly, like he dreamed of nightly, like he’d always wanted to, like he’d imagined doing ever since the first time he saw her in Hickory Forest.

She said this, of course, not knowing that the job was hers the moment she’d said she needed one.

Lyssa, I understand that your intentions were good, but it is not nice to meddle in other people’s lives.” Lyssa’s mouth turned down. “But this group does it all the time.”

“They…they promoted me!”

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

“I’ve suffered more at the hands of those who claim to be good than those who are deemed to be evil.”

“He’s like a teddy bear that got hold of a kitchen knife.”

“There was no villain’s assistant position…until he met you.”

Iconic

“The day he hired you, he ordered custom chairs for his office. Very discreetly, but I saw the report, and he made a note that they needed to be comfortable for a woman of short stature.”

I’m certain one couldn’t find someone more difficult to love.” “I didn’t find it difficult at all,” Sage whispered.

“There is a very brave person standing here, and it’s not The Villain.”

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.

Brothers were a curious thing, somehow able to lighten even the heaviest of hearts.

“Think of me…when you’re with the trees.”

Lorax coded

Beware the wrath of a kind heart.