Page 38 of Eliza's Cursed Dragon

I meant it too. In moments like this, we were a team, a couple, lovers, unbreakable. Forgotten were the mysteries and secrets, the stubbornness and nettles and night outings to graveyards. When it was just her and me like this I was the happiest I had ever been. Especially now when her large baby bump pressed into me, reminding me of the treasure she carried for the both of us.

We returned home and found Lucy on the floor, picking up nettles that had fallen on the ground.

“I’m so sorry,” she mumbled.

My princess let out a cry of dismay and nearly violently pushed Lucy aside, picking up nettles with tears in her eyes.

“What, ouch!” Lucy fell to the side, landing on more nettles.

“Lucy!” I helped her up. “Come, I have some ointment in the study.” I gently pulled her along while staring at my princess, who didn’t even once glance at us. She only, nearly frantically, picked up nettles. Burning her fingers, as if she was possessed.

“I’m okay, but Mrs. Seymore”—we had thought it easier to have Lucy address her like this, since she stubbornly refused to take on a fake name—“her fingers, that can’t be good for the babies.” Lucy pointed out to me.

She was right. I took my love’s elbow to pull her up, just when eleven angry swans descended on me, pecking, trumpeting, and hissing in anger.

The chaos was complete.

It took a few minutes to get things under control and both women into the study, where I kept a large supply of calamine lotion handy.

“I’m sorry, I thought it was trash when I found it in the hallway,” Lucy explained dabbing calamine lotion onto her hand and arm.

It didn’t escape me how my princess lifted her head and narrowed her eyes at Lucy and I didn’t blame her. There was no way one of her nettle bags had stood in the hallway. She guarded them closer than—forgive the pun—a dragon guarded his horde.

Unless one of the swans had brought the bag out, but I scolded myself at that thought—I was giving the feathered animals way too much credit, because it would have meant planning and forethought. It would mean they didn’t like Lucy—which I suspected—and would mean they would have come up with a plan to get rid of her—which was highly unlikely. The plan would have been to place the bag in the hallway, where Lucy would find it just like she did, and haul it out, making it appear as if she had been snooping in the swan’s room—which she might have had.

Why though, I asked myself, would she bring a bag of nettles out of the room she snooped in?

“I thought it was trash and wanted to take it out, when one of the swans tripped me,” Lucy interrupted my train of thought and unwittingly added to my suspicions.

The swans had followed us. The one with a barely visible scar on his side from a fight with ghouls, glared at me.

Who the fuck are you? I glared right back. Feeling, for the first time, uneasy around him and the others.

Eliza

The twins, Garret and Jasper, were born via scheduled C-section that went as smoothly as we could have hoped for. Dr. Weiler kept me in the hospital for a week, before Edward could take the babies and me home.

Much sooner than Edward was happy with, we returned to our normal routine of him taking me to graveyards at night, while Lucy looked after Garret and Jasper. I worked extra hard to make up for lost time and finished two more mantles, driven by the time that suddenly seemed to run through my fingers.

I put the finished mantle that included nettles Lucy had touched aside, worried that it might negate the effectiveness of being the antidote to the curse. I kept it just in case though, because suddenly the six years were almost up.

We were nearing the end of the sixth year and I still had one mantle to go, when Edward put aside what he was doing and walked over to where I sat, sewing with the babies asleep in their swings.

It was Lucy’s day off and a rare moment for us to be alone.

“The two years are almost up,” Edward said, hunching down next to me, resting his hands on my thighs and sending shivers of pleasure and desire through me.

I sent a warm smile his way and nodded happily. Yes, the two years were almost up. He didn’t know that it was six for me.

“Does that promise still stand that you will tell me your name in a few months?”

Yes, my eyes promised.

He grinned. “Good, how about we plan a wedding for it? I can get someone to officiate and have your name added to the certificate as soon as you can give it to me.”

My heart skipped a beat, that sounded… wonderful, magical even. I nodded vigorously.

“Good, it’s settled then.”

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