Accomplice to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain Book 3)

Evie

In all honesty, Evie’d had more than enough time to wash the blood from her hands before returning to the manor.

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But that would not have been half as satisfying as looking her boss in the eyes for the first time in two weeks, her expression even-keeled as he gazed upon her with alarm and concern, an awkward silence settling between them.

That was fine. Evie was well acquainted with awkward. They were old, dysfunctional friends.

“Oh. This blood?” She made a show of examining her hands, turning her wrists, scanning them from all angles. Her acting was exaggerated, bordering on animated, but the goal wasn’t to fool The Villain.

It was to drive him out of his gourd.

She shrugged, privately relishing the twitch in his eyebrow. Brushing a curl away from her eyes, she tilted her head curiously. “Why do you ask?”

The twitch turned into a full-blown jerk of his head, and she nearly jumped with glee. Oh, how she had missed this—pulling emotional reactions out of him until he looked ready to combust.

Don’t torment the boss, Evie!noveldrama

Unless you think of a super fun way to do it!

“You’re a menace,” he growled.

She smiled demurely as she dipped into a small curtsy. “How kind of you to notice.”

There was a pause as The Villain took a deep, bracing breath. He was hanging on by a final fraying nerve, and one more push could have him snapping like a twig beneath her boot.

She frowned inwardly to herself. What she was doing…it occurred to her that it was rather cruel.

Her frown turned quickly into a smirk.

This charming development in her character was enough to assuage her guilt at purposefully causing discomfort. Usually when she did it, it was an accident, one she made an honest attempt to rectify. Now it was as if the leash on her brain had been untied, and her mouth was all too happy to accommodate her new level of freedom.

This two-week reprieve was kind enough of her. The Villain’s break was over, as was his peace.

With a ragged sigh and locks of his unshorn hair falling into his face, he looked at her with world-weary impatience.

Woo-hoo!

“Sage, I have more pressing matters than cracking the code of whoever you have mutilated this morning. Spit it out.”

Instead of answering as he asked, she reached for the handkerchief sticking out of his pocket, the maroon fabric so deep in color that it masked the blood she was now staining it with as she began cleaning off her hands.

A gasp sounded at her actions, and Evie felt the eyes of every office worker on her back, even as they pretended to shuffle papers, using the low murmur of conversations to disguise their eavesdropping. She glanced at Trystan to see if he would reprimand them, but he was evidently too busy looking like a cornered animal, ready to snap at the next threat of attack. “Are you finished?” he asked with a bored drawl, but the slight twitch of his eyelid gave him away.

“Almost.” She smiled again but wider this time, baring her teeth. Then she finished swiping over each finger with a flourish, folding the handkerchief carefully and tucking it back into his open palm.

She waited several seconds to speak, just to see if she could make the vein in her boss’s forehead protrude any farther. Another moment of silent staring passed.

Mission accomplished.

She used her victory as a call to mercy. “I went with Keeley to the East End Slums,” she said, clipped and succinct, as if she was speaking of going for a jaunt about a meadow filled with daffodils and gumdrops, not one of the most fraught and dangerous sides of Rennedawn, where every manner of reprobate spent their time.

Her boss included.

His eyes went impossibly wide, his jaw clenching in a bite that looked like it might shatter his teeth into nothing but bone dust. It was delightful.

“And what, pray tell, were you seeking there?” He stepped closer, his gaze hard, and for the first time since Evie had entered the office space, she felt like her control wavered. Because this was the first instance in two weeks where she was close enough to smell the cinnamon on his skin and see the depth of his black eyes as they saw right through to the heart of her.

“I—um…” Suddenly, she was at a loss for words. Which in and of itself should indicate complete and total disaster. She cleared her throat, banging a hand against her chest like a bit of dust had gotten stuck. “We were looking for leads on Rennedawn’s storybook prophecy. The waning magic is worsening. There have been reports of large gray patches of land leeched of color, like all the magic is folding back into the earth.” Evie worried her lip, and The Villain averted his eyes. “If we’re to have any hope of fulfilling the prophecy before Benedict can, every lead counts. The Malevolent Guards got a tip this morning about an elderly gentleman spouting poetic nonsense about the lore. Apparently, his great-grandfather was one of the early king’s advisors and he’d read some of it as a child.” She gestured to the papers that were nearly crumpled in his hands. “We found him, and all it took was a few battings of our lashes and some helpless sighs and he was spilling everything he remembered. Which, granted, was sparse…”

Trystan’s eyes flashed to the blood on her hands once more, this time with an intensity that felt like it could touch her. “So you decided to punish him for it?”

She faltered, remembering the other men in the bar grabbing for her, the scar on her shoulder tingling in response to the dagger hidden at her thigh. “A few of the tavern’s regulars caught wind of who we were and attempted to turn me in for reward money.”

His arm tensed, and it reminded her that beneath the surface of his starched linen shirt lay a golden tattoo identical to the one circling her finger—the one that would’ve told him quite clearly if Evie had been in any mortal danger. He should’ve been aware that, an hour ago, she and Keeley had been circled like prey by a group of men. Perhaps he had known and just didn’t care…?

Her riotous emotions grasped for anything to cover the hole carving out the center of her chest.

“I stabbed one of them,” she blurted.

Perfect.

