Page 48 of Eliza's Cursed Dragon

“Eliza.” I pressed her against me, felt the strong beating of her heart, and was the happiest I had ever been.

“Will someone please explain to me what—” It wasn’t my father’s voice that ripped me out of my moment of happiness, but the way it broke off midsentence. I looked up, only to gape at Eliza’s swans.

One by one, they pushed off the mantles she had thrown over them, and my eyes fell on emerging young, strapping men. All of them with the same black-and-white hair as my Eliza’s.

With a scream, Eliza tore from my arms and ran to the men. “Caspian! William! Richard!” That was all I caught, the others broke off in sobs as the twelve of them enveloped and hugged each other.

“Here, you should probably… cover up.” Henry stepped up next to me, giving me his jacket to put around my waist. The young men, also naked, grabbed table clothes to cover themselves before they hugged my bride.

What in the hell had happened here?

“What in the hell is going on?” my father voiced my thoughts.

From the corner of my eye I noticed Lucy, who didn’t look like Lucy anymore, trying to sneak off.

“Hold on!” I called. “You have some explaining to do.”

“Stop!” the green witch ordered and Lucy stopped dead in her tracks.

Eliza and the men broke apart and I realized that not all of them were men, some were teenagers, some boys.

“Constancia!” one of the older men, I thought he might be my age, yelled.

“Constancia,” Eliza added with an expression of hate on her face I had never seen on her before.

“Eliza?” My voice was barely a whisper, but she heard me and rushed to my side.

“Edward, my Edward.” She clung to me and that was all that mattered.

Eliza

It took a few hours to sort everything out. Most of the guests, tactfully and thankfully, left. Only the green witch, Constancia, Gerald, and Edward’s friends remained.

“I’m so sorry, Edward,” I said, snuggling into his side.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for,” he said, kissing my temple.

“I really am Princess Eliza,” I explained. “After my mom died, our father got remarried to her.” I pointed hatefully at the still-frozen Constancia who had been Lucy not too long ago, and I realized she must have taken her form and snuck into our house to keep an eye on me and to get me to break my vow of silence.

“She cursed my brothers.” I waved my hand over them as they stood next to each other, wearing only, like Edward, a jacket or a tablecloth around their waists to cover their nakedness.

“But she”—I indicated to the green witch—“told me how to break the spell after I saved her cat from drowning.”

“She is the same witch that cursed me after I saved her cat from drowning,” Edward said balefully.

“I told you the curse would lead you to your true love. Where is your gratefulness?” the witch retorted.

Edward lowered his head. She was right.

“You’re right, I was wallowing so much in the misery of the curse, that I forgot about that detail. Had I not been a dragon, I might not have ever found out where Eliza lived, wouldn’t have seen her picking nettles with her swans, and wouldn’t have been able to save her from the ghouls. I might not have been able to save her from the ghouls had I been a mere man,” Edward said, and added, “Thank you.”

The witch smiled. “So, there, that wasn’t too hard now, was it?”

He grinned back at her.

I looked deep into Edward’s eyes, trying to convey my sorrow for not having been able to communicate with him since we met. “She told me I needed to knit eleven mantles made from stinging nettles. Alone. Without any help, collected from graveyards.” Understanding blossomed in Edward’s expression. “I also had to take a vow of silence, not to communicate anything about me, my brothers, or the curse for six years.”

“So then you are from Fable Forest?” he asked.

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