It was finally time.
Trystan ducked as another swamp of purple mist melted a large patch of trees directly next to him. The heat from it singed the corner of his—his hair. Sprinting a few yards away, he reached up to feel if the strands were unharmed, yanking his hand down swiftly when he saw Keeley staring at him with a strange expression.
Trystan lifted his chin and refocused on the rest of his Malevolent Guards ducking around the guvre, waving their arms to distract the animal. Nature was wilder and less inhibited this close to the western edges of Hickory Forest, but the overgrown trees provided reprieve from the cloying heat. The animal had been lounging around this cliffside for more than a week, the longest since Trystan had decided to start tracking it, to catch it.
He’d seen a guvre once before, long ago…
Blinking hard, he forced himself back from the past, refusing to give the blackness that lived there a moment’s thought. The creature looked different from the female he’d seen then. Her features had been stronger, more defined, her rough, snakelike skin a muted brown. The male he was looking at now was created to impress.
The smooth skin of his back was a shocking array of pigment, like every time the sun hit it at a different point, a new color emerged. Trystan scanned the creature’s every move, a kaleidoscope of bursting and twinkling color.
Twinkling? He’d been spending too much time with Sage.
Moving out from behind the tree, the rest of his body was revealed, color by color. The animal wasn’t bigger than the dragon currently freeloading on his property, but he was quick like fire. His wings flared when he moved, the shine making some of his guards stop to stare in wonder. His long body rippled and coiled, boneless. His head was that of a serpent, and it shone brightly like the rest of him.
“Unless your desire is to spend your final moments on earth melting into it, I would suggest you continue MOVING!” The Villain bellowed. Something he didn’t care to do as a rule, but their carelessness seemed to demand it of him. “Keeley! Do you have the sleeping draught?”
The head of the Malevolent Guards nodded, tossing him the vial. “Are you sure you want to be the one to do it, sir?”
He gritted his jaw, eyes narrowing on the beast. “It has to be me.”
This was his battle. He’d been waiting for years to capture this creature, and it would be only his life in peril when he did it.
The sleeping draught was concentrated—a drop could take down a horse, two drops an elephant. A whole vial? The guvre wouldn’t be standing long. The risk was in the time it would take to work. He was going to be cut to ribbons, and he hadn’t even had his afternoon pastry.
But he needed the male if he was going to catch his mate.
The Villain felt a satisfying malevolence curling in his magic, the gray mist appearing at his fingertips. Not yet, he soothed it. Soon.
There were sure to be questions around the office as to why Trystan would want a guvre and, if word got out to the public, why The Villain would want it. But his reasons were rooted in nearly everything he’d done over the last decade of his life. If King Benedict wanted something, The Villain had to get to it first.
Once The Villain acquired the guvre, it wouldn’t be long until the news creeped its way back to King Benedict, by way of his office traitor, exactly how he intended.
The Villain smiled to himself. Victory would soon be his.
Even if it meant placing his guards and himself in possibly the most danger they’d faced in a while. As if on cue, the serpent hissed another spray of venom that just barely missed his guards, trees melting as the purple goo-like substance struck the bark, the leaves disintegrating like dust.
Sighing, Trystan gripped the vial of sleeping draught in his fist, using one of his hands to remove his black cloak, watching the garment fall to the ground. He was left in the attire he reserved for his least favorite tasks. Black leather hugged his legs, and boots lighter than his usual donned his feet and shins. His black shirt was tighter than what was comfortable, but he didn’t want to be encumbered by the extra fabric.
The Villain darted around his guards, who continued to wave furiously and keep the guvre distracted. The grass made no noise beneath his feet as he crept closer and closer to the creature’s back. He had one shot to get it into the beast’s mouth before he let out another wave of his venomous breath.
This, upon reflection, was not my most well-thought-out plan.
Of course, Blade wouldn’t have been a helpful solution, either. His résumé, full of raving accounts of all the magical creatures he’d worked with, had been pure exaggeration, clearly.
