Page 61 of Wickedly Ever After (A Fairy Tale Romp, #1)

Hector

While I’ve always thought necomancy a beautiful thing, I concede there’s nothing pretty about death.

A Thousand Years of Wickedness: A Memoir

Hector West

Hector wanted to ride back with Ida on Adair, but Ida insisted she could manage.

The Flamelord flew ahead of them all, carrying her on his back.

Alistair rode astride his mate. Periodically, he leaned forward to stroke her neck with the kind of ease that made Hector cringe.

If the prince fell, Amber would try to catch him, and he wasn’t exactly confident in her midair rescue abilities, especially after seeing the damage Adair’s talons had done to Ida’s shoulder.

Morga flew slowly, staying close to both her son and her daughter-in-law, burbling happily about the coming eggs.

Hector wouldn’t put it past her to completely redecorate Alistair’s room and order a new lair built for the expectant mother, the kind of comforting den any dragon would want when brooding and raising her hatchlings.

He could practically see the ideas churning in Morga’s head.

But he wished she’d fly faster. Adair was already out of sight, and he wanted to get back as quickly as possible.

By the time Morga and Amber landed, Adair was already in the lair, back in human form.

Hector marched in. He didn’t need to ask where Tinbit was. He could follow the crying.

Ida, face pale and angry, sat on the couch in the hospitality room, holding a sobbing Hari. On the other end of the couch, watched by the salamander, lay the inert form of Tinbit.

“How could you?” Ida gasped, glaring at Hector. “How could you?”

“This isn’t what it looks like.” Hector knelt next to Tinbit and touched the icy flesh, winced at the terrified, staring eyes, the grimace of pain—there was nothing pretty about killing someone, even someone who had died long ago.

He gathered the gnome in his arms. “Tinbit died over five hundred years ago.”

Hari blanched. “He…he’s a…”

“A construct, yes. I brought him back. I’m sorry. I should’ve told you both.”

“But—but what happened?” Hari stared helplessly at Tinbit sagging in Hector’s arms.

“I had to take his life for the magic I needed. I’ll put him in my room for now. Once I get him home, I’ll make the magic I need to make him live again. He’ll be fine.”

“But what about me? What about us? Will he even remember me?”

“Of course, he will,” Hector said, surprised. “I…I just wasn’t expecting—”

“You didn’t think I could love a dead man?” Hari asked, face flushed and furious.

“Something like that,” Hector said.

“Who are you to tell me who I can or can’t love? Put him back down. I’m not letting him out of my sight again. I’ll take care of him.” He folded his small hand over Tinbit’s. “I’m going to take care of him forever.”

“You’re sure?” Ida touched Hari’s shoulder.

“Not you too! Of course, I’m sure. I’d love him until the day I died, and I’m still alive. When Hector brings him back, I’m not breaking that promise. I’ll stay with him if he’ll let me.”

Ida hugged Hari. “I’m so happy for you, sweetheart!”

Hari burst into tears.

Baffled, Hector gently set Tinbit on the couch again. Cear gazed at him with something approaching pity in their blue eyes. He wished they wouldn’t look at him that way. But when he glanced at Ida, there was no pity in her face as she rocked the sobbing Hari. Only understanding.

***

Hector would’ve preferred a few more days in the mountains in which to contemplate his future.

He didn’t look forward to going home, where he’d have about a hundred messages waiting on the crystal ball, all requiring his immediate attention.

But he had a dead gnome to raise, and Ida needed far more healing than they could get from Tinbit’s salves.

Adair flew off to get a giant early the next morning. And although Hector insisted he didn’t need to, he took Hector on his back while the giant carried Ida, Hari, Cear, and Tinbit’s corpse in his basket.

“Once they learn you enchanted the princess so she could stay with my son, what will happen?” Adair asked, flapping quietly. “What will they do to you?”

“I don’t know,” Hector lied. Take his assets certainly, considering what he was planning to do.

He still owned his mentor’s old gingerbread house deep in the woods, and anyway the retirement homes in the city would never suit him.

They certainly wouldn’t allow him to bring his skeletons, whatever plants still lived, his hellhound, and his immense library.

And what about Tinbit? He would argue, but in the end, he would probably go with Hari.

Ida would certainly take care of them both.

Hector would have to make this raising permanent so he didn’t have to maintain it anymore, and what would that cost him? He no longer had a heart to sacrifice.

“You’d always be welcome to stay with us,” Adair said.

