Page 33 of Wickedly Ever After (A Fairy Tale Romp, #1)

Hector

Happily-Ever-After is the most important task a Cardinal Witch oversees.

I’ve been honored to participate in every one of them.

The one thing I can say with certainty is they are never the same.

Therefore, each obstacle must be tailored to the participating prince and princess and never duplicated.

Invention in this case is mothered by circumstance rather than necessity.

For instance, I’ve found great success in creating a deeper emotional bond between the couple by interrupting the honeymoon period known as Only-One-Bed in some circles.

You’d be pleasantly surprised what an attack of bedbugs can accomplish.

A Thousand Years of Wickedness: A Memoir

Hector West

Hector could not leave the room fast enough. As soon as Ida left the bed, he bolted, frightened by the thoughts burning through his head and in far more distant locales.

How soft and pleasant she was to hold tenderly, to touch, to feel.

When she’d nestled into his arms and wrapped her leg around his, he’d been unable to think about anything but the surging need in his groin.

Oh, this wasn’t happening. He was a wicked witch.

That should make him immune, heart or no heart.

But it certainly didn’t feel like it. Ida was right about what he’d missed in those long years alone—companionship.

What must it be like to sit down at breakfast with an equal, spend a day in happy magical work together, and fall in bed with them at night, knowing the next day and the next would be full of the same peaceful communion of purpose?

A horrible understanding had dawned as he gazed at her.

If Ida North had lived closer, he could never have been celibate.

It was lust. Only lust. That at least was a wicked feeling. He stomped the others out of himself as he descended the staircase. Ida might soften at the touch of magical love, but not him. A squirming, pleasurable feeling twitched through his unruly body. Oh, no, my man, you certainly didn’t soften.

“Gods save me.” He crumpled the reply he’d received from Sebastian as he went out to the stable. What did he mean, “I’ve only the Honeymoon Suite available at such short notice”? It was the old ghoul’s attempt at a joke certainly and in very poor taste.

Well, if he wasn’t immune, he’d simply have to fight it.

Love had always been for others, never for him.

There could be no ever-after when one outlived one’s lovers by centuries, and no happily with inequality.

The idea that he’d even considered, if only for a moment, that after all these years, he might actually have found someone who he could consider his equal made him almost as queasy as the time a venerable gentleman dragon insisted on serving him a special meal of rare knight, roasted over an open flame.

He didn’t wait for the coachman to oil his bones. He went out and started harnessing the horses himself while the old skeleton fixed his trick knee.

He was leading Napoleon out of the stall and into the traces when Tinbit appeared, groggy and miserable. Wordlessly, Tinbit readied the feed bags for the horses already in harness, and fixed them in place before grabbing the seat brush to clean out the coach for the day’s ride.

“I’d like to reach the castle by midafternoon,” Hector said when he’d finished harnessing Napoleon.

“Then don’t stay for breakfast or we’ll be stopping every half hour,” Tinbit said. “I smelled it cooking when I came downstairs.”

“I ought to at least sample it. A thumbs-down of mine carries a lot of weight.”

“It’s your stomach,” Tinbit said. “I’m waiting until we get home, and then I’m making a roast beef sandwich bigger than my head and some deviled eggs. Hari could use the protein.”

“Hari can’t stay, Tinbit.”

“I know.” Chaff showered Hector as Tinbit shook out an empty bag. “But I’m not sending him home without a good meal and plenty of hot soup. He’s not well yet.”

“If you keep taking care of him, no amount of potion—”

“You think I don’t know what I’m risking?

But if I can’t love him because he can’t love me, can’t I at least call him a friend?

Even you’ll get to write to Ida when this is all over—I half think she’d actually like you to write more often than once a week if I read her right—but women aren’t really my province. ”

“Ida does not consider me a friend,” Hector said. “We are professional enemies.”

“Right. And you pillow talk all your enemies, do you?”

Hector’s face burned. “That wasn’t pillow talk!”

“Could’ve fooled me. Face it, Hector, you feel something for her, and it’s bugging the shit out of you.”

“What I feel—and I’m not saying I do—is a normal physiologic response, explainable by proximity and an extremely minor reaction to love being unfortunately ‘in the air’ at the moment.”

Tinbit smirked unpleasantly. “Yesterday, I might’ve had some sympathy. Today, it’s not happening. I hope you get blue balls and don’t know what to do with them.”

“You are the most disrespectful butler in the kingdom.”

“You’re lucky you have me,” Tinbit growled back. “Now go in the far stall and jack off. Trust me, you’ll feel better.”

Thoroughly chastened, Hector fled.

***

Ida was helping Cear with ash removal when Hector returned to the room. The breakfast tray, largely untouched, sat on the battered oak table.

“Did you eat?” he asked.

“No, it looked too dangerous.” Ida used the gravy ladle to clean the firepot. “Hari is packing your things. I hope you don’t mind. He said Tinbit went to help you.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, although he very much did. But at least they’d be ready to leave sooner rather than later. He sat at the table and tore off a piece of hard, dry biscuit and dunked it in the dubious gravy.

Ida stopped shoveling. “You’re going to eat that?”

“It’s part of my duties as Wicked Witch. I rate the cooking at various hotels in this town. The worse, the better.”

Ida blinked. “It’s your stomach,” she said, echoing Tinbit.

