Page 22 of Wickedly Ever After (A Fairy Tale Romp, #1)

Hector

I consider it one of my most abject failures as a witch—I’ve utterly failed to impress upon the dragons the importance of a less combustible temper.

On the whole, I find them an eminently reasonable folk, no more prone to impatience than any other people.

In fact, they seem to excel at defusing arguments among themselves.

But when a dragon loses their temper, the results are always explosive.

Therefore, they can never be members of proper society.

I envy them. Proper society often enrages me.

A Thousand Years of Wickedness: A Memoir

Hector West

Alistair had always been impressive, even as a skinny dragonet with immature wings and a mouthful of deciduous teeth.

Today, he looked every inch the future Flamelord.

Wreathed in fire, eyes flashing, scales shining, he stood in the middle of the field, rampant, claws extended, while the stands burned and people ran for their lives.

All but one. A knight in shining armor raced across the field, long hair streaming. It took Hector all of three seconds to realize the knight wasn’t a knight. Nor was it the crown prince, who joined his own knights, hastily evacuating over the fence.

It was the princess.

She was tall for a woman and exceptionally built in the upper body.

She wore a mail shirt over what appeared to be a farrier’s apron and wielded a long poleax.

“You can take yourself right off. I’m not going anywhere with you,” she said, voice magically amplified as it would have been for the event.

Everyone enjoyed a love confession after all.

But this…this was so far from what should have happened, Hector felt paralyzed.

He should put out the bleachers. Or at least summon a raven brigade to evacuate the injured.

People might have been hurt when Alistair set them ablaze.

But he could do nothing but watch in dazed embarrassment and horror at the melee unfolding in front of his eyes.

Alistair bit the poleax, yanking it out of her hand. He tossed it aside. “I’m not taking you anywhere. I came to make a statement. Now get out of my way.”

Hector gripped his staff until his knuckles blanched.

Once the magic had been set in motion, trying to exert control in the middle of it could be disastrous.

But he’d never seen a Happily-Ever-After go this wrong.

Not only had Alistair behaved far worse than expected, something was dreadfully wrong with this princess.

She should’ve run like all the rest. Instead, there she was, staring down an angry dragon with all the poise of an ancient knight, and she looked like one too as she yanked twin daggers from beneath her leather apron.

“If you think you can scare me by blowing smoke, you’re wrong. So you’d just better keep your forked tongue behind your teeth, and get ready. I didn’t come here to make a statement. I came to fight!”

Hector caught a glimpse of white as Ida stormed out of the tent, wand raised.

“Who are you?” Alistair said.

“Amber Smith, and you’re a dead worm.”

Alistair hissed and backed up. Hector raised his staff, ready to throw a shield between Alistair and the princess if worse came to worst, but Alistair’s form had already begun to shift.

No, no, no, no—Alistair! But there wasn’t a thing Hector could do about it.

Alistair’s scales retracted inward, his wings folded against his back, the long snout changed, flattened, and he stood, a man—a completely naked man, wearing only the last vestige of flames about his penis, smoke trailing over his shoulders along with a river of black hair.

He opened his arms, exposing his chest to the princess, along with everything else.

“Well?” he said. “Get on with it. Weren’t you going to kill me?

Go on. Show everyone here who the monsters really are. ”

The princess gaped.

Thankfully, the stands were empty now. The only people left to see were the witches and two startled gnomes hiding beneath the bunting. Tinbit and Hari peeped out from between the folds of fabric, bright eyes glowing.

“You—you—are—you’re not a…you’re a—” Amber stepped back, dropping her knives and spluttering.

“A dragon,” Alistair said. “This is what I am. What we are.”

“Alistair!” Hector raised his staff. He had to stop this now, whatever the consequences.

Across the field, Ida raised her wand.

At the last second Alistair turned, lunging toward Hector. His spell hit the princess right in the chest.

“Oh!” She tumbled backward.

Ida’s spell caught Alistair in the shoulder.

“Shit!” His voice sounded high-pitched, frighteningly human. He doubled over in pain.

Ten knights charged onto the field from the corner where they’d gone over the fence.

But they weren’t wearing the ceremonial togs normally donned for the festivities.

Led by Caedan, they wore traditional armor.

A few sweaty and panicked pages backed away from the fence, carrying everything from feathered helmets to decorative lances.

In the middle of the group charged Prince Archie, similarly attired, except for the visor and helmet.

He carried a large, less-than-ceremonial sword, the enchanted sword his father had used when he’d gone on his quest to save Annabeth.

Hector prepared for the worst—a stab to Alistair’s gut and then a decapitation.

