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

by Hannah Nicole Maehrer

Don’t wish for the boss to kiss your skin, Evie! Even if that sounds…entirely too pleasant.

Whether their attraction was mutual or not, the boss was clearly too weighed down by professionalism to act on any lurid thoughts, and she’d just have to live with that. The way one lived with a fork through a lung.

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.

Trystan’s tentative to-do list early the next morning was as follows: 1. Bathe. 2. Get a report on all he’d missed while he was gone. 3. Avoid thinking about Sage’s thighs. 4. Murder Gushiken. He’d been successful with the first two, failed at the third, and was about to check the last off his list.

There was no teasing or malice to the question, simply earnest inquiry. Evie would have to be dead to not swoon over that just a little—it was the law.

“Because I like who you are, not what you’re capable of.”

“Sage, are you of the delusion that everything can be fixed with a hug?” The lack of composure he was exhibiting in their interactions was growing addictive. “No,” she said sweetly. “But don’t they help?” “No.” Kingsley held up a sign: Yes.

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.”

“Sage!” Trystan thundered, coming up next to her as she waved a hand in front of the purple-uniformed sentry’s vacant look. “Stop it, you urchin. Do you have a death wish?” She began making faces at the being, trying to get some sort of a reaction out of it, then growled in frustration when it did not cooperate.

He released her immediately. What was this feeling festering in his chest? Was it…hurt? Disgusting.

Sage turned back to the sentry, flailing her arms and making a ridiculous face, unnaturally obsessed with trying to get it to blink. It would’ve been amusing if— No, damn it, it was amusing. Grating.

“My magic cannot be used against a sentry—none can. Passing one requires careful trickery, a mastery of the mind, an intellect that is unmatched by even the gods that made our world—” Without warning, Sage clicked her tongue and shouldered past Trystan. “I would like to enter,” she said, then smiled politely at the being. “Please.” The sentry lifted its spear and took a wide step to the side.

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.

A moment when one stopped believing and viewed the world with different, weary eyes. It was a natural part of life, one of the rules of growing older,

Being a cynic doesn’t make you wise. It makes you a coward.”

“It’s not cynicism, you natural disaster,” he snarled. “It’s realism. It’s knowing people, and the elements, well enough to realize that they are always against you. I don’t want you hurt! I don’t want you to die! Which is very fucking frustrating when you act in ways that could easily accomplish both!”

Because she loved him. So much so, it made her brainless enough to ask questions she still wasn’t sure she wanted the answers to.

“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.”

The sentry was back in front of the cave, but Evie no longer viewed him as an adversary—she was just grateful that the creature below had someone, immortal or not, looking out for its well-being. Everyone should have someone like that.

“If you plan to drive me through with that, could you get it over with?”

Kingsley landed on Trystan’s boot, eyeing the hugging pair. Trystan looked at his frog friend. His frog friend looked at him. A sign slowly crept upward that read: Uh-Oh.

He was trying to make her laugh, to lighten her heart. The way she always tried to do for him, the way she tried to do for everyone. Nobody had ever done that, had ever tried to lighten things for her.

Oh, Lyssa, myself. I’ve always taken care of myself with a false smile and brittle strength.

“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.”

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.

“When you’ve been lied to so often, the truth becomes easier to discern.”

She laughed loudly, uninhibited. This in and of itself was not uncommon for her. She was often amused, trying to find delight in life where she could. It was her drive, what kept her up when she felt the urge to remain low.

It felt like there were two versions of herself at war. One who was screaming at the top of her lungs with rage and anger and the other sitting quietly, hurting deeply, waiting for someone to notice. To care.

Of course she was a looker. She was Evie Sage.

No, Evie Sage’s greatest affliction in life was spite.

Love shriveled and disappeared differently, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, but she realized now that it was the most brutal, the most painful, when it was abandoned.

Emotions didn’t always know right or nuance; they just knew to be hurt when someone caused pain.

I want him to hurt because I hurt, because he hurt all of us. Do you think that makes me a villain?”

She admired the woman for it, because it wasn’t thoughtless bravery that won the fiercest battles—it was welcoming the fear that lived inside your heart, in your mind, and harnessing it to carry your feet forward, knowing it couldn’t control you.

She made it impossible not to try at things, even when he knew he would fail. He liked to try, liked trying with her even more. Loved.

At this point, he was collecting weaknesses like deranged little knickknacks.

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

He smiled despite himself, and the word he’d been keeping at bay echoed again, but this time he didn’t shove it away. Love. He’d fight for it—for her—no matter the price.

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

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.

Trystan had asked her how to get free, not how to ruin his fucking life.

He was dumbstruck in love with her. Shit, shit, shit.

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

As Trystan Maverine, Evil Overlord, in his large, ridiculously frilly hat, picked up the flowery teapot and poured the tea, saying with a sternness that made her heart twist all over again, “My sincerest apologies, Miss Halliway. I usually have better manners.” By the gods, she loved him.

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

Beware the wrath of a kind heart.