With a sigh, The Villain realized that his office and its workers were beginning to resemble a badly drawn cartoon sketching. But there was no time for letting that manic imagery weigh him down.
There was a stiffness in his legs as he ran, thighs burning, heart pounding. He dove around one of his guards, Andrea, shoving her out of the way from a blast of the guvre’s breath.
She rolled and landed expertly, then screamed at another of his guards, Dante. “Wave your arms higher, you fool!”
Dante’s arms were already flailing so hard, he looked like a drunk ballerina. “I’m waving them! Trying not to die, Andy!”
Trystan was close enough now to leap onto the creature’s back, but the serpent’s head was too high, too far away. His original plan had been to come at the creature from behind, waiting for him to open his mouth so he could thrust the sleeping draught in. But he only had one shot—he couldn’t waste it.
This was suicide, and it was very probable Trystan was going to die. But dying in the pursuit of revenge was every villain’s dream, so he couldn’t find it in himself to mind very much.
“Hey!” The Villain yelled. His power seeped from his fingers, that familiar gray mist flowing out and around him as the creature turned with a screech so forceful, it blew his hair back from his forehead. Trystan looked for weak points, but a death blow wasn’t an option; he needed the beast alive. Only one weak point was visible on the creature’s foot, highlighted in yellow, barely enough to give it a paper cut.
The guvre shook his magic off, and almost immediately, any sort of hold Trystan had crackled until it shattered. He wasn’t powerful enough to hold a creature of this size for more than a few seconds, but those few seconds were enough.
The guvre’s mouth opened wide, a swarm of purple smoke beginning to fog out. The heat of it hit the top of Trystan’s forehead, and he felt his skin singeing, burning. But The Villain smiled through the pain, for he had waited just long enough. Uncapping the vial with his teeth, he threw the draught right down the creature’s large throat. It disappeared into the now-aggressive wave of heated breath that was burning through his skin so fast, if he stood there a second longer, the bone of his skull would see the sunlight.
The draught didn’t take as long as expected, but neither did the damage from the swamp of breath that melted the bramble where he’d just been standing. A little close for his liking, but he didn’t die, so there was that. The animal teetered to the left, his head jerking and swaying, still spraying the noxious mist.
“Move!” Trystan yelled. “Get out of the way!” His people scattered, flipping and rolling away from patches of melting ground, a rankling cry ringing out as a lick of mist brushed against Dante’s leg.
“Fuck!” he yelled, jumping away and gripping the back of the red leathers he wore. “That hurts!” Dante leaned his neck around to look at the burned-away fabric of his pants, revealing a sliver of his…ass.
The guvre swayed drunkenly for a beat and then finally dropped to a heap with a resounding thud. But his guards barely noticed, too busy laughing at Dante being stripped by their prey.
Trystan sighed; he was so very tired. Wincing and reaching up to feel the wound on his forehead, he added being in pain to his list of complaints, along with the fact that his orderly life seemed to no longer exist.
“When you all cease that annoying sound coming out of your mouths, may I kindly ask you to do your jobs and get the animal to the cart?” The Villain gestured toward the incredibly large, carted cage he’d had made specifically for this purpose.
As soon as his sentence was complete, his guards were already dragging the creature onto the tarp and moving him inch by inch toward his future of imprisonment, as humanely as Trystan could manage. It couldn’t be helped—removing the dragon’s collar had opened up a level of…compassion. It was a hindrance already, but it needed to be minded.
He couldn’t believe he’d done it. Something Benedict had been trying to accomplish for years. This was and would forever remain Trystan’s victory over the man who had ruined everything, had ruined him. A yellow flower among the undergrowth left in the forest caught his eye, and his mind conjured an image of Sage.
Ruined.
He didn’t feel ruined with Evie, though. He felt reborn.
What a fucking disaster.
