Page 17 of Once a Villain (Only a Monster #3)

“I have to ask again.” Ruth gestured at Joan’s clothes.

Joan tugged at her shirt. It couldn’t have been more clearly Aaron’s—with its embroidered mermaid and storm-gray silk, the

same color as his eyes. “I don’t know what it looks like, but—”

“It looks like you’re wearing Aaron’s shirt,” Ruth said. She surveyed the massive bedroom, the rumpled bed, Nick’s bare chest. Her

mouth opened and closed over a dozen questions. She settled with: “What the hell are you even doing here?”

Nick flushed. “Aaron’s the head of the family in this timeline. The Olivers thought he hired me and Joan as prostitutes, so

we went along with it.”

“You went along with it?” Ruth said.

“Well, not actually ,” Joan said. “Fakely went along with it.”

“I didn’t get the impression that I was paying you,” Aaron interjected to Nick. He’d fallen into his most lord-like posture,

the one that seemed to irritate everyone when they first met him: hands behind his back, as if he were inspecting substandard

property. More and more, Joan thought he dropped into that posture when he was feeling defensive.

Nick scowled at him. “Why would we be here for free?”

Aaron lifted his chin. Have you seen me?

Nick’s expression answered him: I have seen you, and I don’t like what I see .

His counterpart’s poster was still on the desk, bloodied face staring up at the ceiling, and Joan felt almost as sick as she had when she’d first seen Aaron’s signature on it.

Some bone-deep part of herself kept expecting Aaron and Nick to get along; kept telling her that it wasn’t supposed to be like this between them.

Her instinct couldn’t have been more wrong, though.

In Eleanor’s timeline, their counterparts had been at war.

“Seems like we need to get our stories straight,” Nick told Aaron tightly.

“Right,” Aaron said. His gaze flicked to the poster, and his mouth twisted. An arrogant note crept into his voice. “Because

the obvious possibility is that I saw you on the street and ordered you to come home with me.”

“ Ordered? ” Nick’s northern accent was coming out again.

“I don’t know how this world works, but it seems heads of family have a great deal of power here,” Aaron said. “I imagine

thatsomeone in my position could do just about anything they want to anyone they want here. People might assume I plucked you from the gutter and ordered you to entertain me until I tired of

you. They might assume I had the right. Maybe that should be our story. Maybe that would be more realistic here.”

Nick’s jaw worked as he took that in. Joan had seen him vengeful and full of righteous fury, but she’d never really seen anyone

get under his skin like this.

Aaron lifted his chin higher. “In fact—”

“ Aaron ,” Joan said. This conversation was too much. The poster was too much.

Aaron’s mouth shut with a clack, and he blinked at her as if he’d forgotten for just a second that there was anyone here but him and Nick.

He looked a little sick suddenly—he hadn’t intended to take it that far.

Joan saw his hands rise slightly as if he wanted to reach for her, and then he caught sight of the poster again, and looked even more sick.

Jamie cleared his throat awkwardly. “Not to interrupt, but can we please talk about Eleanor? What did she say to you?”

Joan turned to him and saw that he was even paler than usual. They were all exhausted, she knew. They couldn’t rest quite

yet, though. “Why don’t you sit down?” she said. There was a lot more to talk about than just Eleanor.

And they had a recording to watch.

After Joan had filled in Ruth and Jamie on the main points, Jamie examined the plastic tag she’d found. He beckoned them over

to the clearing between the bed and the windows. The cliff-like edge of the bed blocked the rest of the room, making the space

feel almost small.

“You found it with the poster?” he said to Joan.

“It dropped out of the hollow.”

“Could be unrelated,” Ruth said. “There’s a lot of junk on that desk. Maybe the tag fell in.”

“Right,” Joan said. “The recording could be anything. Could be a movie.” She felt weirdly uneasy, though. She scooped Frankie’s

heavy body into her lap. Ruth had decanted the meat from a veal pie, and Joan balanced the plate on her knee so that Frankie

could eat from it at her leisure.

“Do you even watch movies?” Nick asked Aaron skeptically.

“I occasionally enjoy a screwball comedy.”

Jamie stepped into the center of the clearing, assessing angles. Then he carefully placed the bit of plastic down. “All right, let’s see what we have.” He backed up until he was sitting beside Ruth.

“I mean, maybe there’s nothing on it,” Joan said. “Maybe it’s not even a recording. Maybe it’s just an empty—”

But as she spoke, the air shimmered like a summer haze. And then the space in front of them transformed. The beautiful gilded

wallpaper of the bedroom morphed into a rough stone wall. The floor was stone now too, glistening, as if it had just been

mopped.

