Page 147 of Accomplice to the Villain

“Trystan?” Sage whispered, and when he finally found the courage to look at her face, her blue eyes were so wide, he could see his reflection in them, frozen, awestruck.

The man looking back at him was wild as he pointed a single finger at her and stated plainly, “I…can’t.” He didn’t wait for her to say anything else, merely yanked the door open, getting doused with warm summer rain. “I’m going for a walk.”

The wet grass slid beneath his feet as he stalked down the hill toward the old barn, approaching the open door. But he didn’t make it farther than that before he was shoved against the hard wood of the barn wall, slicked with water from the storm.

“What in the deadlands,” he gritted out.

A dagger was at his throat.

“Did you think you could escape me so easily, Villain?”

Chapter 75

Evie

“Didn’t you say something about never turning your back on an adversary?” Evie asked, straining on her tiptoes to keep her leverage with her dagger at Trystan’s neck.

She didn’t keep it long.

In a sudden jolt, she was flipped around, landing against the wall. Her dagger was flung inside the open barn door.

“Go away,” Trystan growled, releasing her and stalking inside the quiet, empty barn. “And you are not my adversary; you are my accomplice, remember?”

She stalked in after him. “You can’t just say you love me and then walk away like you were professing devotion to your favorite soup!”

“I don’t like soup.”

Evie screamed into her hands.

“Sage, I am exhausted and hoped to get a few moments’ rest before my mother makes her next homicide attempt on me.” He gestured toward a smaller room off the main barn entrance with a small cot in the corner.

Slow realization dawned, and a horrifying thought took over.

“Did you say it to spite her?”

Trystan’s eyes were sharp on her as he whipped around. “What?”

“Did you say all of that to spite your mother? The love confession, all those things you said about how you feel about me?”

He was silent, and Evie’s heart shattered, splintering, puncturing places in her chest she didn’t know existed until that moment. She was cold, clothes soaked, and her hair was drying in wild ringlets that reflected the frenetic nature of her feelings.

She took a step back toward the door, choking on a sob as she sprinted away, but she didn’t make it far. The Villain was at her side, slamming the door shut in front of her, grabbing both of her cheeks, cradling them in his hands.

“No,” he rasped out, eyes searching, fear and agony in his gaze. “Damn you. I couldn’t”—he shook—“I couldn’t stand by and allow my mother to say I wasn’t capable of feeling. Not when the truth is so blatant it would be an insult to you to claim anything else.”

Her eyes burned, and she sounded like a rusty door hinge when she said, “You love me?”

His lips drifted closer, his eyes closing as his forehead pressed against hers, a rightness in every place they touched. “If that’s what this awful feeling in my chest is, if that’s why I can’t imagine my life without you, if that’s what love is—then yes, Evie. I love you so much it’s terrible.”

She let out a broken laugh.

“What is funny?”

She laid her lips to his in answer, and the world turned into something new, something colorful again, something without pain, or worry, or betrayal. Just lips touching, just electric waves through her body, shooting straight for her pounding heart.

Just his hands, clutching her face like a lifeline, moving her head so he could kiss her deeper, breathing heavily when their lips parted. Her fingers glided over his jaw, and if looks could physically grip a person, his touched her all over in response.

The glaze in his eyes spoke to a sense of hopelessness within him. “Sage, what about destiny? The prophecy—”