Page 11 of Assistant to the Villain

“No, sir, I wouldn’t want to subject Tatianna to my war with the chair.” She leaned in, gesturing at him to come closer into her confidence. He turned his head slightly, giving her his ear, and Evie smothered her surprise at him entertaining her antics. “Best to keep this between us, or it may enlist the other chairs in a revolt.”

Then the boss did something that nearly made Evie’s mortal soul leave her body—he laughed. Or rather he coughed, a lot, into his hand. It was closed around his mouth, clearly masking a smile he was having the fight of his life trying to keep off his lips.

Evie mumbled her shock under her breath. “That wasn’t even that funny.”

The watchful eyes of the other workers snapped them both to attention, and before the boss turned to glare a warning at their audience, the crowd scattered like ants that saw a large foot coming at them.

Except, of course, Becky, who kept her hawk eyes glued to the pair from the other side of the room.

“See the healer, Sage. We have a big week ahead of us, and I can’t afford you falling dead on me.”

“I don’t think anyone’s ever died from a bruise on the ass, sir.”

His eyes went tight, and his mouth did a familiar movement that even Evie knew meant she’d pushed too far.

She took a tiny step backward. “But I’d hardly want to be the first, so I’ll just—I’ll just head there now.” She made a wide path around him, passing his office. She spied a scrawny-looking man inside, lying underneath a brick that had come loose from the wall above. No doubt, after he’d been slammed into it.

Kingsley sat on the edge of the boss’s desk, as he always did these last few months, his wide, unblinking expression taking her in before his webbed foot lifted one of his tiny communication signs. This one in red chalk, reading, OUCH.

Evie had grown quite fond of the tiny creature’s presence. He mostly just sat there, observing and offering up quiet counsel with the slab of slate the boss gave him to write on. His tiny gold crown always at attention on his slimy head.

Ouch indeed, Evie mouthed back to Kingsley before returning her attention to the broken man lying on the ground.

She tried to muster the sympathy she should feel for the pain of another person, but she’d seen so many men come and go from that room that she was trying to save her sympathy for those who deserved it.

A weaselly-looking man, whom she was almost certain she’d seen throwing rocks at a group of ducks last week in her village, did not make the cut. A smile graced her lips as she struggled to remind herself the boss was most likely not beating this man to a pulp to defend a few ducks’ honor. Her mind also begged the point that even if he wasn’t intentionally defending the ducks in question, he had by association.

Which for some reason was just as adorable.

She forced her smile into an even expression and continued forward to the small hallway that led to the healer’s quarters. For the bruise. On her ass.

Before she could throw her head in her hands at the disaster that was her morning, she remembered her boss on his knees before her, handing her the discarded papers, the sliver of his chest,his laughter.

Perhaps her morning was not acompletedisaster.

Of course, there was no telling what his reaction would be when she returned to her desk and had to admit to him the discrepancy she’d found in the books that morning. She didn’t know everything about The Villain yet, but she did know that he detested disorganized recordkeeping, almost as much as she hated stray eyeballs.

Chapter 2

Evie

“Bend over.”

Evie didn’t move. “Perhaps you could buy me dinner first.” Honestly, even a dinner at the nicest tavern wouldn’t entice her to bare her backside to the healer. Surely magic could work through the cloth of her skirt—if she said it in her head, perhaps she could will it to be true.

She sat on the exam table and held back a wince at the pain when she shifted, her gaze holding the healer’s in a game of chicken Evie had no intention of losing.

There wasn’t a day since Evie had known her that the healer did not wear at least some element of pink. Today, the dainty color made its usual appearance in the form of tiny bows pinned throughout her lovely hair, making her look younger than her twenty-seven years but no less tough an adversary. The healer raised one dark brow at Evie’s refusal to move.

“Come on, Tati,” Evie said with a pleading grin. “I’ve already met my humiliation quota today, and I’m afraid revealing my backside to you would break the meter.”

Eventually, Tatianna sighed and pushed a dark braid of hair behind her ear, her large brown eyes narrowing as her hands began to glow a warm yellow.

Oh, thank the gods.

The light drew Evie’s attention to the gauzy sleeves of yet another lavish gown hugging the woman’s generous curves. Evie usually felt too guilty to spend her wages on anything so frivolous as a new gown—but that didn’t mean she didn’t envy the healer’s lovely wardrobe.

Tatianna moved her hands toward Evie, hovering in front of her shoulders without actually touching her, and suddenly Evie’s backside felt like the time she had sat on the hot stones in the village square after a day of summer sun beating down on them.