The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(30)

Her body was still as shapely as it’d been in the visions, but there was a weariness etched on her features that felt fixed and permanent, as though she’d rarely known a moment’s happiness in life. Her hair was limp, and she wore none of the fancy dresses, jewels, or makeup I’d once known her in. Instead, she wore a hospital gown. Her legs and feet were bare, but she did not seem bothered by the cold surrounding her. Her toenails were painted a vivid red, and a ghost of a grin tipped the corners of my lips. She’d always loved the color red.

And with each beat of my heart, the only words I could hear were: My goddess. My lover. My heart.

There’d never been anything more beautiful than Alice. Yes, she looked similar in form to the other Alice, but there was an innate beauty to her that Other Alice could never hope to mimic.

This was the Alice of legend. This was my Alice. And I would know her anywhere, no matter if a curse drove us apart over and over and over again. That surety deep in my soul spread like heat all through me.

“My Alice.” The whisper tore through my heart and spilled off my tongue, ringing with such purity and truth that for just a moment, even the gloom of her afterlife lifted and a bright beam of light bathed her in its golden finery.

I flicked a glance down once again to her bare toes, and my lips twitched at the sudden memory of our first meeting.

Liquid brown eyes the color of rich earth stared back at me curiously, and though something inside me froze at the emptiness of her gaze, the wait to get to see her, the need of our meeting, it all overwhelmed me and I threw caution to the wind.

“You,” I all but croaked, overcome by my emotions and the unbearable strain of feeling a lifetime’s worth of agony suddenly wash away at my first glimpse of her. I took a step toward her and tried not to panic when she rocked back on her heels and held up her hands warily.

I shook my head, blinking, mind at war with my own heart. I wanted to rush to her. Wanted to declare my undying and faithful devotion to her. Wanted to beg her forgiveness and plead with her to let us start anew.

I loved her more now than I’d ever known could be possible before. My heart beat again, and I felt the stir of our magic move like feelers through the air, saw the world around us practically inhale with the promise of it, impatient just as I was for my first taste of her.

To hold her again. To know her again. To have her look upon me as she once had. It was a desperate madness beating within me.

“Who are you?” she asked, and though her voice rang out like a choir of angels, I felt as though someone had just taken a millstone and tied it around my neck. Subconsciously, my fingers grazed my chest above the spot of my beating heart.

Brows gathering deeply, I shook my head. “Is it really you? After all this time, can it be that I stand before an angel?”

Panic flitted briefly in her gaze, and the world around us that’d been a painting of gentle snowfall was now a swirling chaos of ice and thick bands of frost. Alice was doing this. This was my magic, and it lived and breathed like a roaring dragon inside her heart.

And though my soul trembled with the pain of what she’d gone through, I’d never been more proud of her. Wherever she went, she took the madness of Wonderland with her, and consequently me as well. I just had to make her remember that. Remember us.

Taking a measured step forward, I felt a moment’s triumph when she didn’t back up. Mere feet separated us, and there was nowhere she could run. I had the forest behind me; she had nothing but an impossibly long cliff face behind her. I was pretty certain she couldn’t die again, but I doubted she’d want to risk injury either.

She cocked her head, studying me like a frightened but intelligent bird. Her eyes were raking, exacting, distant, cold.

She had to remember me.

Hades’s word was law here. Unless she remembered me, Alice could never leave. If I didn’t mean to her what I thought I did, then all was lost. My heart literally skipped a painful beat, and a bleakness began to stain my soul.

“I do not know you,” she finally said.

And her words tore at me, left me reeling, left me gasping for breath and hearing a buzzing in my ears. I shook my head. “No,” I said before I thought better of it. “No.” My voice shook hard. “No. You do know me. I’m—”

“Nothing,” she finished. “You’re nothing to me.”

As though someone had just shoved their fist through my chest, my mouth flopped open like that of a dying fish gasping its last on land. This didn’t make sense. We were destined. Soul mates. Her soul beat in me—that’s why I’d been so easily able to remember. Surely she could feel me inside her.

There was a sharpness, a hardness, to her features. Anger. Confusion. Vexation. But her palm was pressed to her chest, and her luminous eyes watered now, and I knew, knew she felt me in her.

“You do know me!” I growled, then rushed to her, reaching out for her arms, desperate to latch on and never let go. I would kiss her. The kiss of truest love, then she would know, then she would remember.

And just before I took her in my arms, her eyes widened and terror bled through her whites, and like a wraith she danced just out of my hold. Running, running, running furiously toward the cliff’s edge.

I watched in horror, too stunned to speak a word, silently screaming in my head for her to slow down. But she didn’t.

She raced up to the very edge. My heart thundered in my chest, threatening to tear loose. She would stop. She must stop. She had to stop.