Adversary to the Villain — Prologue

Prologue

Once upon a time…

It wasn’t often that one would find themselves dreading the end of the work week, the last grueling day before the welcome reprieve of the week’s end.

However, it also wasn’t often that an office was run by the kingdom’s most notorious villain… And that villain detested the week’s end.

Trystan Maverine was not certain what first brought upon such fast and efficient ire. Perhaps it was the aching quiet that awoke him with the Saturday-morning sun. Or how he’d begun actively avoiding the kitchen and Tatianna’s quarters for fear his old life would bleed into his new one, the only one he’d know until the day of his inevitable demise. It could have been that with the days off for his workers, he wouldn’t get to exercise his new life’s purpose—evil. But as of late, what he’d begun to hate most was the absence…the absence of her.

Evie Sage had not yet been in his employ for more than four weeks.

Could it truly have only been a month? It felt like years. Taxing, confusing, mildly agonizing years. But in that time, his assistant had proven herself shockingly capable of catering to his every villainous whim, adapting to his evil ways with a smile so big and bright, he was surprised it hadn’t yet

cracked her face in half.

It felt as if it had cracked his.

Melodic laughter filtered in through the open gap of his office door. He knew who the perpetrator was, though how could he not? If the sound itself did not give her away, the very act of laughter would have. No one had dared laugh in The Villain’s office before her, at least not loudly enough for him to hear.

It was enough—on this dreary last day of the work week—to push him over the tyrannical edge.

“Sage!” he boomed, slamming the door all the way open.

The laughter ceased, thank the gods, but when his assistant turned toward

him, her smile remained, making him feel a bit like she’d smacked him over the head with it. Surely that was why he felt so dizzy? He cleared his throat, hoping she didn’t notice the way he’d nearly stumbled over himself at the sight, only to realize that Sage was alone. What had made her laugh so? It was then he saw the papers in her hands. “You’re cataloging my torture session from this morning, correct?”

She nodded vigorously, a few curls that had broken loose from her pins bouncing up and down along with her head. “Yes, of course, sir. I will have it done in just a few minutes!”

“It is the one in which I cut out a man’s tongue and force him to swallow it?”

She blinked. “Yes, sir. Was there another incident you wish for me to catalog of the same”—she paused, her nose scrunching as she contemplated —“variety?”

If he were to ever, at any point in time, deign to snort? It would have been right then.

“No, Sage.” He took a beat, then continued. “Though I admit to feeling curious as to what about that endeavor you find so amusing.”

Her cheeks turned so pink he could practically feel the heat of her skin from where he stood—at a safe distance. “Oh, well. It’s very silly.”

He stared.

She began fidgeting with her braid, twirling the end of it around her finger. “Not the torture itself, of course! That isn’t silly at all. I was writing mindlessly of the details, and when I looked down, I realized I had written that the man had been…tongue-tied—” Another haphazard giggle burst out of her, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.

He stared again; this time, his lips parted on an exhale of disbelief.

“Tongue…tied?”

“You know! The expression about when you cannot think of what to say and your tongue gets twisted around? And then I laughed because this man would not say anything because…you, uh—killed him,” she finished, sounding sheepish, though still battering him with that wide smile.

He could feel his own mouth tugging up at the corners so abruptly he had to turn away.

“I am sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to offend you with my musings.”

“You didn’t,” he replied roughly, hating that she had such an effect on him.

Thankfully, there were few witnesses. Only a couple of workers were lingering, all appearing to be gathering their things. Including Rebecka Erring, watching the two of them with eyes that noticed far more than was

comfortable.

“Do you ever get tongue-tied, sir?”

Her unexpected question pulled him from the confines of his mind, floundering, as he couldn’t recall the last time anyone had asked him anything of a personal nature. Even more so when he realized it had been completely unmarred by any sense of fear. No, there was only curiosity in the blue eyes blinking back at him.

“What do you think, Sage?” he drawled, burying the eagerness for her answer so far beneath the earth, it would take splitting it in half to uncover.

She took him in, and he resisted the urge to straighten his shoulders, wondering what it was she saw. “I’m not sure,” she finally said. “To be honest, I’ve never been tongue-tied a day in my life, but I think that’s due to speaking before my brain catches up to my mouth.”

He had come to know this about her. It had, in its own disgusting sort of way, become endearing—if anything could be so to a man born for evil. But her lack of pretense was refreshing…and so innocent he often wondered how she’d made it this far in life without disaster.

Aside from working for him.

“You are nothing if not unwittingly honest, Sage,” he deadpanned.

She beamed as if he’d just said her hair was made of gold, her eyes chipped with diamonds. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

Someplace, somewhere, a pixie just lost their wings, he thought caustically.

Pinching his nose, he let out a sigh. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

Her gratitude may as well have been a boulder for the pressure that slammed into his chest. Generally, he detested any form of joy, but this was a new feeling entirely, her presence placing him in a constant state of sickness to the stomach. He wondered how kind she would think him if he likened her to food poisoning.

“Finish your work for the day, then be gone.” He dismissed her before he did something nonsensical, like comparing her effect to bad fish. Which would have been as dishonest as it was ridiculous, because the blasted woman always seemed to smell like the vanilla candies she ate daily—or, he suspected, hourly.