The Villain’s brows shot skyward, his gaze returning to her hands as he asked with lethal quiet, “Only the one? What of the rest of them?”

Closing the distance between them, her face tilting up to angle closer to his, she watched in satisfaction as his throat bobbed and his hand flexed at his side.

She pushed further, annoyed that he was brushing past her first true violent act since her promotion. “I stabbed him in the neck. Is that not enough for you?”

He shook his head, his face hard. “Not if he touched you. Not if any of them did.”

Her lips parted in surprise, and she blinked. “Does that matter?”

Anger flashed in his dark eyes but then winked out to nothing seconds later, and with a small sigh of defeat, he closed them. “Of course”—he said the words carefully, like if they landed too hard, they would shatter something—“it matters.”

Her head tilted as her hand brushed lightly against where his heart lay, an unwanted burn flaring where they touched. “Why?” she whispered.

He did not open his eyes, even as his head tilted closer, like he couldn’t resist the pull between them, like it was agonizing. His shoulders rolled in an apparent attempt to shake away pain. “Because, Sage—”

In a flash that knocked them both apart, his dark-gray death magic, the magic only she and Trystan could see, started to come off him in waves, swirling about her feet before extending out to the rest of the room.

“No!” Trystan hissed. “Come back. I did not call for you!”

But it was too late.

The dark magic swarmed about the room, enveloping everything in its path. Gray mist tangled around her ankles, gliding over her wrists and swirling through the strands of her curls so closely, the cool whisper of it tickled the sides of her face.

“Sage, get back!” Trystan bellowed, holding out his hands, his face straining in his attempt to regain control.

It should be noted that Evie’s first instinct was to resist the request, to stand beside him until the power calmed—but in a humbling turn of events, she realized that the only way to calm him, to calm his magic…was to stay away.

The cobwebbed chandelier swung under the force of the black mist, the framed wanted flyer of The Villain rattling against its place on the wall. “Okay. I’m backing up!” she announced to the magic, trying to stifle it. And failing.

Thoroughly.

The wanted flyer fell, crashing hard onto the floor, a horrible breaking sound echoing in its wake. The frame had cracked directly in half at the impact, the glass slicing the portrait in the same manner, tearing the parchment right through The Villain’s flaming head.

“What was that?” one of the interns cried as the mist swiped out several torches, casting even more darkness about the space. Accusatory eyes fell upon her boss, who was still grappling for an ounce of self-control.

“It’s a new Scatter Day method,” Evie said quickly. If she could not quell the boss, she would have to put herself to use some other way.

By getting rid of the workers.

The boss’s voice was ragged as he ordered, “Be calm, everyone. Do not panic.”

“The boss has set a ghost upon the office. First person it possesses loses…their head!” Evie yelped and then closed her hands over her lips as if it had been someone else.

There was a moment of silence, followed quickly by shrieking, the workers tripping over themselves to get to the exit, pixies squealing as they fluttered past, a stampede of interns following them. When the last person finally stumbled out of the space, the silence was overwhelming.

Her boss was staring at her, his face unreadable, as he started to saunter casually to one of the abandoned chairs across the room. The power was slinking back to him in slow ripples, some of it still lingering at her feet until, with something between a puff of breath and a tiny squeak, it abandoned her boots and returned to The Villain’s side. His eyes were no longer hard on her, but he was leaning back in the chair, his arms crossed like an indolent king as he sighed.

She flinched like there was accusation in it, forcing her defenses to rise. “I didn’t think they’d all run away.”

“You threatened them with a ghost,” he drawled, rubbing at his chin. “What were you expecting?”

“I didn’t threaten. I warned,” she corrected, walking over to the shattered wanted portrait, picking up the remnants of The Villain’s false depiction that had once brought her such joy. “Would you rather I announce to them that your magic’s out of control anytime you get too close to me? While I’m at it, I could mention that the entirety of Rennedawn’s magic is going wonky because the prophecy is nowhere near complete. Oh! Or I could tell them that if we fail to complete it ourselves, King Benedict will have ultimate power over the kingdom, probably forever. That ought to make for good break-room conversation.”

His eyes flashed dangerously, and she regretted her words as soon as she saw their impact. His magic edged closer to her again, the mist dancing around her feet until she felt the cool slide of it against the skin of her ankles. It was dangerous magic, it was what made her boss “The Villain” in the first place, but she couldn’t help but find the dark power delightful. Comforting, even. Like a home she’d never known.

“Sage. I think you should return to your new office. Since I’m so”—he swallowed—“out of control.”

Her heart softened, and her soul felt as tattered as the ruined portrait between her fingers. “You know I did not mean it that way,” she said softly.

“Go.”

The word was hard and cold. Nothing of the man she’d come to love, no hint of him behind the walls he was rebuilding around himself.

She looked down at the flyer, clutched between fingers still pinkened with the remnants of her morning skirmish, and pulled it to her chest. Sniffing and straightening her shoulders, she walked toward where he sat and bent down to eye level. “No.”

His head shot up, and his lips parted, a sheen over his black eyes. “Sage—”

“Ms. Sage! Mr. Villain!” One of the newer interns burst through the door, panting wildly, arms waving. “It’s horrible!”

The Villain shot to his feet, exchanging a glance with Evie while they braced for the worst.

“We found the ghost!”