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.

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

“You wicked bitch!” She took a bow. “At your service.”

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.

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.

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.”

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.”

“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.”

Evie felt happiness, true happiness, for the first time in a while at the image of this intimidating, fearsome man traipsing up and down the halls, chasing stardust like a dog off its leash.

She took each moment of her life with a natural good humor, no matter how painful, no matter how tragic. She trekked on with nothing but her will. No magic to protect her. Just faith and optimism and belief in her survival.

Evie jumped and gave a little clap. “Oh, the wanted flyers of me are spreading, sir! How exciting.” “We have different definitions of that word,” he grumbled, rubbing at his temples.

His feelings, his body, his heart, his memories—they were all warring, and the object of their ire and desire was so close he could count the gray flecks in her irises, buried beneath the blue.

Evie Sage had been told many times in her life that she was stubborn. And while she was aware of this flaw, she knew it wasn’t her biggest—not by a long shot. No, Evie Sage’s greatest affliction in life was spite.

It had occurred to her many times over that “impossible” was merely a word people used to describe limitations they wished for you to adhere to, so you wouldn’t upset the balance.

I watched you die! I thought I’d never see you again! I have never known such darkness, and I never wish to again.

Trystan supposed there was only so far you could bend something before it broke, and he was broken, shattered, when his lips settled on Evie’s mouth.

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

He’d been built to covet his control, and this woman seemed to be built to unravel it.

She looked like the most beautiful nightmare he’d ever seen.

He’d fight for it—for her—no matter the price.

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

He was dumbstruck in love with her.

She loved his smile and his rare laughter. She loved that in one moment he could be fiercely protective and in the next he could be soft and unsure. She loved that he understood her, perhaps better than anyone she’d ever known, that he made her importance known without placation. That he’d given her a reason to wake up in the morning, a reason to rush to get ready—not only to get to work (though she loved her work) but to get to him. There could never be another person in the whole of the world she could feel this way about.