Turning on his heel, he banished her from his sight, hoping the two days away would at least give him time to rid his memory of this awful interaction.

But then she stood from her chair, scraping it against the stone floor as she called out to him. “Sir? Before I go…may I ask: what is the office

policy on romantic fraternization?”

Never mind.

The interaction was currently burning itself into his brain.

Slowly, he turned back around. “My office,” he replied coolly. “Now.”

She scrambled to follow, traveling quickly behind him through the office door, grabbing the chair she usually occupied from its station in the corner —the same chair that had become the heart of their daily unspoken war. The first battle cry had been him shoving her seat as far from his desk as he was able, followed by her fully disregarding that action and moving it closer.

Since then, it had become a ritual of sorts between them, and despite his annoyance, he never told her to stop. Merely watched, his face impassive, not assisting when the chair inevitably got caught on the uneven tile on the floor—instead finding sick amusement in her stumbling to right the chair, relishing her adorable little frown at the furniture’s betrayal.

He should get the floor tile fixed.

He wouldn’t.

But he probably should.

When she sat, he moved slowly to take his own chair. Her nervousness was palpable. He attempted to enjoy it. “Why,” he drawled, his hands folded atop his sleek black desk, pushing his shoulders back, “pray tell, are you asking me about office fraternization?”

She didn’t appear to be cowed, but then again, she never had been any time he’d made the attempt. It was a wonder why he kept doing it when it was growing clear that she enjoyed it. It was another wonder why in the deadlands he cared if she wanted to fraternize with coworkers.

Romantically.

Not sensing his churning anger, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, rolling her lips inward and fidgeting with her hands. “One of the men in accounting insinuated he would be…um…agreeable to furthering our acquaintance outside of a work setting this week’s end. I told him I had to see if it would break any rules.”

Indeed, there would be something breaking, but it would likely be the

body of whichever bloody math nerd had asked her in the first place.

This was a place of business. Not a matchmaking service.

Kingsley hopped atop the desk, holding up a sign as if he’d been able to

read Trystan’s thoughts.

YIKES Trystan grabbed the sign and unceremoniously flung the thing out the open window.

Sage blinked at him, then smiled down at Kingsley, who nuzzled himself into her palm.

“What do you mean by ‘furthering your acquaintance’?” he asked, expressionless, but underneath the surface, his heart began to pick up speed as if he were being chased—in this case, by basic human emotion.

“A date,” she explained, looking at him with the concern you’d have for an elder who kept misplacing their house keys. Sighing, she gestured down at herself. “I’ll admit, it threw me to begin with, because I assumed everyone in the office found me odd.”

“You are odd,” he responded immediately…resisting the urge to smack his forehead into the smooth wood of his desk.

“Thank you for confirming.” She grinned with a wave of her hand, lighthearted sarcasm dripping from the words.

She was indeed odd, but surely any ordinary person would not be able to look upon her without seeing that she was a completely extraordinary individual, a rare one. One who didn’t flinch at reports of swallowed tongues and even found reason to chuckle at them, who never seemed to run out of outlandish quips to say when things became discordant, as she must have believed they were now.

Sage began to speak in an endless ramble, until her words echoed around him in the most terrible way possible.

“Last time someone courted me, it was disastrous,” she explained, her eyes going somewhere else. “We were completely incompatible—I mean, not physically, that is, although physically it was not great, either.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “You probably didn’t want to know that part.” The words were muffled, but they sounded mortified.

No, he didn’t want to know—because the mere mention forced him to think about his assistant in a physical capacity. Which did not change the calm evenness in his expression, but if her eyes ventured lower, she’d find his knuckles gripping his desk so tight they’d gone white.

He should tell her to accept. With any luck, she would fall madly in love with one of his employees and leave him alone forever.

Never mind the thought of it making him feel ill.

Perhaps he had eaten bad fish. And the poison was tainting his blood, driving him mad.

“There is no office fraternization. Strictly forbidden,” he heard himself saying, and suddenly he understood Sage’s affliction of her mouth getting ahead of her brain. “However,” he added, trying to rein himself in, “if this is a person you very much want to see despite office policy…” He swallowed down the words the way one would swallow a butcher knife. “We can discuss with Ms. Erring about a potential exception.”

She waved her hands back and forth, shaking her head. He had never been nor would ever be an expert in human emotion, but he swore her shoulders dropped in relief rather than disappointment.

“No, no, that’s not necessary! Thank you for offering, but I must admit that ‘no’ was the answer I was hoping for,” she said, exhaling with a hand to her chest. He raised a brow, waiting patiently for her to continue, wondering how he’d quickly become lost.

“He asked in front of everyone at lunch,” she explained quietly. “I didn’t particularly want to go, but I didn’t want to embarrass him, either, so that’s why I told him I must consult you first.”

The man asked in front of a group of people? Even Trystan was not socially inept enough to make a woman that uncomfortable, especially one who seemed to derive all her enjoyment from pleasing others. It felt like an abuse.

Anger rose in him again, this time to a startling degree.

