The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(60)

His tipped his head. “In my kingdom, we are expected to maintain a full harem, O magnificent one.”

“Aye, well...” She stomped her foot, wagging her finger at him. “Women from Earth will not abide that arrangement. Besides”—she grinned, recalling one in particular who would be perfect for him—“she’ll be more than enough for what you need doing.”

“Earth?” Hook roared. “Never!”

The Wolf licked his lips.

“Enough, enough.” She raised her hands. “You’ll not have a say. It is my duty to see to your needs. Happy endings are not the sole domain of Prince Charming.” She bristled, remembering the heated battles between herself and her kind.

Love might never tame the beast fully, but it would certainly temper the wildness in each of them.

The Hatter’s face could have been carved from ice. He was as still as a snake ready to strike. She took a step back; he was certainly crazy enough to do it. Heart thundering, feigning a boldness she did not feel, Danika shook her head. “No, Hatter, not even your madness will affect my decision. It is as I say. When the clock strikes midnight”—she waved her wand and a golden, antique clock stood before him, its metrical ticks making Hook shudder—“she will be here.”

“Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.” Hatter’s voice was whisper soft but full of some hidden torment.

Filled with an ache to hold him, she clenched her teeth. She could not. She had a task, and she’d see it through.

“Be... be that as it may, she will come and you will mate with her.”

He didn’t seem to notice she’d spoken. “But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

She frowned, looking to the others for help in deciphering some meaning behind his cryptic words. The Wolf blew air through his muzzle. Gerard only shrugged.

Hatter was worse, no doubt. There used to be a time she could at least piece together his meaning. Now—oh dear—he truly needed his mate. She knew he was tired of searching. So was she... Especially after the last Alice. The great-grandmother Alice Hu.

Danika clenched her wand tighter. What if the girl looked like the original? She swallowed hard. The last Alice had been cruel, a charlatan. She’d fooled them all. Especially Danika. She’d fallen prey to the girl’s outwardly loving exterior. But she’d soon learned they had a viper in their midst. The girl had wanted nothing more than the power of Wonderland. She’d never wanted the Hatter.

A reality made all the more sad because she’d never seen Hatter so taken. He’d made a fool of himself—in his mind anyway. He’d shown Alice the wonder and strange beauty of Wonderland, expecting her to love the talking flowers and vaporous, cat-shifting loons as he did. But she’d despised it all, wanted to change everything; she’d rejected his uniqueness as madness and mocked him behind his back to others.

Once he discovered her deception, something in him fractured; where once he’d been irreverent, often laughing, he’d turned moody and withdrawn.

Now Danika was set to bring him another Alice, knowing this one to be the right one, but what would he feel knowing this Alice came from that Alice? Would he even give the girl a chance? Would he hate her because of who she was? The thought made Danika sick.

If the magic hadn’t demanded Danika find him an Alice, she’d have brought him a blasted Jane, and to hell with all the Alices everywhere.

“Yes, just so.” She sighed in answer to his nonsensical ramblings.

Gerard snorted. “Only bride who’ll have him is one freshly buried. Honestly, fée, cruel torture.”

She planted hands on her hips in her best authoritative pose. Not easy for one barely ten inches tall. “Your turn will come soon enough, Gerard.”

He shuddered and she nodded, pleased her words hadn’t faltered. “Now, off with the lot of you. Freshen up, get sober, and for the gods’ sake, wash.” She eyed Gerard in particular.

They all sat staring at her.

She glowered. “Go, I say!” And gesturing at them with her wand, she lifted them from their seats. Wolf yelped the loudest as Danika tossed them from the garden.

“Blast you, démon de sorcière.” Gerard’s thick growl rose above the grumbles of the rest.

She grinned and twirled toward Hatter. He was staring at her, eyes full of pain, of hunger, of something he felt would be forever out of his reach.

“Cursed,” he whispered.

She patted his cold fingers. “Hatter, you are not cursed. We just haven’t found the one yet. But we will. I swear it.”

Danika’s words sounded sure, but in her heart she trembled. What will he do was now the chanting mantra tattooed in her skull. She didn’t have a choice—he was unwell, and he didn’t have much time. She bit her lip.

“Let me be, Danika.” He stood. “I do not want a mate out of necessity or one chosen for me by this crazy up-is-down and down-is-up world. I will not do this again.”

“I love you, Hatter, but hear me well. I’ll never stop.”

He clenched his fist, brimstone burning in the depths of his cold black eyes. Then he blinked and smiled, a slow, curling grin. “Do you know, fairy?”

She frowned. “What, my dear?”