The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(32)

Because now there was no sultry smile of greeting upon her lips. No hopeful twinkle in her hypnotic eyes as she gazed upon me. The only things that greeted me now were wariness and even a touch of fear.

Her lips weren’t curved up but tipped downward, and there was a tight crease between her brows. And it hit me then, as it hadn’t before, that we were standing now in the underworld and my Alice was dead.

She was before me. But she was dead.

I swallowed hard, agony making it difficult to breathe. I should have found her sooner. Should have saved her. Should have heard her call. In the other life, she’d called to me at her time of death, and I’d been able to dispatch Danika to her in time. To rescue her. To save her from death’s kiss.

But this time I’d heard nothing.

I’d felt nothing.

I’d let her down.

Feeling suddenly woozy and sick, I listed forward, clutching the snow-covered grass like a lifeline as I tried to breathe through the cloying dizziness of just how badly I’d let her down.

Let us down.

“Sir,” she said, and my soul cleaved in two.

I was sir now. Not her hatter. Not her lover.

I laughed.

The sound was so full of pain that I was shamed by it, but I could not stop it. I was lost to the icy grip of madness, sinking farther and farther into despair. I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t get her back. Not in three days. Maybe not ever.

She gripped my shoulder tightly.

“My God, sir, what’s wrong? Don’t you realize you’re a ghost now? You’re not supposed to get sick. What’s the matter, what’s—”

Feeling wretched but not wanting to torture her with it, I tried as best I could to shake off the stupor of desolation and forced myself to meet her bright and worried gaze.

And it was terrible of me, but I couldn’t help but lean into her touch, even knowing it wasn’t love that caused her to hold me but rather very real fear for my sanity. Alice had found me once before on the verge of near total collapse, and I was ashamed to admit I felt myself very nearly there again. So I imagined that it was love that held me fast, and for just a moment I was able to gather the dregs of sanity that remained me and smile sadly back at her.

“I am fine. Really,” I said again when she didn’t look convinced the first time.

Far too soon she released me, and it was all I could do not to sink back into that despair and depression. But she was with me now, and I could be strong for her. For Alice, I could be anything she needed me to be.

So I fought my inner demons, and I smiled brightly. Well enough that the doubt finally lifted from her gaze.

Twisting her lips, she nodded slowly. “Well, okay, if you say so. Do you mind if I sit with you for a while? Just to make sure you’re really feeling better?” she rushed on to say.

Goddess, yes! I wanted to cry. Wanted to take her into my arms, hold her close, and never let go. But I’d succumbed to desire once already and almost lost her. It was difficult, but I kept my hands to my side and only dipped a short nod at her.

She sat beside me but left a good foot of space between us, and I closed my eyes. There may as well have been an ocean between us, that was how great the distance felt. Curling my fingers into the grass, I began to yank up great big clumps.

I was here.

She was here.

And nothing at all was the same.

Silence stretched long between us, and though I knew that if I didn’t do or say something soon, she’d leave, I was paralyzed by fear. This was the woman of my soul, my life, my everything. Always we’d been able to share everything with one another, but now I was a perfect stranger to my Alice.

I was nothing.

I was no one.

I was empty.

“What’s your name, male?” she asked delicately, so softly that I almost hadn’t heard it above the din of the whistling winter wind.

She’d said male. Alice had originally hailed from Earth before she’d fallen down the rabbit hole and into my heart forever. She would never have referred to anyone as a male on Earth, but it was an idiom she’d picked up after her long life among Kingdomers.

Whipping my head around, I had to shake it several times just to be able to gather my thoughts into some semblance of coherence. And for a split second, an infinite moment in time, I felt hope gather and bloom in a brilliant roar inside me. Right before the curse had flung her from my arms, she’d promised me that deep down inside she’d fight. She’d remember. I only needed to be strong and bring her back.

I knew I was clinging to threads here, but threads were all I currently had.

“Hatter,” I said quickly and without thought, then froze, realizing what I’d just done. Hades had told me of Alice’s hatred for Hatter now. How could I have been so stupi—

“Oh,” she said sweetly, “that’s a strange name. My name’s Alice.”

She held out her hand to me as though to shake it in greeting, but all I could do was stare down at her fingers in numbed horror.

She did not know me.

Alice did not know me at all. And that hope that I’d felt just seconds ago was razed to the ground in a fiery heap of rubble.

The smile of greeting soon slipped from her lips, and just as she was about to lower her hand—no doubt believing I did not wish to shake it—I scooped it up, slipping my palm against hers and trying like hell to fight the sudden trembling that coursed through every inch of me at the first true touch of her exquisite flesh to my own.