Page 96 of Adversary to the Villain

Evie had almost died in many different ways since her employment with The Villain began. Strangulation, poison, drowning, falling…the list went on. She could accept death by fire if she must.

But dying at the hands of a weak man and his fragile ego?

She fucking refused.

Douglas took one step closer, and she reached for the sharp slab of wood she’d found beneath her when she fell and rammed it into his foot. He yelped in disbelief and stumbled back, into the blur of smoke and fire.

“You should use your little notebook to express yourself. Arson’s a lot messier.” She stumbled to her feet, wood and concrete coming down around them as the rest of the theater was consumed by the flames.

“You refuse to die,” Douglas spat.

“A bad habit.” She coughed into her arm, searching for an out. Any out.

Douglas didn’t appear to care. “Allow me to break it for you.”

Without ceremony, he lunged for her. Evie stumbled and fell onto the ground hard, crying out in pain when the man jumped to hover over her.

Another creak above them, this one louder, more ominous than the rest.

“Fuck!” Evie yelled as a beam fell just above her. Among burning alive, or suffocation, or being squished to death, she now decided that squished was likely the worst. She wondered at how she nearly missed drowning.

Run. Get up.

But it was over.

And then she felt a tingle against her left pinkie.

BOOM.

Evie could not see him, could not hear him; all that stood before her was another blur, but this one didn’t shove her. No, this one ran right for her, through the fire, dodging falling debris through spreading flame—it didn’t matter. Nothing slowed him.

Nothing. Nothing until he got to her. And then sure hands pulled her tight into a chest she knew. Evie grabbed tight to his neck when he shifted, only holding her with one arm, his other hacking debris away with his sword. “You came.”

“There is no world in existence,” Trystan whispered into her ear as he dragged them away from the burning stage, “where I do not come for you.”

But Evie looked up. And so wished she hadn’t.

Another crack.

And the Deadlands Theater fell.

Chapter 47

Trystan

Trystan Maverine once considered himself to be a patient man. Before. But now, as he tried to force his eyes open for the tenth time over the course of who knew how many minutes, he’d never felt so impatient. He tried again. Nothing. Gods damn it all. He used to rule an entire corporation with zero defiance, yet now even his bloody body wouldn’t listen to him.

Probably because a building had fallen on him.

Or rather, around, when he dragged Sage through the opening, just as the rest of the structure crumbled beneath the heat and flame. Sage had been coughing when Trystan lost consciousness, and he’d awoken to someone prodding at his shoulder—small fingers that sent a shooting sensation through him.

He heard a shift somewhere beside him. A tiny sniffle.

His eyes shot open and found the source. Of course it was that fucking easy. “Sage?” he said, wincing at how haggard he sounded. She jumped back from the bed, ashes in her hair, a bit of soot dusting the tip of her nose, one of her cheeks, both of her bared shoulders. “I didn’t die. Why are you crying?” His eyebrows lowered. “Unless you’re cryingbecauseI did not die. Which would be rather rude, considering I saved your life. Again,” he added dryly.

She hadn’t spoken, her light eyes so dim, so pained that he dropped the casual veneer immediately.

“That was in poor taste,” he admitted. “I apologize—”