Page 58 of Wickedly Ever After (A Fairy Tale Romp, #1)

Ida

There are those who would say that vivomancy has fewer limitations and less potency than necomancy.

This is a fallacy. Magic that relies on accelerating the natural processes of conception, growth, and birth is the most dangerous magic in the world and should not be treated as inferior or less powerful than magic that starts with a corpse and adds animation.

For this reason, transformation is not an art many good witches now indulge in, despite its seductive charm. It just takes too much magic to turn a man into a convincing monster if he isn’t one already.

Magic and Mischief—A Thousand Years of Happily-Ever-After: A Memoir

Ida North

If not for the brown eyes and the way the dragon pinned Hector bodily to the ground under a huge, onyx-taloned paw, Ida wouldn’t have known Amber.

She was truly glorious—a huge female dragon with deep chocolate scales and bright dots of orange and green on her soft belly.

Her teeth, sharp and amber-colored, dripped venom as she loomed over Hector.

“Where is he?”

“I haven’t touched him.” Hector gasped as Amber pushed down, crushing him.

“Amber, stop!” Ida said, quaking inside. “Hector hasn’t done anything to Alistair.”

“Alistair is gone! He probably turned him to stone or into a monster!”

Ida stared at Amber. The girl didn’t know. She seemed utterly unconcerned about being a dragon. Every move she made looked exactly like what a dragon would do. It was a complete and perfect transformation. Under normal circumstances, Ida might have applauded Hector’s skills. Not today.

She glared at him. “Hector—”

He squirmed under the dragon’s paw. “If you’ll let me up, Amber, I’ll try to explain—”

“The only explanation I want is the one that tells me where Alistair is!” Her voice rose to a hysterical pitch.

“What’s going on out here?” Morga appeared in her human form, pulling a gilt robe on as she came from the Flamelord’s room. “Oh, Gods!” In an instant, she shed her robe and assumed her dragon form. She swooped in, shoving Amber off Hector. She bared her teeth. “Let him up right now!”

“But he took Alistair!” Amber backed up.

From the kitchen, Hari’s frightened face appeared, and Tinbit, spatula raised like a sword, started forward.

“Hari! Tinbit! Don’t move,” Ida yelled. “Hector isn’t responsible for Alistair’s absence. I am.”

“What?” the dragons hissed, and both of them flattened their ears and snarled.

“What?” Hector rose, straightening his robe.

“I changed Alistair into a man,” Ida said. “He’s in an enchanted sleep in a cave where only his true love can go. When Amber kisses him, he’ll be transformed into a handsome prince and they can live happily ever after.”

Morga stomped on Hector’s feet in her haste to bite Ida. “You turned my son into a man?”

“Don’t be absurd,” Ida squeaked, nose inches away from bared teeth.

“Once Amber presents him to the kingdom as the prince she saved from his dragonhood, they can get married in a double wedding with the prince and the captain of the guard, the Happily-Ever-After will be fulfilled, and then she can go back to the mountains. He’ll revert to his natural state after that—I don’t do long-term transformations! ”

Morga stared at Hector, then at Amber. “Is Amber a temporary transformation as well?”

“Transformation? What are you talking about?” Amber thumped both her front paws on the floor.

“My dear, you are a dragon,” Morga said. “Or at least that’s how you woke up this morning.”

The great, brown eyes opened wide in surprise. “What?”

Ida raised her eyebrows. “It might be more appropriate to ask why. Hector?”

“I should think it’s obvious,” he snapped back.

“I cursed her into a dragon so she can marry Alistair properly! Then the dragons will accept her. We’ll tell the Council that it was all part of your love magic to show that the prince’s true love was the captain of the guard.

There are precedents—the woman unworthy of the title princess should become a monster.

No one needs to know it wasn’t a punishment but a gift!

There will be no need for the prince to save face and no need for the princess to ever go home.

We can go back, our jobs are saved, the prince gets his man, the Flamelord has a mate, and you and I will have fixed Happily-Ever-After together. ”

“Fixed it together ? I’m never speaking to you again, Hector West! What were you thinking? I had a perfectly good plan—”

“Well, you didn’t enlighten me!”

Great tears like blood rubies filled Amber’s eyes. “I…I can never go home?”

Ida rounded on Hector in a fury. “You and your necomancy. Did you even consider if Amber wanted this?”

“But I do want to be a dragon,” Amber sobbed. “It’s just…I want Alistair.”

“You—you do?” Ida gasped. “You actually want to be a dragon?”

