The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(50)

The snowy hills were long gone. Now the land lived, kissed by spring, and my heart ached at the thought that I might never again get to enjoy a life of endless wonder and magic with her again.

But no matter what happened to me here, I knew she would survive. Not only survive, but thrive. Alice would be okay.

Grabbing her hand, I clenched it tight, wrapped my long fingers around her delicate ones, clinging with all my might as I pressed our hands to my heart, looking so deep into her dark, exotic eyes that she had no choice but to stare back into mine. Our gazes locked, and our hearts beat as one.

How could she not remember me? After all this? After all the talks. After the magic we’d worked together? Why would those memories not surface? My soul ached, and a yawning chasm of desolation began to spread through my bones.

Because I’d forgotten her once too.

That damn magic had ripped us apart, and I’d never even batted a lash. I wet my lips, and she mimicked my movements.

Our love was trapped within her. And just as Danika had helped me to see mine, I knew with every fiber of my being that I could do the same for her. If she would only let me.

And then I knew. The taste of this magic. It wasn’t mine or Alice’s. It was another’s. And it was intensely powerful.

Danika had given the very last bit of herself to us, her final gift as my fairy godmother. My soul trembled at the thought of just how much she’d sacrificed to make this happen.

What this meant now was that I had a chance. A very real chance.

Alice’s caramel-colored skin beckoned my fingers to touch. My knuckles ached and tingled with the burning need to brush them down her velvety smooth cheek.

I swallowed hard.

“Say yes, my Alice. Say yes. Only once. And then...” I closed my eyes as the tears that’d burned inside them began to slide slowly down. “If you still say no, I will let you go. Forever. You would be free. Free of me and this strange land that has hurt you so deeply.”

Her touch was as tentative as the gossamer kiss of a butterfly’s wings against my chin. Dark eyes alive with pain and sorrow stared up at me.

She said nothing, only nodded once, the movement brief and short, a mere flutter really.

But my heart leaped in my chest. Bringing her palm to my lips, I couldn’t help but press a kiss against its very center.

I knew I’d hurt her deeply.

I didn’t expect Alice to forgive me for what I’d done with her great-grandmother. I didn’t even forgive myself. But I would be damned if I let her believe for a second that I did not truly love her with a love greater than any penned in literature before or after. Once upon a time, in a different reality, it’d been Alice who’d brought me back, who’d saved me.

I could no less for her.

Siphoning my magic through her, I created a beautifully ornate grand piano. The ebony beauty stood out like a sore thumb in the middle of a field full of wild and magical gardens, bursting with the sudden magic of Wonderland.

In a scene very reminiscent of the day she’d found me, I sat at the bench and plucked gently at the keys.

Galeta had told me once during her time in my cottage of how she’d recalled her own past. Her mention of her memories returning to her as visions in the sky formed my magic.

The music was haunting, lyrical, filling the air with the strains of a heartsick ballad. And as it did, images formed on the winds.

Alice looked at the visions. And I looked at Alice.

Her eyes were wide as she twirled slowly round and round, studying parts of our life that I’d never been able to show her with the miniatures. This time the images weren’t of a woman built of moss, but of Alice herself.

My beautiful, wonderful woman who’d suffered so greatly in this life.

Falling into Wonderland.

Me sitting at a tea table, floating teapot and all. But I didn’t show Alice the memories through her eyes but my own, letting her feel my emotions as they played on the breeze.

That first glimpse of her and feeling my body light up in flames, bursting with the sudden knowledge that my life had forever altered. The way my heart beat in my throat at the sight of her in those ridiculously sexy sleeping clothes.

How the wonder in her eyes had rekindled my own.

The laughter that’d bubbled like angel song through her lips.

My fear that she would see a broken madman and so I’d stayed away, obsessing, needing, wanting, and desperate to be by her side always, but so scared of my feelings.

Her tossing the bun at the back of my head.

She laughed.

And not just the vision Alice, but the one standing before me, lost in the memories of another life.

Her hands covered her shell-pink lips as that gloriously dulcet laugh that’d haunted my days since I reawakened spilled off her tongue. I jerked in my seat, desperate to reach her. To grab her up and kiss her senseless. To whisper my undying devotion to her, but she was lost to me now.

Please, gods above, let this work. I knew what I’d said, that I could die happily knowing she was okay. But I didn’t think I ever truly could let her go.

Alice was as much a part of me as I was of her. So I played harder, plucking at the heartstrings of my soul as I struck the keys, filling the night with more and more visions.

Golden spirals of light began to swirl through the air. And I did not know what it meant, all I knew was I would never stop until she was returned to me.

Me, pacing the length of my clock room, muttering nonsense to myself as my soul yearned to go and find her. To learn if she was truly the mate I’d waited all my life for.