Page 51 of Wickedly Ever After (A Fairy Tale Romp, #1)

Hector

Don’t think I can’t see right through you, Tara.

If Hector goes, I’d have to appoint a young witch to take his place, and they’d have less death magic in their whole body than Hector has in his little finger.

I’m not about to let you and Ida take control of this Council.

Either we agree to fire them both, or you can expect me to fire Ida the moment she shows her overlong nose in the Hall of Witches.

Letter from Wicked Witch Agatha East to Good Witch Tara South

Hector rose and carried Ida’s leftover cheese sandwich to the kitchen.

She seemed so focused, so determined, no hint of distraction.

Meanwhile he was a turmoil inside. It must be nice to be so unaffected by one’s own magic that one could simply walk off to take an early evening nap, completely unconcerned by one’s completely carnal preoccupations.

When he saw the fear in her face, all he could think about was taking her in his arms and telling her he’d make it all right, and please, love him.

Gods. Tinbit had been right about the balls.

Getting rid of his heart hadn’t helped at all.

Ida had once written that wickedness could never compete against the power of a good heart, and while he’d appreciated both the insult and the challenge, there might be some truth in it.

A good heart, a chivalrous sense of honor, a kind deed—those things went a long way in preventing a man from being overwhelmed by his baser feelings.

His heart was gone, and it had never been good.

Chivalry had gone the way of the unicorns long ago. But the kind deed he could manage.

He squared up to the dragon’s stove, stacked two boxes of everlasting onions together, climbed up, tied an overlarge apron over his robe, and set the skillet on the burner.

He carried two slightly burned sandwiches along with a small bowl of rock-loganberry preserves on a tray to Alistair’s room.

The absence of them both at dinner suggested that Alistair, perhaps in an attempt to convince his father of Amber’s worthiness, had decided to do everything according to dragon tradition.

Once mated, a dragon must feed his mate to show he can provide, not only for her, but for the dragon eggs she will surely be expecting after their nonstop mating.

The gifts generally took the form of fresh meat, a different animal each day for a full two weeks.

The princess was probably sick of barbecue by now.

He knocked gently on the door.

“Yes?” she answered.

“It’s Hector. May I come in?”

“Alistair isn’t here.”

“I would like to come in anyway, if you don’t mind.”

The door opened.

The princess had changed clothes. She wore another one of Alistair’s long wool robes, a blood-red one, too long for her. The way the folds clung to her shoulders and hips, she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. So she was adhering to dragon tradition too.

He thrust the tray with the sandwiches in her direction. “Grilled cheese and coffee. I’m not the cook my gnome is, or there would be hot onion soup.”

Amber stuffed the sandwich in her mouth and started eating as fast as she could. “How’d you know?” She spewed crumbs as he poured a cup of coffee and set it on the table between them.

“I’ve spent many years being entertained by dragons. Please?” He gestured for her to sit.

“If you’re here to talk me out of my marriage, I won’t listen.” She glared at him.

“I wouldn’t dream of asking you to do something so hazardous to your health.”

“Alistair would never hurt me.”

“Or his health,” Hector said. “Believe me, I have no intention of breaking up your mating unless it is a completely mutual rupture, and for that, I need Alistair. I take it he’s out hunting.”

“Yes.” Amber glanced at the brazier in the center of the room that she’d fitted with a makeshift grill.

Definitely tired of barbecue. She grabbed the second sandwich and started in on it ravenously.

He wished Alistair could see this. His bride wasn’t a dragon, and he couldn’t expect her to behave like a dragon indefinitely.

“My dear, how long has it been since you had a proper bath, a fresh set of clothes, or eaten a green vegetable? This isn’t sustainable.”

Her eyes turned dragon-fierce. “I’m not leaving him,” she said with her mouth full.

“You can tell that to Ida too. She sent you to scare some sense into me, didn’t she?

Tell me all those horror stories about how Alistair will get angry and burn me up by accident, or how I’ll say something wrong to his mother and she’ll eat me in a single bite. ”

“Morga wouldn’t eat you in a single bite. It would take two at least—she’d want to savor it. And as far as I know, Alistair has only burned one person in a fit of temper.”

Amber snorted a laugh. “Who?”

