Page 11 of Adversary to the Villain

Eyes wide, Blade rubbed at his cheeks like he’d awoken from a bad dream. “You have a thousand pillows on your bed, and you took that poor woman in a barn?” The dragon trainer delivered this with flapping arms that Fluffy the dragon would find impressive.

“It was what was available,” Trystan protested, and at that point he would have taken whatever was available. A chair, a wall, a dungeon—

Oh. Intriguing.

Although it was very well possible that these places only seemed to be so because he would be with her. It had never mattered before. Sex was meant for physical release so he could continue his evil work unencumbered by base needs, but with Evie, it was different.

With her, he had lost control. And now his base needs were all over the place.

It was no longer a release but an unleashing. A feral, dormant part of him coming alive at the mere mention of her name. A wine he could not un-taste, a storm he could never withstand. She was eclipsing everything he thought he understood and molding it with her lovely fingers into something new, untilhewas someonenew.

Someone better.

Or worse.

It didn’t particularly matter as long as she was his.

There was a moment of pause. A comfortable, beautiful silence.

Then Blade ruined it—by speaking.

“So are you two… Was it… Uh.” Blade scratched the back of his neck. “What am I permitted to ask about without getting my head lopped off?”

“The weather.”

Blade threw his arms up and flopped out of the tiny chair to the ground. “Why tell me, then?”

Trystan didn’t know why. All he knew was that his life had been thrown into upheaval again, the woman that consumed his every thought was tailored by fate to be his enemy, and the magic he’d lived with for years upon years was no longer with him.

The most surprising part?

He didn’t miss it, perhaps because it was never his to begin with.

“Because you’re here, I suppose,” Trystan reasoned, straightening his shirt, ensuring not an inch of him was out of place. When one couldn’t control the end of his life as he knew it, one could at least control if his shirt was wrinkled.

To him, the two things, of course, were synonymous.

“Flattering, but I think it’s actually because I am your only friend.” Blade snorted and then sobered when they both remembered.

Their other friend. The one who was notably absent. A lump formed in Trystan’s throat.

“So, you two are finally together, then?” Blade asked, looking well prepared to dodge a punch if necessary.

It was why he answered the question honestly. “No.”

Blade’s head dropped into his hands. “Of course not. That would make too much sense. I swear by all the gods, you two get some sick joy out of making yourselves miserable.”

“That’s not true,” Trystan objected, outraged, as he stood up. “Sage is adjusting to a complete shift in her world and all she thought she knew. I won’t push her for my own selfish wants.” He punctuated this declaration by shoving at Blade’s shoulder, sauntering to the door, and exiting to the sunlit hallway, Blade on his heels looking ready to perish.

“You do realize that every bad decision you two make, we all must suffer,” Blade muttered under his breath, but Trystan ignored him until they reached Trystan’s chamber doors…which were ajar.

A chill skittered down the back of his neck, and his fears were affirmed when he shoved the door all the way open and found the room torn apart.

Blade whistled beside him. “Have you ever considered a stress ball in lieu of a destructive tirade? This can’t be fair to the cleaning crew.”

“This wasn’t me,” Trystan stated, emotionless. “Someone was searching for something.” A fire crackled in the hearth—a fire that hadn’t been there when he left his chambers. Why would someone ransack his room only to leave him a comfortable crackling fire in their place? As he drew closer to it, though, Trystan realized with a sinking in his gut that all his desk drawers had been thrown open, papers and items either tossed to the ground or missing. And ash-covered paper folding into the flames was all that remained. Of the pages they’d been able to steal of Rennedawn’s storybook. Gone.

Trystan clenched his fists, anger coursing through him, because one of two things could now be true. Either Marv had found a way out of his dungeon…