When have I ever found my anger startling?

“Feel free to tell him that should he ask you again, there will be consequences,” Trystan answered with a cool calm that made even Kingsley shiver.

Vulnerability flashed across Sage’s face.

“Thank you, sir. That is a relief.” Her eyes softened. “Although I suppose it will be more of a relief once I tell him. Hopefully he will not be too put off.”

The thought of her being ill-treated in any way, especially by someone in his employ, was so acutely intolerable, he stood up from his chair. “I can put him off for you, if that would aid your cause.”

Put off. Push off the roof. Either would do.

“Oh, that’s okay.” She laughed and exhaled a long-held breath. “I’m feeling a bit cowardly, honestly. I should’ve just told him no right when he asked.”

It was absurd. There was nothing about this woman that resembled anything close to cowardice—despite his very best efforts to evoke it. “Why didn’t you?” he asked.

“Well—” She paused, seeming to contemplate her next words before speaking them. “I think it is quite hard to say no to someone when you

don’t know how they’ll react.”

Every muscle in his body tensed.

“You were fearful he would hurt you? If you said no?”

The question was a dangerous one, but just as he asked it, the setting sun streamed through the open window, shining just where she sat as if it, too, were begging for a subject change. The light filtering over her dark hair turned the blue of her eyes from soft to penetrating.

Every thought he’d ever had winked out in the span of a second.

She didn’t answer his question, just smiled, squinting slightly. “It appears the sunlight wanted to join our conversation to make everything a bit happier.”

Happier? No. Safer than the darkness, easier to stand, perhaps, but watching her bask in it—he thought what he might be feeling in his chest was the nearest to happy he’d felt in an exceptionally long time.

With a hand held over her eyes, Sage tilted her head. “Why does your window seem to be one of the few lacking the lovely stained glass?”

“Because it depicted a scene far too cheerful for my liking,” he murmured, remembering the day he’d taken that window apart piece by piece, ordering his guards to deliver them to the person who’d betrayed him

the most.

Sage perked up. “Oh? How so?”

With a lifted brow, he glared at the window. “It was of two lovers in a field of flowers. Reaching for each other but never touching.”

Her lips quirked. “You thought that cheerful?”

“I thought it annoying and ugly to look at.” He huffed, the sun still highlighting where she sat with seeming vengeance, every part of her glowing. If only she, too, were…well, annoying and ugly to look at.

But alas, she was lovely.

Lovely?

Gods damn it all.

Clearing his throat, he steered them back to the matter at hand. “Rest assured, Sage, the staff will all be reminded of our strict no-fraternization policy. I’ll have Keeley escort you home. Enjoy your week’s end.”

Clearly befuddled by the abrupt dismissal, she stood and nodded, eyes round and questioning as she stepped away from the sunlight that now appeared dimmer without her. He really was turning into a damn fool.

“Thank you, sir. I hope you enjoy some restful time to yourself.”

Not likely.

“Off with you, Sage, before I revoke my generosity and make you clean the floor of the torture chamber.”

The way her face twisted was near comical—if he found things to be so, and he did not. Which was more evidence to prove how ridiculous the face was.

“Ick.” She winced. “Sir, I beg you next time to use the tarp I ordered.”

“Go,” he commanded.

And go she did, leaving her vanilla scent behind to torture him. He closed his eyes, breathing in, hating how it calmed him.

He made to move her chair back to the corner to steady himself, to regain his tether of control, but then he remembered how the light had touched her face when she sat in that exact spot. He stared at it for a moment,

contemplating.

Then left the chair where it was.

Their unspoken battle was at an end.

And it was clear who had waved the white flag.

Stalking out into the main office, he saw Rebecka Erring packing up the last of her things. As he approached, she straightened. “Is there something I can help you with before I leave, sir?”

“What’s our policy on office fraternization?”

The woman’s owlish eyes went wider behind the rim of her glasses. “We don’t have one. Against my advice, I might add, but the workers don’t typically socialize in the office without your permission.”

“I don’t give permission,” he corrected.

She raised a brow. “Precisely.”

“See that we have one in place, and that those who break it do so at their own risk.”

“Risk meaning termination?”

“Of sorts,” he responded dryly.

Ms. Erring didn’t miss a beat. “I’ll be sure the other workers hear of it, sir. And I’ll be sure Thomas doesn’t ask Miss Sage for a romantic entanglement again.”

Thomas? It was Thomas? That scrawny little— “You knew of this?” he accused.

“The remarks he made to her were so inappropriate, everyone heard of it,” Ms. Erring said sardonically, folding her arms. “If he’d spoken to me like that, I would’ve driven my favorite letter opener through his heart.”

Three things occurred to him at once. The first being that Sage had underplayed the encounter, the second that Ms. Erring was far more ruthless than he gave her credit for, and the last… Well.

For the first time, he was eager for the week’s end to start.

He stalked from the room, hearing Ms. Erring’s voice questioning behind him, “Where are you going?”

He let his power swarm around him in dark waves, his voice a mere rasp

in the quiet of the now-empty office.

“To lay down the tarp.”

It was a mistake, in any circumstance, to make an adversary of The Villain.