The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(34)

Wind riffled long strands of her thick, jet-black hair, causing it to twist like a serpent through the air. My palm ached. Literally hurt with the memory of how often I’d been able to touch her at will. An act I’d taken for granted once.

I swallowed hard.

And maybe it was the haunting sadness lingering in my eyes that swayed her, but finally she reached over and oh so slowly linked hands with me.

Heart thundering like galloping hooves in my chest, I fought to breathe normally. Just the touch of her flesh, the feel of velvety skin that was at once soft and hard. The only memories I had were ones I’d discovered during my time with Danika, but for just a moment I could remember this intimacy. Remember a time when it had been mine. There were moments of such clarity, where then and now collided and I truly could recall what we’d once been. The memories were always fleeting but carried a wallop with them, leaving a lasting impression on my soul that no amount of time or distance could ever erase.

We’d been the world to each other once. To know that kind of love even once was a miracle—could I really be so fortunate to know it again?

She began to tense up beside me, and I knew if I lingered too much longer on our past, I’d lose the very tenuous thread of trust building between us. Squeezing my eyes shut, I focused on the pulsing orb of power within her. Our power.

The golden warmth of it curled around me instantly, like an old friend coming home, and I couldn’t help the small sigh that slipped from me. I didn’t need much, and I wouldn’t take much. Until we were returned to Wonderland, we could not replenish our stores.

Using what was available around me, I fashioned fantastical creatures of whimsy.

First a male, built of frost and snow. He stood no higher than my thigh and was built of solid blue ice. His hair was nothing more than swirls of snow, and on his form he wore dead leaves for trousers and a vest. His top hat was made of woven twigs. Alice sucked in a sharp breath, blinking rapidly, and though she fought the smile, I saw the whisper of it trace across her brows.

Next, I built the female. But unlike the male, she was a true thing of beauty and magic. Her body was built of the greenest glowing moss, her form exceedingly lovely and feminine. Her eyes were interlinked strands of vines, and her lips glowed the coral red of miniature poppy blooms. Her long, winding hair was long, supple blades of jewel-green grass, and her curve-hugging gown was built of hundreds of miniature budding blooms of white, cream, and pink that wrapped around her figure like a princess gown, much the same way Alice’s gowns once had.

“Oh, Hatter,” my Alice whispered, and when I turned to look at her, her fingers trembled upon her soft pink lips as wetness shimmered in her eyes.

I was sure she had no idea what her two tiny words had just done to me, the way they’d made my world feel like it’d suddenly tilted upon its axis, and so I couldn’t resist giving her fingers a tiny squeeze.

She didn’t look back at me, but I knew she was aware by the way her body oh so slowly and torturously moved against mine. Alice might not remember, but someplace deep inside, there was a part of her that did. The part of her that had promised to fight for me, for us.

Taking a deep breath, I began our story.

“Once upon a time, there was a man named Hatter. Madness, insanity, and folly were his lot in life. And though he wanted to live, he felt death’s touch lingering always close by.”

The ice male looked around, my words giving him life, animation. He glanced around the wasteland of snow and ice with a look so mournful and full of loneliness that I wondered if Alice knew how very little acting was involved in this.

“Hatter was lost. Dying. And all alone. Until her. Until she who was everything came into his world and made him whole again...”





Chapter 12


Alice


I’d never been as entertained as I was today. In fact, I couldn’t remember a time since my death that I’d laughed so much, watching those beautiful nature sculptures walk through the motions of Hatter’s tale. A natural storyteller he was, and it was so easy to lose myself in the whimsy of his tale.

How the two had first met.

The female, fallen through a rabbit hole of all things, landing in a garden of singing flowers as they’d honked and jeered at her. How confused and dazed and even dazzled she’d been by the strangeness of that world, and then she’d turned her eyes upon Hatter, and there’d been a visible transformation in the female.

It was the strangest thing, but watching that female miniature react to the world and her situations as she had, I was sure I would have acted no differently. Hatter had been high-handed in his mannerisms, forcing her to walk over the rugged and stony terrain barefoot. But then there’d been a moment, at the tree with limbs that weren’t wood at all but snakes, where he’d rescued the female and I’d had to gasp.

Because that poem he’d recited about snakes of all things had brought a lump to my throat. There the Hatter had stood before a beast capable of ending him, protecting a female he’d vowed he’d wanted nothing to do with. And I could see it for the lie it was.

Whether the Hatter had realized it or not, his “mine” had gotten to him from the very beginning. Then there’d been the scene after that where he’d finally relented on the hard pace and had taken her to a fairy river to bathe her feet in the magicked waters, healing the bruises and cuts instantly.