Evie


    Evie supposed there were worse things in life than spending a night alone with her boss. The Mystic Illness, for one, bedbugs for another, and surely a night with The Destroyer would have qualified for the list—somewhere near the top. Double underlined. Kingsley’s Destroyed sign was the cherry atop a perfectly ridiculous evening. She giggled at the memory as the lovers’ suite door shut behind them.


    “Is something about this funny to you?” Trystan asked. Clearly, the night had given its best effort to undo him. His silk pants had a tear at the knee, and his once well-groomed hair was an irreparable mess. The shadows under his eyes that had been mere smudges of purple at the beginning of the evening seemed to have darkened his entire face in the span of a few hours.


    “Do you think his parents named him that?” Evie asked, fiddling with the ties at the back of her dress.


    The Viin watched her hands with trepidation, but he responded with pinched confusion. “Who?”


    “The Destroyer!” she rified. “Do you think his parents named him that? Or perhaps it’s a family name?”


    “Sage, there is no way on the gods’ earth that ridiculous moniker was his given name.”


    “Are you truly one to judge ridiculous monikers?” she questioned, ducking when a pillow from the bed flew across the room, nearly smacking her upside the cheek. “I’m only teasing!” She raised her hands in surrender. “Lighten up. It could be worse!” She was tempted to mention the possibility of bedbugs but decided against it when she saw the look of agonizing pain etched into his features.


    “There’s no cause for rm,” she assured him. “We’ll get through one night, and Lord Fowler promised to release us in the morning. He’ll hand over the wand, and we’ll continue our merry little journey. Huh.” She noted, “There’s a mirror on the ceiling.” When she looked back down, her mouth formed a little O. “Sir, are you well?”


    “No.”


    “You look like you’re going to be sick.”


    He banged his head against the wall, rming her further.


    “It’s just a mirror, for goodness’ sake. You don’t need to look at it. But I wonder: Why would they put it on the ceiling?”


    “Because, Sage,” he gritted out, “some people enjoy watching.”


    “Watching what?” Her gaze lifted back to the mirror when she realized. “Oh…”


    “Are you sufficiently shocked?” he deadpanned, waving a hand toward it in disgust.


    “I’m sufficiently intrigued,” she admitted, tilting her head to the side now.


    There would need to be an investigation at some point to find how The Viin managed to make such strange sounds. This one was a cross between a roar and the echo of a wounded goose.


    “Don’t tell me that.”


    Really, the man had seen people’s guts spilled out onto the floor, but this was what turned him into a blushing adolescent?


    “I’m going to remove my sandals,” she warned, carefully moving to the ties going all the way up her calves.


    “Why are you telling me that?”


    “Because my ankles are about to be fully exposed, and I don’t want to give you a stroke.”


    “Don’t confuse my manners for ack of depravity, Sage. It’s a courtesy to you and self-preservation for me that I remain restrained.”


    Oh.


    He was implying that… “Are you insinuating that your tepidposure is for my sake?”


    The room was dimly lit, the low ambient lighting casting a glow on his face that emphasized the darkness of his irises, swallowing his pupils.


    He didn’t need to touch her. Didn’t need toy a finger upon her skin for her to feel his voice like a caress. “I am,” he stated so simply, so seemingly harmlessly, and yet it was so terrifying. Suddenly she was desperate, desperate to repair the barrier she’d been slowly tearing down, desperate to fortify it for both their restraints because it was feeling far too much like they were on the precipice of great change.


    The problem with change was in its novelty. The desire for it was often in, but every inch closer to things altering made it all the more real. She had been teasing him, pushing him, probing him, and he didn’t like it, didn’t want it.


    She had to fix it.


    “I don’t actually know that I’m good in bed!” she blurted.


    The darkness of his eyes receded and was reced with a wild sort of shine. “Why the fuck would you say that?” He gaped.


    “I don’t know! I felt like it would sort of cut the tension in the room if I admitted it. I never heard any activeints from Rick, but he’s really the only person I’ve ever been with, and that was years ago. I could be terrible at it. I have no clue!”