The breakfast was truly terrible. Salty gravy, rancid mutton, and biscuit hard enough to break the teeth of a mountain troll. Five stars in his opinion.

It would be good to get home, to spend a night in his own bed—alone—to eat a good meal, walk his garden—alone—and try not to think about Tinbit, Hari, the princess, the dragon, or Ida. He shoved his plate aside, rose, and carried his own luggage and Ida’s down to the coach.

***

Trees made a welcome change from the fens of yesterday.

Hector loved the Fearsome Forest, with its dark emerald shadows, dangerous dryads, and no shortage of carnivorous animals with which to threaten questing heroes.

But today, even the bucolic sight of a lovely mother manticore and her three fluffy kits feasting on a deer couldn’t cheer him up.

Hari also stared out the window, elbow against the glass.

His eyes were red and slightly swollen. Tinbit had elected to ride with the coachman, something Hector wished he could do himself.

Being stuck in a coach with a sad gnome, a watchful salamander, and a scowling witch he’d wanted to kiss that morning put him dreadfully out of sorts, even more than the rotten meat he’d eaten at the inn.

“I thought we might discuss setting out to reach the dragons this afternoon instead of in the morning.” Ida’s mouth was drawn in a firm line, her gaze lofty and cold. Good. He preferred it to the soft—perilously soft—way she’d looked at him in bed.

He cleared his throat. “It’s unwise to start out too late in the day when hiking into the mountains.”

“Because of dangerous creatures?”

“No, it’s the terrain. We want to reach the hostel before dark.”

“You stay at a hostel when you visit the dragons?” Ida sounded surprised. “I thought we were taking a giant.”

“I’ve been thinking. Every dragon in the mountains will know we’re coming if we take a giant. If Alistair acts like a proper dragon, he’d simply move his princess to another cave and we’ll not find him. The key to finding his lair is secrecy. Also, I need to talk to his parents.”

“He has parents?”

Hector laughed. “Well, of course, he does. Did you think dragons hatched out of eggs alone?”

Ida’s eyes widened. “They hatch out of eggs but they are…men?”

“Not men, but yes, they hatch from an egg. Alistair is the only egg of his mother and father, and he’s very special. Not every egg can grow to be a Flamelord.”

“Are you saying Alistair isn’t just a dragon, he’s a prince of dragons?”

“Yes,” Hector said.

Ida’s face paled to cream.

“What?”

“I didn’t know he was a prince!”

“He’s not a human prince—”

“For your information, I don’t explicitly state ‘human prince’ when I compose the set-up spell,” Ida said. “You never told me. All these years, you’ve been sending me dragon princes?”

“I didn’t think it mattered. After all, the dragons have their own traditions in this matter.”

“Well, it would’ve been nice if you’d said something!

” Ida folded her arms over her chest. “I stipulated the prince should fall in love at first sight with the princess, and damn it, if your dragon prince didn’t arrive first on the scene.

This could really complicate things if they’ve accidentally fallen in love. ”

“It wasn’t my fault! Your princess should’ve been out on the field with her prince long before Alistair got there.”

“Oh, for magic’s sake—”

“Please don’t shout,” Hari said in a dead, dull voice from his corner. “My head hurts.”

Cear emerged from the firepot as a salamander. They perched on the edge of the pot, staring at Hector with a curious expression.

Hector composed himself. “Do you have a question, Cear?”

“Yes,” they hissed from the flames. “Is it customary for creatures in love to fight as you and Ida are fighting?”

A horrid flush warmed his cheeks. “You mean, as part of the setup when the spell is prepared?”

“Yes.”

Ida pursed her lips and nodded. “I see what you are getting at, Cear. You want to know if their argument at the beginning increased their initial attraction?”

“Yes.”

Hector tried not to breathe a sigh of relief. Who ever heard of people falling in love when they quarreled? “That kind of thing doesn’t happen in real life, Cear. Only in books.”

“You might be surprised,” Ida said, eyeing him over her glasses. “But no, I didn’t set the spell for initial animosity. Not on purpose, anyway.”

“Not on purpose?”

She looked uncomfortable. “When the kingdom had families who didn’t like each other very much, it wasn’t uncommon for a princess or prince to deeply despise the person—”

“You mean this foolishness is part of your spell?” Hector asked. “You didn’t tell me?”

“Well, I assumed any Cardinal Witch would have a good grasp of history! Love at first sight is one of the best ways to counter initial dislike—it’s like getting a person to eat that dreadful inn breakfast by starving them first!

They’d never do it if they weren’t sure they’d die of hunger if they didn’t.

They’d be more logical about the whole thing. ”

“What about that?” Cear asked. “Could the logic of their choice be used to separate them as their love cools? A human may not bear eggs. A dragon may not give seed for a child.”

Ida sighed. “When people fall in love, it takes a great deal to convince them it isn’t wise, even when it’s not caused by magic.”

Hari shuddered.

Cear fell silent.

“But that’s what we will do,” Hector said.

Ida’s eyes met his, and in her gaze he saw the same concern.

What if they couldn’t separate Alistair and Amber?

What if they had fallen victim to the same love magic that had caused Hari and Tinbit such grief?

He could comfort Tinbit like she could comfort Hari, but he somehow doubted that talking a dragon out of a strong magical infatuation would be a safe and rewarding experience for anyone.

But he’d have to find a way. If he didn’t, he was as doomed as Happily-Ever-After.