“If it makes things better for Alistair and me, why wouldn’t I? I love him.” She turned her fierce firelight on her mother-in-law. “Will you accept me now or do we need to fight?”

Morga took a step back. “Let’s not rush things. First, I want to know how to fix my son.”

Ida glared at Hector. “Alistair is in an enchanted sleep in a cave. A kiss will wake him, a kiss from a princess. I’m afraid I didn’t account for the princess being turned into a dragon!”

“But if I kiss him, what will happen?” Amber asked. “Will he be a dragon or a man?”

Ida rolled her eyes. “A man. That’s what kisses are supposed to do. They change monsters into men.”

“Alistair was never a monster,” Amber said. “It’s you and the other witches who make people into monsters or men.” She turned and stalked back to her room.

“Hector?” Morga’s anxious voice echoed. “What if—”

“Don’t worry. I will do what I can,” Hector promised, patting her claw. “Ida, can we talk in your room about this?”

She was only too glad to flee.

***

Hector slammed the door behind them angrily. “Why?” he yelled. “Why did you do it? I had this fixed and you went and complicated it!”

“Fixed? You turned an innocent girl into a dragon—”

“You heard her! She’s happy she’s a dragon.”

“Balderdash. Of course, she’s happy now.

But at some point she’ll want to tell her family, to visit them, and how do you think she’s supposed to do that?

I had it fixed. She saves Alistair, he turns into a man, they go home together and she can tell them she’s safe and happy.

Then they can return to the mountains where they can both live Happily-Ever-After, no questions asked.

But that’s all pie in the sky now—why on earth did you turn her into a dragon?

Now how will she break the news to her family?

‘Sorry, father, I ran afoul of a wicked witch who turned me into a dragon, but I couldn’t be happier?

Oh, please don’t mount a mob to come and rescue me, I’m perfectly fine! ’”

His face tightened. “Well, I don’t fault your logic, but you could’ve consulted with me!”

“As could you!”

Hector sat on the edge of the bed with a loud sigh. “Well, it’s done. Now we need to undo it.”

“There’s nothing to undo! When Amber kisses Alistair, he’ll turn into a handsome prince.

There’s no getting around that. I suppose I’ll just have to be content with her turning into her human form for the trip, although Gods only know what her family will think of her if she’s now twelve feet tall like Morga. ” She snorted.

“You assumed she could take human form?” Hector looked skyward, as if searching for his patience.

“Do you know how long it takes a young dragon to learn how to shapeshift? Years! Years to learn, years to practice! I don’t even want to think about how hard it would be for her to try to compress herself as an adult. Of course, she’ll learn in time, but…”

“Years?” An icy chill of doom infiltrated her bones.

“Yes, years. What did you expect?” Hector flopped backward on the bed, clutching his head between his hands.

“So now the future Flamelord is in enchanted hibernation in a cave somewhere, the current Flamelord is injured, the dragons are probably meeting in secret, and it’s only a matter of time before the whole Witches Council calls for us to report on how we botched everything. This is just ducked .”

Her heart pounded fearfully. Ducked indeed. “Well, excuse me for trying to save your ass! I was going to give you credit for transforming a fine young man into a dragon and letting Amber be the princess who saved him.”

“I was going to let you take credit for saving the prince of the kingdom from a marriage to someone who wasn’t his true love!” He huffed.

“Doesn’t matter now.” Ida flopped down beside him.

Hector was quiet for some time. He nudged her shoulder. “You actually wanted me to look like the big, bad witch?”

“Well, of course. It’s good versus evil. If evil has to lose, it should look damned fine doing it.”

“Thank you.”

“And you wanted me to look like the wise old woman who knows love in all its forms?”

“Well, it’s true,” Hector said.

Ida smirked. “The old part is.”

“Wise woman! Not old—good Gods.” Hector snorted. “Why do you always do that to me?”

She cuddled into him. “Maybe I need you to make me laugh to keep me from being so scared.”

He put an arm around her. “You realize that if this works out—and Gods only know if it will—we can’t be together? We’ll still be Cardinal Witches, and no one can know what happened between us.”

She rested her cheek against his shoulder.

“Hector, if this works out, we’ll both come to accept it.

The time when we could’ve been something passed a long time ago.

But Hari and Tinbit, and Amber and Alistair, they have their whole lives to love and be loved.

They deserve a chance. That’s all I want right now. ”

“You’re right, of course,” Hector said. “Show me where you put the prince and I’ll see what I can do to make that a reality.”

She shook her head, feeling sick. “I can’t show you. I can’t even tell you. The moment the magic took him I couldn’t find him again if I tried. Only one person can find Alistair: the princess.”