The Villain
If this was a dream, he’d like a refund. Or a drill to his skull to pry the thought from his head.
The man who’d stolen his future stood before him. The one who had set him on a course he had never planned to pursue. You were crafted to be evil, Benedict had told him, his magic made for pain, for hurt. There would be no other path for Trystan.
Except there had been. One that led him to the stream at the edge of Hickory Forest, where tall trees hid the greatest of misdeeds. There had been no path other than the one that led him to Evie.
“Release her,” he said with enough anger that it felt as though it shook the walls.
Benedict grinned as he tightened the knife against Sage’s throat. “I could.
Or I could save you the inevitable and end her life right here, right now.”
Sage whimpered, which was a bit odd, but all his mind could focus on was her pain—especially when she whispered, “Trystan, help me.”
He could feel his gaze soften. He wanted to reach for her, to comfort her despite knowing he was terrible at it. She had him so torn apart that he wouldn’t mind the fumbling awkwardness of it, of trying to warm someone despite his coldness. She made it impossible not to try at things, even when he knew he would fail. He liked to try, liked trying with her even more.
Loved.
Not that word again, he thought, mentally swatting at himself. “I’ll do anything you want,” he said solemnly, resigned.
Benedict’s eyebrows shot up, his interest piqued. “I think I want to hurt her. She can see your magic, Trystan—she’s making you weak. I’d be doing you a favor.”
The knife was drawn tighter against her skin, and a single drop of blood
eased down her throat.
“Stop!” It was agony. “Whatever your price, I will pay it. I do not care who I need to kill, what I need to destroy; if you release her unharmed, I am at your disposal.”
The king smiled, and Sage did, too, as Benedict released her. She flew across the empty office and into his arms. But it felt…wrong. Something in him flinched at her touch, but she trembled, and he couldn’t resist holding her tightly against him, breathing in the smell of her hair.
Wrong! his body screamed.
But Sage angled herself up, pressing every inch of herself into him. He may be The Villain, but in this moment, he was only a man—one with plenty of weaknesses. One of which being that he’d need to be six feet belowground to not respond to the heat of her body, to the feeling of her hips, her breasts, the beating of her heart. He counted the beats: one, two, three, four.
Bumps rose along his skin as she pressed up farther against him and whispered in his ear, “Destroy the Fortis family, free the hands of destiny from its cage, and you can have me.”
Wrong, his brain argued as Sage arched up on her toes, her sweet breath brushing against his lips.
Shut it, he argued back as her lips dusted over his, and he bit back a groan until her mouth was fully upon his and he was lost. There had been a threat in the room before—a part of him knew this—but whoever that was, they were gone now. His only thoughts were of her, her voice, her lips, her body beneath his hands, which slid tentatively over her waist.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
“Do you think”—he spoke quietly against the warmth of her lips—“that I would fall for such an obvious, vile trick? That this farce could ever compare to the real thing?” He pushed her away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
The fake Sage reeled back with wide, innocent eyes. They weren’t hers.
He could clearly see that now. When he looked into them, he felt nothing. “Even so,” the fake Sage said, the voice sounding different, too—wrong.
“This is your chance to be with her fully. You won’t ever have that in the real world. She won’t ever have you. I am crafted from destiny, and I can
see resistance from her and from you. She will turn away from you eventually. Or you can have all of her, in a way, now.”
He nudged the fake back farther, gently, having difficulty causing any actual harm to a figure who resembled her so. It was another display of feebleness.
At this point, he was collecting weaknesses like deranged little knickknacks.
“I would sooner take the scraps she lay at my feet,” he stated, “than commit myself to a cheap imitation.”
The fake Sage’s lip curled into a snarl, but not before an object soared through the air, knocking her in the back of the head.
They both turned in the direction it had come from, and there, covered in grime, her hair unbound and her face furious, was Evie—the real one. He knew, down to the marrow of his bones—deep within everything that made him human, made him whole—that she was real. And she was here, in his dream. How?
She smirked. “I do take the ‘don’t beat yourself up’ sentiment quite seriously, but you are making it awfully tempting.”
He smiled despite himself, and the word he’d been keeping at bay echoed again, but this time he didn’t shove it away.
Love.
He’d fight for it—for her—no matter the price.