He’d never be able to face the Flamelord again.

The princess jumped in front of Alistair and took up a fighting stance. “Run! Or fly! Or whatever it is you do!”

Alistair shook his wings out, desperately trying to regain his form, but it took dragons longer to change from human to reptile than it did the other way around.

“Will you get going?”

“What about you?” Alistair bared his dragon fangs at the oncoming knights and cast about for the amputated poleax.

“Don’t worry about me. It’s you they want to kill. Get out of here!”

“Wrong!” Alistair shook the last of his form free and rose into the air.

“They’ll kill you too. It’ll just take longer.

” With a blast of flame in the direction of the knights, he grabbed the princess in his claws and took off.

In a short time, her screams faded into the distance, and Alistair became a black spot against a wall of clouds, darkening the blue sky as they rolled in.

The prince panted up. “That was something else! I have to hand it to you witches, you really outdid yourself this year.”

Caedan stared after the disappearing spot on the horizon. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Was he—was that really a dragon?”

“Illusion,” Hector muttered. Amber’s screams echoed in his ears, but not as loudly as Alistair’s words.

They’ll kill you too. It’ll just take longer .

What on earth had Ida hit him with? It sounded almost like an empathy spell—something intended to give a person deep, abiding insight into someone’s soul.

Thunder rolled. Lightning flickered in the distance.

Ida, red hair falling into her eyes, glared at him, but she looked as worried as she was angry. She was probably thinking the same thing he was. What happens when a Good Witch’s spell hits a dragon? And what happens when a Wicked Witch’s spell hits a princess? Nothing good, that was certain.

“What did you do?” she hissed when the prince moved off to congratulate his knights, clapping them all on the backs. “Why did your dragon take human form? They’re not supposed to do that.”

“Who gave the princess a weapon? She wasn’t supposed to fight! What game are you playing here?”

“I didn’t give her a weapon. Anyway, your dragon set the whole place on fire. They’re not supposed to do that either, and she was only trying to defend herself—”

“There’s no reason for her to even want to do that! Dragons never harm the princesses!”

Lightning cracked the sky, and the roar of the thunder shook the ground. Rain began to pelt Hector in the face, great, heavy drops, plunking down like hailstones. A blast of wind as freezing as snowfall enveloped him in an icy embrace, whipping his robes around like smoke. Ida’s too.

She wrapped her arms around herself. “Oh, for Gods’ sakes, what are you trying to prove, Hector? Turn it off.”

“You think I did—” He glanced at the clouds roiling overhead, suddenly horrified.

It was his province—storms and other natural disasters, to be distributed fairly and equitably over the kingdom—but this was nothing he’d done.

Something was very wrong here. He glanced at Ida, into her violet eyes, shimmering with fury.

She couldn’t know. She’d roast him if she knew he was responsible for Alistair’s interference with her magic.

It was his job to keep his monsters in line after all.

He drew himself up, as tall and regal as he could make himself given that sleet was freckling his clothes and the wind had turned his hair into a badly disheveled eagle’s nest. “I had to do something,” he said in lofty tones.

“You’ve turned this whole thing into some kind of publicity stunt for yourself after all. ”

“What?”

“First the Prince’s Dinner and now the Happily-Ever-After itself—if this is another one of your ‘let’s let the people participate’ schemes, I can assure you, I won’t be supporting it!”

Ida gaped. “Of all the—your dragon burned down the stadium and you say I’m the one who made this into a publicity stunt?”

“He didn’t burn down the stadium!” He glanced at the ruin. “Only…part of it.”

“Now the whole kingdom is going to think dragons are out there walking around like ordinary people, setting things on fire whenever they feel like it. Good job, Hector. How do you plan to hush that up?”

He drew himself up even further, cloaking his fear in indifference. “An illusion. My work to create confusion by which the dragon takes the princess captive, meant to terrify her.”

“That was not the look of a woman terrified.”

“What was it the look of?” Hector snapped back. “Love? I can’t believe that even you could mess up that badly.”

“Fuck you.” Ida thrust her middle finger up in his face and stomped off.

Hector slammed his staff down on the ground and stomped off in the opposite direction.

Curses tumbled through his mind unadjusted.

Damn Ida. Damn himself. Damn dragons and damsels, witches and princes, and damn Happily-Ever-After.

He had to get this straightened out before anyone discovered he’d mismanaged his end of things.

Alistair might be in great danger. So might the princess. The kingdom certainly was. Something had gone dreadfully wrong with Happily-Ever-After.

The clouds opened up, and torrents poured down.