The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(46)

“Who is she? Who is this woman you came here for? Who is your mine?”

His brows gathered, and even in the gloom of the night, I could make out every detail of his beloved face.

My thirteen-year-old memories of his ghost had been so eerily acute that even I was shocked I could ever, even for a moment, have forgotten him. There was a small scar just above his upper lip that added to his devilish appeal. The thick dark brows. The dark, knowing eyes that glinted with stolen bits of starlight trapped within. The razor-sharp cheekbones and square jaw so chiseled and perfect it was impossible that he could be real.

“Alice, don’t you know? You’ve woken up now, haven’t you pieced the truth together yet?”

I shook my head. “You never came for me. I cried out to you in that bed, surrounded by machines and people who called me a liar. My heart cried out to you, and you never came!”

“No!” he barked. “It’s not like that.”

And it was as animated as I’d seen him get in days. His face was contorted with what looked to be raw agony, and his hands were fists at his sides, but still he sat on his ass, not coming to me.

Just as before.

My jaw trembled. And the agony I’d thought I’d buried with the forgetting now came pouring out of me in a deluge. “Why, Hatter? What was so important that you could not come to me?”

The question was stupid—anything was more important than me. He hadn’t known me. And I’d barely known him, but there’d always been a certainty deep within me that he’d been mine and I’d been his. And that should I call him, or he me, we would always somehow manage to find our way to each other.

“Was it her? Is she here? Who is she, Hatter? Who?”

“Alice Hu, it’s you,” he said simply.

And I shook my head, trying to drown out those words in denial. “No. No. Don’t say that. Because that story you painted for me, it’s not real. We never built a life of magic together as you claim. It’s all been one huge, beautiful lie.” I hiccupped.

And I watched as his face crumpled and he made to stand. His movements were plodding, agonized, and I couldn’t understand what it was I was seeing.

“What is wrong with you?” For days I’d noticed something off about him, but seeing him now, as each step he took broke him out in a wash of sweat and twisted his face into a tight grimace of obvious pain, broke me.

I ran to him, grabbing his elbow and taking his weight upon me. “What’s wrong with you?” I practically screamed as he leaned so heavily against me that the only thing I could do was gently lower us to our knees. He was such a big man and far too heavy for me to bear the brunt of his weight for much longer.

He was gasping, his face white as a sheet, and shaking his head. “I had to touch you, Alice. Just once, when you know who I really am.”

And when his hand framed my cheek, I sobbed even harder, feeling broken in two and completely shattered. His thumb was so tender as he swiped at my tears.

“Don’t cry, my dark angel. I cannot bear it,” he said, but there were tears in his own eyes.

“You’re dying, aren’t you?” I squeaked out, my words reed thin and unbearable to think.

But when he did not deny it, I knew I was right.

“You bloody bastard.” I cursed at him, banging my fist against his chest. “How dare you die! How dare you.”

And then he curved his hand behind my head and brought me into the cool shelter of his broad chest, and I trembled as I felt him place a kiss against my forehead.

“I was lost, Alice, lost and confused. So very confused. But we did live that life. And it was lovely. Everything we’d ever dreamed of.”

I wanted to embrace the lie, and so I did. I pretended with him. But in a sudden surge of strength, he gripped my forearms so hard that it made me gasp. I looked up into his eyes, which were bright with pain and alive with hope.

“Alice, it’s all true. Every part of it.”

“No.”

“Yes!” He shook me so hard that my head lolled. “And I am dying, Alice. You’re right. I came here to find you again. To try, somehow, someway, to break through the curse that drove us apart from the greatest and only love we’ve ever known.”

“No,” I said, the word only a mere whisper of sound.

But he heard, and a growl like that of a wounded animal spilled off his tongue. “Listen to me, my dark beauty. All I’m about to tell you is true. This life you knew, this life, was the lie. We were cursed. Much of Kingdom was cursed. Separated by some unseen hand. But you were once mine, all mine. And I was only ever yours. We lived a full life together, but I’m a selfish bastard and I want so much more. I want you back, Alice. I cannot exist without you. We are the story of legend, and I need you back. That is why I struck a bargain with the dark underlord himself to come find you. Alice, I am not dead. I am very much alive, but not for much longer. If you do not come with me, if you do not accept me as your own again, then I will simply cease to be. It is why I’ve so very little energy left to me. Please, Alice. Please, say you’ll come. Come home with me.”

Shocked by what he was saying, knowing that his mind was well and truly cracked—just as the stories always said they’d be—I stared at the beautiful man I’d thought I’d known, only to realize he was nothing more than a stranger to me now.