    His hands closed over his ears, and it made such aic portrait that Evieughed, nervously wringing her hands. “This must be divine punishment,” he said incredulously to no one in particr. “It’s the only exnation.”


    “I take it that did not help.” She kicked off both shoes, feeling instant relief for her sore toes. The boss watched her as if she were a hardened criminal about tomit some heinous act against him. Very well. She’d been attempting to disarm him to help; she’d have to try again.


    Grabbing one of the candbras, she found the plushest chair in the corner, sitting daintily and folding her feet underneath her. “At least the bed is huge,” shemented.


    When he looked on the verge of something bursting in his skull, she frantically finished the sentence. “Because we can both sleep in it without risk of anyone touching anyone else.”


    “We are not both sleeping in that bed.” He pointed to it. “No way in the deands is that happening.”


    Her chin tipped back. “If we both sleep on either side, you won’t even notice I’m there!”


    “I promise you I’ll notice. No, I will not feed into the cliché where we both start off on each side of the bed and then we end up tangled together in the morning. I refuse!”


    She began picking shells and bits of glitter out of her hair. “I hadn’t nned on being tangled with anything in the morning except that nket.”


    A knock at the door caused them both to jolt, as if they’d been doing something scandalous instead of having a debate on the clichés of there being but one bed in the room.


    A scantily dressed footman carried in arge bathing tub, facing it toward the corner and dumping steaming pails of water into it. “His lordship sent for a bath before you continue on with the evening’s festivities. After this, he will send up dinner for two.” With a jaunty bow, he moved to skip from the room, but Trystan had the man by the cor before he could make it halfway over the threshold.


    “Naturally, if she is seeking to bathe, I will wait out here.” The Viin moved to leave but stopped when the footman steepled his fingers together, giving Evie a little smile over Trystan’s shoulder. “Don’t look at her. Look at me. The hallway,” Trystan stated. “I will wait there.”


    “You’re certainly wee to do so, Viin, but I believe Lord Fowler has stipted that should either of you leave the room before the night is out, he’ll open the pooling to a recement for The Wicked Woman’s prize.”


    “She’s not a bag of goods to be tossed around from one person to the next!”


    Aw, that’s sweet. And the expectations of chivalry were sinking lower by the minute.


    “Of course not, sir, but I must respect his lordship’s wishes. I am under hismand.”


    “Fine.” The Viin released the footman so quickly and so hard he fell into the door. “A change of clothes for thedy. Now.”


    Her tender heart tried not to clench too tight at the protective care he was putting into safeguarding her, but it failed. He was too honorable by half, and that was unjust, considering he was meant to be a dishonorable ckguard.


    Who was she fooling? She’d take him that way, too.


    “Of course. Right away. I’ll be back with something for her promptly!”


    “Somethingfortable,” Trystan rified with the authority of a man who was used to getting what he wanted. Evie would like to be something he wanted.


    He has you already anyway.


    “Of course, sir! Oh! Before I forget, Lord Fowler wanted me to give you this.” The footmanid a long strip of silk across The Viin’s palm, then whispered conspiratorially behind his hand. “In case things get a little rough in here.”


    He winked, and The Viin boomed so loudly the walls shook, “Get out!”


    The footman lost hisposure, scrambling out the door and mming it shut.


    “Sage. You didn’t hear that.”


    “Sir, I’m twenty-three years old, and I read naughty novels like they’re about to go out of fashion.” She slipped the silk from his hand, quickly twining it tight and doubling it into an expert knot. “I know what ying rough is.”


    There was no way to tell for certain if the words had been absorbed into his consciousness. There was not even a twitch of movement on his face as he threw himself into the chair by the fire.


    “You take the bath first. I’ll take the fire.” He angled the chair as far away from the tub as it would move, the long headrest blocking even the back of his head from view.


    “Okay,” she said carefully. “I’m going to get naked now.”


    “Don’t narrate.”


    She thought she heard the wood of the armrest splinter.


    It was going to be a very long night.