The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(86)
“Oh, Hatter.” She covered her face. “I... I want to, but...”
“But,” he said with a sneer, “but, but, but! Prove to me you’re different and choose to stay, Alice. Be mine. Choose me.”
She jerked, wanting to so bad. More than he could ever know. “What if I jump back and forth, visit family. Then...”
“No.” He growled it and her eyes widened.
“It can’t be all or nothing, Hatter. I’ve got responsibilities.” She didn’t want to go. But why did he demand all or nothing? Why couldn’t he share her? Fact was she’d be more here than there, but she didn’t want her family to worry. She wasn’t like him—this wasn’t home. Why couldn’t he understand that?
“I want you more than I’ve ever wanted another. Damn you, Alice, damn you all!”
He threw his fist out. It crashed into a clock, forever silencing it beneath crushed glass. Like a frightened, wild beast, his eyes were wide—the whites large and the irises menacing. Heaving air like a bellows, lungs and chest expanding like the devil come to claim her soul.
But instead of frightening her, it only made her sad. Yes, she wanted him to see her, Alice Hu, the slightly geeky girl who loved to read, bake cupcakes, and paint her toenails. The girl who’d dreamed of someday becoming a success like the rest of her sisters.
But she couldn’t blame him. How long had Alice after Alice been thrust at him? No wonder he didn’t remember her. She couldn’t imagine having to endure this torment year after year.
“I’ve only got two days left, Hatter.” She held up two fingers. “Just two. Why fight?”
He cast his eyes down, jaw clenched, muscle tensing.
She thumped her fist against her thigh, the clocks’ ticking sounding like thunder in her ears. “Can’t we try to be friends?”
Why did she want that so bad? If it was all or nothing with him, then she couldn’t stay. She’d be leaving. So why couldn’t she just let this thing fade into nothing?
“Go away, Alice,” he whispered, and the words hurt her more than she’d thought they would. She winced. “Go back to your room. To the garden. I don’t care.” He turned his back on her. “Just go away.”
He didn’t want her. She closed her eyes, feeling disturbingly close to tears. He was a mess, a red-hot mess. Too much baggage, too much trouble. He was not the man she remembered. Maybe he never was, maybe she’d seen him through rose-colored glasses, turning him into something he could never live up to.
“I don’t know how to get back.” Her calm voice betrayed nothing of her quiet despair.
An outline of a door shimmered before her.
He leaned against the mantel, fingers running over the same spot as before. “It will take you anywhere you wish to go.”
He wanted nothing. He didn’t turn, didn’t move, not when she walked toward the door, not even when she turned the knob. She peeked around the corner, hoping he’d turn around, tell her he didn’t mean it. Hoping that the Hatter who’d kissed her senseless, would return.
He didn’t move.
She wanted to laugh, not because it was funny, but because she was bleeding and if she didn’t laugh, she’d cry. Alice opened the door and walked away.
Chapter 10
“Why are you here?” The high-pitched voice pierced Alice’s skull.
Alice glared at Danika, hating the fairy in that moment. Hating her because Alice had been happy—she’d had her dreams and hopes, but coming here had dashed them all and made them seem much less exciting and wonderful. “Because he doesn’t want me.” She shifted on the bed, pulling her knees closer against her chest. “I wanted to go back home. The stupid door was supposed to take me anywhere I wanted.” She looked at her feet. “I wanted to go home,” she said again in a reed-thin whisper.
Four hours later, alternating between anger, woe-is-me dejection, and a horrible need to cry, she’d finally come to the realization that the Hatter she’d known (or thought she’d known) had been a figment of a child’s overactive imagination. He’d never existed. Her crazy, kooky Prince Charming did not exist.
He was just a shell, too damaged to love anything.
“The door cannot return you until the three days are up—’tis the way of it in Kingdom. Your time is not yet done, Alice. You must go back to him.”
“Why?” she snapped, angry again. “Why did you freaking bring me here? He doesn’t want me.” She laughed, a thread of hysteria lacing her words. “He’s damaged goods, Danika. There’s nothing cracking that shell.”
“No, no.” Danika shook her head. “Not so. I’ve seen how he looks at you.”
Alice jerked to her knees, crawling forward on the bed, backing the little fairy into the wall. “The same way he looked at all the others, I’m sure. I’m just another Alice, another loser. Just like my great-grandmother.”
Danika dropped to the bed, her tiny wings buzzing like a hummingbird’s. “You don’t believe that. And neither do I. You surprise him, dearie. You understand him. None of the others did or could.”
Alice stopped and sat back on her butt, wrapping a strand of hair around her finger, tugging on it like she used to when she was younger. “I want to free him, Danika. I do.” And she did. Even though he made her angry and want to cuss and do things her mother would blush to know about, she still wanted to help him. Save him. “But it’s impossible. He’s too wounded, too fragile. Every little thing I say or do seems to piss him off. I can’t do this. He doesn’t want me. He sees her when he sees me—I can’t win.” The last came out a petulant whine.