Page 96 of Wickedly Ever After
“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’veruined, 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.
44
Ida
Contrary to popular opinion, people in love, even magical love, don’t always agree on everything. They stand together despite their differences.
Magic and Mischief—A Thousand Years of Happily Ever After: A Memoir
Ida North
“I’m sorry for leaving like that,” Ida said, facing Hari’s angry, raised shoulders. “Hector and I thought it would be best if we confronted the dragon and the princess ourselves and not put you and Tinbit in danger—”
“Danger? Danger?” Hari pulled down the bedspread and plumped Ida’s pillow. “We nearly got eaten by a manticore! Tinbit and I barely got away. I’ve no idea if the pony escaped.”
The bad luck kept coming like a landslide. Her crystal, her clothes, her books, not to mention all the roots and herbs Hector had insisted on bringing—just in case—were somewhere walking around the mountains or giving a manticore wicked indigestion.
“I really am sorry. I’m glad you saved the salamander.”
“More like they savedus,” Hari said. “But if they flame both your britches for running off and leaving them, I’m going to be there handing them matches.” He stripped his dirty shirt and wiped a dark smear of smoke from his cheek. “I need a bath. Don’t suppose they have anything here that would fit a gnome?” He glanced at the long red robe Ida wore.
“I don’t think so,” she said, hitching Morga’s belt tighter around her waist.
