Page 89 of Wickedly Ever After
“It’s quiet,” Ida gasped from behind him. “Are they home?”
Hector drew in a deep breath. He cupped his hands around his mouth and roared a greeting. “Flamelord! It’s Hector West! May I come in?”
For a moment, there was no reply. Then a figure came to the door.
It wasn’t Adair.
It wasn’t Morga.
It wasn’t Alistair.
It was the princess.
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Ida
This just in! Prince Archie marries Captain of the Guard in secret wedding! Wild honeymoon in the Mermen’s Resort reported by eyewitnesses. Orgies! Sex parties! Pictures on page seven!
—The Sorcerer’s Star
Gone was the chain mail overcoat. In its place, Amber wore a gray robe, far too long for her. She’d tacked the bottom up so she could walk, and she was barefoot.
“Amber!” Ida cried out. “My poor girl. Are you all right?”
Amber looked surprised. “How did you find me?”
“Well, the dragon who carried you off—”
“Alistair,” Amber said.
“Excuse me?”
“His name is Alistair.” Amber stepped out of the doorway.
A huge, dark-scaled dragon slithered through the door, shapeshifting into a dark-haired woman as she came out. “Oh, thank Gods, you’re here, Hector!” As she reached them, she donned a long silver robe and tightened it around her waist with a golden girdle. She glared down at Amber from her impressiveheight of twelve feet. Hector hadn’t exaggerated. Female dragons were impressive . “Go inside, child. This doesn’t concern you.”
Amber folded her arms. “The hell it doesn’t.”
Morga flicked an angry forked tongue at the princess. “Perhaps I’d better start at the beginning.”
“Alistair and I are married,” Amber said. “And there’s nothing either of you are going to do about it.” She turned on her heel and walked back into the cave.
Oh my Gods.Ida had about a thousand things she wanted to say, but half of them were curses. Married? Of all the things she’d envisioned finding here, she hadn’t expected that. Could the love magic have really hit them that hard?
From the expression on Hector’s face, he hadn’t expected it either. He turned to the tall woman with the bloodshot eyes and long black hair. “What happened, Morga? Tell me everything.”
“Oh, Hector, Hector, you have to do something. Alistair is bewitched. He spends every waking moment with this girl. He refuses to be separated from her. What are we going to do?” Morga blew her nose into her hands, and flames shot through her fingers.
Hector laid a hand on Morga’s arm. He looked like a ten-year-old boy guiding a giantess to a stone table in the dragon’s cave. “We’ll sort this out, I promise.”
The dragon sobbed. “He’s not her mate. I refuse—I refuse to accept her as my daughter!”
“Yes, yes.” Hector placed her in a chair. “Morga? Where’s Adair?”
Morga wiped her streaming eyes. “In his bedchamber. He tried to talk sense into Alistair, and they fought. I had to get between them before they killed each other. That hatefulgirl—she tried to hold Alistair back. Hector! What am I going to do? I had such dreams for my sweet boy. I wanted him to marry a nice dragon from the Snowy Peaks, have grand-eggs…”
Hector folded his hands on the table in front of him. “I know this is hard for you, but can you tell us what happened? Anything could be important.”