“Me.” Hector smiled and leaned back comfortably in his chair. “To be honest, I deserved it. He would not be so careless with the person he loves.”

Amber’s eyes widened. “You believe he loves me?”

“Of course, he does.”

“Ida doesn’t believe that.”

“On the contrary; she’s convinced you’re both as in love as any prince and princess could ever be, as am I.

It’s magically induced. I know you don’t believe any magic is capable of that—but believe me, it is.

” He sighed. “You underestimate the power of this kind of love magic on a susceptible heart.” He certainly had.

“You are only saying this to get me to believe I wouldn’t love him if the magic wasn’t there.

That’s not true. Don’t you understand? Maybe we did start to care for each other because of magic, but it’s different now.

” She stood and walked around the room. “I don’t know how to explain it.

You’re old. You’re wicked. You’ve never loved anyone. ”

“Why don’t you try me?”

She squared up to him, folding her arms in her robe, a curious expression of determination on her face that reminded him of Ida.

“When Alistair carried me off, I thought he’d simply set me down in the field.

We’d say goodbye. I’d walk home. He’d fly home.

But when he told me he was sorry he’d ever let himself get involved in such a horrible barbaric ritual, and he hoped I could go back to my smithy and have a wonderful career because he could see I loved to work with my hands, it was like I’d found the second half of my soul.

The way he looked at me, the way he held my hands in his claws, I knew he felt the same way.

I asked him to take me to the mountains.

I suggested it might keep both of us from being in trouble for a few days, but even then, we both knew.

And the morning after, when I turned over in his arms and saw his eyes shining in the dark and the happiness in them, I realized I could see him every morning, in any form, every day until the morning I don’t wake up, and I’d die happy. What is that, if it’s not love?”

He winced as a sudden vision of Ida petting the fern in his library flashed across his memory. “It’s magic. All magic.”

“Who are you to say true love isn’t magic?”

“But it isn’t true love, and if you knew even a fraction of the risk you are taking—”

“I know what we’re risking. Alistair told me if we mated, I would risk not only my life, but also his.

I told him I didn’t care about me, but him—I would do anything for him.

If he wanted me to go, I would. Then he held me, and he said he could think of no one he would rather risk his life for, risk his life with .

I felt the same way.” She dropped the half-finished sandwich on the plate and walked to the brazier to arrange the coals.

“Whatever he asks me to do, whatever we have to do to be together, I’m with him through all of it. ”

“Respectfully,” he said, “I don’t think you’ve thought this through.”

“I’ve thought as long as I need to,” she said. “And any other thinking that has to be done, we’ll do together too.”

He reddened. “Flamelords need an heir. They will expect an egg at the end of this mating. Did he tell you that?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact. We’re going to adopt. The king egg is a function of temperature, and he will incubate it.”

“But your human family—”

“My family will learn to love him as I do.”

“They won’t love him! They don’t know dragons are anything other than man-eating monsters!”

“Something you’ve encouraged, no doubt.” She huffed.

“Yes—because it protects them.”

She rounded on him. “Dragons can take care of themselves, you know! Maybe Happily-Ever-After started out to protect people who couldn’t protect themselves, but people evolve. They grow. They change. They learn. And that’s killing you, isn’t it, Your Wickedness? They don’t need you anymore!”

“Princess, you don’t understand—”

“Leave,” she said, standing tall. “Alistair will be back soon, and I’ll tell him you were here. If he wants to see you, he’ll find you. But I’m not going to put him through the pain Ida caused him earlier today.”

“She didn’t intend—”

“He wept after what she said to him. He begged me to tell him to let me go. He asked me to tell him to take me home and he’d stay with me. He said he didn’t want to return to the mountains if he couldn’t be with me.”

An intense chill ran down Hector’s spine. “Amber, he can’t do that! The people would—”

“Kill him? Yes, I know! This is the man you want me to leave so you and Ida can have your precious little Happily-Ever-After intact, so you don’t have to take responsibility for the lives you’ve ruined, so you can go back to your castles and look down on us poor mortals from your thousand years of sovereign wisdom until you get to wreck the next generation of lives!

Well, you aren’t ruining my life, and you aren’t ruining his. ”

“You’re ruining your own!”

“If we are, we’re doing it together,” she said. “That’s what matters. Now go.”

He went.

Shaken.