“Make sure he’s contained!” The voice came out of nowhere, making them all jump. And Joan’s breath caught. She knew that voice;

she’d have known it anywhere.

Aaron.

Footsteps sounded—the soft pad of expensive shoes—and then there were suddenly two Aarons here: one sitting beside Joan, hugging

his knees; the other standing in a stone room, arms folded and face commanding.

“Good God,” Aaron breathed beside Joan now.

“Oh, that is uncanny ,” Ruth said, her voice hushed as if she were afraid that Aaron’s counterpart might hear. He couldn’t—this was just a recording—but

Joan felt the same urge to be quiet and still.

Joan had once glimpsed the true-timeline version of herself, and had barely recognized her own face. It hadn’t been like looking

in a mirror; more like seeing a twin raised in a very different household.

Aaron’s counterpart looked just like Aaron, from his delicate features to his golden hair, but he held himself differently. This was someone who was used

to issuing commands, someone who expected to be obeyed. Joan had never been intimidated by her Aaron, but his counterpart

had the air of someone who might order people to their knees.

Even his taste in clothes was different. Joan’s Aaron liked understated quality: crisp shirts and beautifully cut suits. This

counterpart dressed to be seen. He wore the long velvet jacket that Joan had seen in the dressing room—dark as dried blood,

cut in a deep V. On his fingers, a dozen silver rings glinted in the lamplight. He turned now to face someone off-screen.

“Bring him in.”

The words were quiet, but instantly obeyed. Four guards came into view, lugging a limp body between them. They tossed a prisoner

onto the floor, where he landed with a heavy thud. The guards backed up quickly, drawing stun guns and batons and training

them on the guy as if he were a lion, temporarily sedated.

Aaron’s counterpart didn’t seem afraid. With a mirror-polished black shoe, he pressed his toe to the prisoner’s chin, lifting

it until the guy groaned and flinched away.

AndJoan was expecting it, but she still heard herself make a sound of denial at the back of her throat.

It was Nick. But not Nick.

Where Aaron’s counterpart was identical, Nick’s was barely recognizable. His hair was long and unwashed, his nose broken, and both eyes blackened. White whip-mark scars and bruises marred his bare chest, the tender skin over his kidneys.

Joan’s heart clenched at the story of his body. The scars were old —stretched and pale. This was Nick as she’d never seen him; never wanted to see him. A Nick who’d grown up in a world where

humans were disposable and abused.

He was still Nick, though—as injured as he was, his captors were afraid of him. They’d shackled him, binding his arms and tying

his ankles together.

Joan looked over at her Nick, sitting just beyond Aaron, needing—as she had when she’d seen the poster—the reassurance that he was here and unhurt.

Nick looked back at her now, as if he needed to see her too.

“Get him up on his knees,” Aaron’s counterpart said.

Guards stepped forward and maneuvered Nick’s counterpart until he was kneeling. They were tense as they did it, as if anticipating

an attack.

But Nick’s counterpart just knelt where they put him, listing to one side, his breath harsh.

“Sounds like broken ribs,” Jamie murmured, and Joan’s stomach turned over at his tone. He’d been tortured himself, by Eleanor,

in another lifetime.

“I’ve already told you everything I know,” Nick’s counterpart slurred now. His voice was completely flat, all the fight knocked

out of him. Joan had never even known he could sound like that. “You’ve had three Griffiths at me. There’s nothing left hidden

in my head.”

“I want to believe you,” Aaron’s counterpart said almost gently. “But I like to be thorough. So we’re going one more round. No Griffiths this time. Just you and me.”

Nick’s counterpart closed his eyes, and Joan’s heart fell at his lost expression. She knelt up, her instinct to crawl into

that recording. She wanted to reach for him and pull him to safety. But she couldn’t. This had already happened. He wasn’t

here.

“How can you do this?” Nick’s counterpart managed between pained breaths. “How can you treat people like this?”

“Humans aren’t people,” Aaron’s counterpart said, with such genuine belief that Joan couldn’t suppress a shudder. Beside her,

she felt her Aaron tense. “My birthright is to take human life and travel,” Aaron’s counterpart continued, “just as your birthright as

a human is to die. Now...” He put his hands behind his back in the lord-like posture Joan knew so well. “I know that the

wolves have been planning an attack on the Queen herself.”

Joan sat up straighter, exchanging a look with Nick.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nick’s counterpart said.

Aaron’s counterpart snapped his fingers. A guard handed him a thick black glove that seemed heavier than it should have been.