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.

“Now, now. No need for hostilities. I’ve merely come to talk to you.” “The torture’s starting already?”

“There. Now you can see me more clearly.” “The horror. Put it out.”

How she’d yell at him, and then the flush would go all the way down her chest, dipping below her bodice, at which time, naturally, he’d be distracted by it and stop listening. She’d notice and yell at him some more. He couldn’t wait.

Of course, he knew it was irrational to wish, but as the star out the window twinkled, daring him to—as it had once before—he found himself doing it anyway. 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.

“She’d want you to—” “Do not dare tell me what she would want. Do not speak of her at all.”

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 would never make the mistake of underestimating a woman like you. It would be a fatal one.”

anger. “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.”

“I am…glad you are not truly dead.” Evie put her hand to her chest, absurdly touched. “Oh, Rebecka, I didn’t realize you were so sentimental.” “I take it back,”

He would follow her off a cliff without question. And Evie knew she was in love with him. Right then, right there.

She breathed, “It’s so beautiful.” Her boss had been silent beside her, but now he replied hoarsely, still gripping her hand, “Yes, it is.” And when she turned, he was looking at her.

There was no emotion in his voice when he said, “Does your mind live in the gutter?” She shook her head, tapping a finger against her lips. “No, but it rents there on occasion.”

As soon as this pride faded, he would be back to worrying. Evie was being corrupted by him. This was unacceptable.

“Do you two know each other?” Her boss deadpanned, “Yes, we have tea every other Thursday.” “Really?” she asked, her brow furrowed. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, Sage.”

“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.”

“I know, Eve, I know! Please let me explain! Did you just throw a rock? Villainous work has really hardened you, huh?”

“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 won’t survive hours of this. It was suddenly quiet, and he found Sage’s gaze intent on his face. “What are you staring at?” “Your mouth.” Correction: I won’t survive minutes.

“I can say with the utmost assurance”—his eyes raked over her, and she stopped breathing—“when given the privilege, I have no issue performing.”

“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.”

That final thread of control snapped. “Damn it!” he growled. He moved, and before Sage knew what was happening— He kissed her.

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

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

“Don’t leave me.” She gripped his hand as hard as she could. “I won’t. I promise.”

Don’t give your heart to the boss, Evie! Too fucking late.