“It’s a great honor, but I can’t,” he said. He’d worked most of his life to make sure the dragons were safe. There was no guarantee he’d be able to do that now. “Besides, you’ll have enough to do without entertaining guests,” he said, with a forced laugh.

“You’re not a guest, Hector—you’re family,” Adair said.

“In two or three weeks, Amber will be laying her eggs. I owe you. Not only did you give Alistair his mate, you gave the dragons their next Flamelord. I’m already planning a feast in his honor once he’s back to his dragon self.

I’m going to eat an entire rock buffalo.

I have to grow fat and comfortable to be a good grand-dragon. I’d like you to be there for that.”

“I’ll try.” He could promise nothing. The outcome was so far from certain. But at least the journey home should be completely uneventful. And it was, until they reached Sebastian’s hostel.

“What happened?” Hector asked, climbing from Adair’s back as he landed at the base of the hill. There was no hostel. All that remained were a few stone walls. A column of dense black smoke rose from the ruin.

“Why are we stopping?” Ida sounded tired.

“The inn.” Hector gaped. “Where’s the inn?”

Sebastian’s head popped out of the middle of the air, livid. “Those stupid knights burned it, that’s what happened to my inn! Where’s that awful witch? I want to give her a piece of my mind!” He pulled his gray brain out of his skull and shook it in Hector’s face.

Ida stood in the basket, face pale, shoulder stained with blood through the bandage. “I’m here, you dreadful old ghoul.”

“You! You…you horrible hag! You malicious monster! How dare you!” Sebastian pointed his middle finger at Ida. “She sold me good magic! She’s responsible for this mess!”

Hector raised an eyebrow. “What would you want with good magic, Sebastian?”

“To sell it, what else?” Sebastian threw his hand up in the air and caught it.

“But they wrecked my inn and it’s all her fault!

What are you going to do about it—eww.” He’d caught sight of Tinbit.

“You aren’t leaving that with me? I don’t even have a freezer to put a fresh corpse in, let alone an aged cheese like that. ”

Hector raised his hand. “Tell me what happened.”

“I asked for pleasure spells—something to sell to randy knights out on quests. I didn’t expect to have customers so early, but there were four of them, all out questing for the Holey Pail—the chumps—so I offered them a good time.

No sooner did those fellows buy them than they wrecked my inn!

They freed my ghosts, unleashed the demons—one of them got eaten and the demon died, poor thing—and then the remaining three ran off with my best banshees to ‘escort them home.’ I hope they get their livers ripped out. ”

“ True pleasure comes from doing a good deed,” Ida said. “You might try it sometime.”

“No thanks, it might kill me.” Sebastian snorted. “Again.”

“What, precisely, do you want me to do about it?” Hector asked.

“Turn her into a frog. An ugly one. This is the second time someone has burned down my house.”

Hector shook his head. “I’m not going to turn Ida into a frog. For one thing, she’s a good witch, and it’s her business to provide good magic. For the second thing, black market magic is illegal and I think you got what you deserved.”

“I’ve got a living to get.”

“As you so eloquently said, you’re already dead.”

“But…but it’s my home,” Sebastian whined, shedding maggots. “Where will I go? What will I do?”

Hector sighed. The ghoul wasn’t the only one contemplating that decision. “Come along to the castle. I’ll see what I can do.”

“And ride with that?” Sebastian said, wrinkling his nose at Tinbit. “Really, Hector.”

“You’d prefer to ride me?” Adair bared his fangs.

Sebastian dropped his jaw and picked it up from the ground quickly.

“On the other hand, what’s a dead body? I love dead bodies.

They’re so sweet and cute when they’re rotting.

” Sebastian flung his head into the basket before he crawled in and parked his lower half in the back, folding his legs before setting his head in his lap.

Hector climbed in after him.

Immediately, Sebastian handed him his head. “Now, let’s talk about what I’d like in my next establishment. I want three stories, not two, and I want a haunted ballroom, upscale, with some of those sparkly vampires, no more wretched bats. You can import sparkly vampires, right?”

***

When the topmost towers of his castle glittered in the afternoon sunlight, Hector was all too glad to see it.

“Let me down here,” he told the giant. “I’ll walk the final mile.”

“Wait!” Sebastian howled. “Don’t you want to hear my plans for the quicksand spa?”

“No.” He got out. “Take them to the courtyard,” he told the giant. “I’ll be along as soon as I can.”

There was something he needed to do first. Someone he needed to kill.