The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(27)

I shook my head, feeling the malaise begin to wind through me again. Tipping my hand over, I held very still as a flake of snow drifted upon it, and was pleasantly surprised to note it did not melt.

It was a beautiful, jeweled thing, with seven spikes and a glassy flower at its center. Starlike shapes surrounded it, framed in frost. I smiled. I’d always loved winter. Or at least the idea of it. Having grown up in Oahu, I’d never seen it for myself. But a memory tried to worm through my mind.

Something tugged at my consciousness.

Amorphous visions of moving shapes rolled through my mind. Black skies and gray clouds, snow falling like powdered sugar all around. Something warm burned through my belly, curling and winding snakelike in on itself.

That heat began to undulate up my arms, settling into my fingers. I didn’t know what I was doing.

I couldn’t understand it, but suddenly I blew on that tiny flake of snow, and that heat, it rolled past my lips and caressed that snowflake. Next thing I knew, one flake turned into a mound of it, and piercing through the layer swayed a delicate, ice-kissed red rose.

Hades grunted with what seemed like shock, and I went absolutely still.

“You have magic?” His astonishment was evident as he reached for the flower, plucking it out of my hand.

I shook my head. “No. I’m human. I’m nothing.”

That flower looked far more delicate gripped between his long, strong fingers. A muscle in his jaw clenched as he studied me closely.

“No, little spirit. Human or no, you’re certainly not nothing. Who were you?”

Rubbing my stomach, which now hurt, I blinked several times. I never would have believed that simply touching my fingers to the waters could have dulled my mind, could have erased the memories, but I’d known nothing of the underworld. I was suddenly very grateful I’d not actually drunk from it if just touching the water could make me feel this slow and stupid.

Trying to remember what it was that’d brought me here... It hurt. Like, physically hurt. Brought the sharp bursts of that fire back, making me shudder, tremble, as sweat worked along my brows and down my back.

“Ssh.” He patted my shoulder gently. “Relax, little one. I would never harm you.”

“Hades was a devil,” I said without thinking.

And for the first time, a whisper of a smile ghosted past his lips, and for just a moment sunlight sparkled upon the cascade of winter, causing it to glimmer like glitter.

I sucked in a sharp breath as another memory tried to push through. A shadow of darkness sitting upon a throne... Rain and lightning, and a field of madness, and love...

Tears gathered forcefully, burning the back of my throat, and a pain so wide and deep and unyielding consumed me so that I felt I might actually die from it. It left me breathless, left me choking and gasping and desperate, and without thinking, I dipped a finger into the water. Instantly the pain quieted, causing the suffocating desires to float away like red balloons drifting slowly skyward.

Hades grabbed my hand. “Stop, Alice. You must stop. Play no more in these waters. There is something in you, something that might be... might be valuable to me too. I didn’t believe Aphrodite when she came to me, but I do now.”

The entreaty in his voice captured my attention, and I closed my eyes, feeling calm again. Serene, the pain of memories all but gone.

“Alice, if I ask you to trust me, can you?”

I did not know him at all, but he seemed a nice enough man. Besides, it wasn’t like I could die again. Laughter bubbled up my throat.

“Come with me, little spirit,” he said as he stood and held out his hand to me.

I took Hades’s hand, thinking to myself that he was far nicer than the devil should be.

I didn’t care where he led me; it was so nice not to hurt anymore. And maybe, if I was lucky, in time I’d simply fade away and cease to be, and all these weird and painful memories would vanish right along with me.





Chapter 10


Hatter


Days turned to weeks and then weeks to a month.

I felt my mind devolving. Felt a terrible madness creeping into me. Desperation. Impotence. Rage. All of it mingling into one horrible and sickening reality.

I’d lost my Alice forever.

The Alice of my former life.

The Alice who’d once meant everything to me. Whom I’d once meant everything to.

Galeta, who’d been unable to remain continuously after the first week, came as often as she could. But it was Danika who kept by my side, daily sharing memories with me.

Both of us suffering in our own way.

It wasn’t just my life Danika revealed to me during our nightly streaming of the alternate Kingdom memories, I saw all our lives. Those of us she’d called her Bad Five. I also saw her life. Her and Jericho’s, the man in the moon who seemed to remember her no more.

I gave all the memories my attention, but none nearly so much as my own. I drank in the sight of Alice whenever she appeared to me. Falling harder, and deeper, and more madly in love than I’d ever been before.

It wasn’t possible that any man, woman, or creature could love anyone as I did her. And it wasn’t simply for her beauty alone.

It was for the soul that lived inside her. I rubbed at my chest as I watched us make love on a bed of spongy brain coral, glued to the vision bubbles as she laughed and teased me. As she’d tackle me to the ground and remind me over and over that I was her man, her lover, her world.