Page 58 of Happily Ever Witch
Chapter Twelve
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The Heart Castle
Alice’s office had no books about Esmeralda’s tiara. The castle’s library was far more useful, though.
Once Trevelyan broke some locks, and ignored some direly written warnings, and dismantled a few magical safeguards, he was able to access all of the Heart Kingdom’s most interesting tomes.
Like everything else in the very pink Heart Palace, the library was very pink. It soared three stories high, with wide open balconies and tall windows. The stained glass in the towering panes depicted red-armored knights slaying dragons.
Damn bloodthirsty knights.
Trevelyan shook his head in disgust, half-reading through the dry magical ruminations of some half-assed wizard and half-fantasizing about his seductive little mate. Well, it was more like 70/30 Esmeralda fantasies. Even that was giving the dead wizard more attention than he deserved.
Trevelyan munched on one of the ginger-mutants Esmeralda had made, pleased with life. He had been pissed when he left her downstairs, however it was difficult to stay that way. The day had been an overall success. His new mate was wonderfully fearless, with an intriguingly virtuous smile, and a mouthwatering scent.
Plus, she could bake.
The ginger-mutants may have been a lackluster army, but they were amazing cookies. In retrospect, it had been a huge mistake not to eat those pancakes the witch made that morning, because they were surely exceptional, as well. As annoyed as he was with Esmeralda for her inexplicable preference for mangy wolves, he gave her full points for her culinary efforts.
And her body… Dear God, her body was the stuff of all his evil daydreams.
That was the main source of his buoyant mood. Trevelyan had thought he’d become jaded about most every sexual activity, position, and fetish under the sun. He’d been wrong. Esmeralda changedeverythingfor him, just by standing there in her pretty underwear. The sinful softness of her skin, and the hesitant sounds she made as she slowly surrendered, and those wide eyes looking up at him in surprise and wary pleasure…
Trevelyan gave a hungry growl at the memories. He hadn’t simplytoucheda woman since he was a young teenager, before he’d even fucked Mrs. Clyburn in the algebra room. (Not that he was going to think about her. Thinking about his teacher always annoyed him, for some reason.) Dragons were sexual beings.Thatwas the point. They came of age early and they didn’t wallow in the preliminaries. There was always an expectation that touching would lead to something moreinteresting. Why else would you do it? It would be a waste of time.
But, just having his hands on his Good little wicked witch had been better than sex.Somuch better. Time spent with Esmeralda wasn’t wasted, no matter what they did.
After experiencing it for himself, Trevelyan was now a convert to the awesome power of True Love. He fully believed it was worth all the hype. (At least in bed.) Having your True Love in your arms did indeed reset the bar. It made sex… better. And he hadn’t evenhadsex with Esmeralda, yet. It was going to be revelatory, when he was fully inside of her. He could already tell. The witch’s beautiful, green magic flashing out as she came around his fingers had captivated him, forever-after.
And she hada lotof magic.
No way was Esmeralda a level one witch. Not even a level two. Trevelyan wasn’t sure what the hell she was up to, with that obvious lie about the strength of her powers. Did she think he wouldn’t notice? Lying to your True Love was charmingly Bad, though. Considering her forty-nine percent Goodness, he’d take whatever hints of villainy he could get with the girl. It showed she was at leastattemptingto be devious and immoral. You couldn’t ask for more than that, really.
And whatever her magic level, Esmeralda was his mate. Just his. It was already decided and it wouldn’t change. Ever. So, the lie meant little. It didn’t matter how powerful she secretly was, because he was keeping her anyway.
…Level four magic would be nice, though. Or at least level three.
Red frosting from the ginger-mutant’s fangs dripped onto the pages of the ancient Wonderland spell book. Trevelyanignored the damage. Who else would ever read it, anyway? It wasn’t like the hogs could use the library.
Really, it was for the best that the tome was doomed to linger forever, stained and ignored, on a shelf. The wizard who’d written it was some magical hack using the preposterous pseudonym “Lyon N. Unicorn.” (God save him… Trevelyan wasalwayssurrounded by morons. Even when they were long dead, they managed to find him.) He was annoyed by the wizard’s many typos and all the useless shit the man included in his potion recipes.
Why the hell would you put porcupines into a fertility brew? You wouldn’t. Not unless you wanted slow, prickly children. He rolled his eyes and turned another page. Stupid people should never perform magic. It led to all kinds of…
And that’s when he saw the crown.
A thousand percent of Trevelyan’s attention zeroed in on the illustration, his head tilting to one side. It was Esmeralda’s tiara, linked with threeothertiaras, so they formed a continuous circle of diamonds all around the head of whoever wore it. At the center of the tiaras, each of which made one side of the full crown, there was the emblem of a playing card suit. Hearts, the one Esmeralda now wore, was in the back. Diamonds and Spades on the left and right. And right up front was Clubs.
Well, look at that.
Trevelyan’s gaze scanned the paragraph of text, under the picture.
