The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(88)

His fingers clenched and the bird grunted, clawed feet scrabbling to jump from his lap. But he held tight, squeezing harder.

Because the moment she returned to Earth, she’d never come back. If she left, she’d stay gone. Alice would forget Wonderland. She would forget him.

The bird thrashed now, talons shredding his pant leg until he felt the heat of its claws grazing his flesh.

“No, Alice,” he muttered. Rain fell down his face like tears. Maybe they were tears. He swallowed hard, looking down at the bird.

It labored for breath. Ribs expanding, its black eyes stared at him.

“Why do you look at me like that, bird?”

The spoonbill stopped struggling, but reproach burned in the depths of pain-filled eyes. He petted the wet feathers.

“Rose feathers. Tea roses. She rose in the moonlight. Moonlight shadows her face.” He closed his eyes again, his grip relaxing infinitesimally. “Face of a goddess. My Alice, my Alice.”

“Hatter?”

That voice. The singsong rhythm made him tremble, made his blood stir and his cock twitch.

Tiny hands caressed the lines of his jaw. His breath stuttered.

“Let the bird go, Hatter.”

Soft words, gentle, gentle. Like cashmere’s caress. Anything. Anything for you, Alice.

He released the bird. And Hatter drowned in eyes that sparkled with shades of bitter beer. Her midnight hair was plastered to her face, the tiniest body-hugging blue dress he’d ever seen fitted to her like a second skin. Beautiful, so beautiful his Alice was.

“Why didn’t you leave me?” His voice cracked. “You always leave me. Always.”

She shook her head. “Hatter, I’m not them.” That luscious mouth turned down in a frown and he touched the corner, lifting it. Never wanting to see her sad, not her. Not his Alice.

She kissed the tip of his finger and it was fire. Flames. Scorching him, making him shake. Want, need. More than ever. More than before.

“It’s raining, Hatter.” She glanced around, worry in her eyes. “Lightning. It’s not good to be out here. Let’s go someplace else.”

The rain relented, gray clouds broke apart, and sunlight peeked through. A fine mist swept in, bringing with it the fresh scent of springtime and flowers.

She was trembling, but not from desire like he was. Alice was rubbing her arms. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m here. Why am I here, Hatter? Why do I keep coming back to you when you don’t care?”

He did care. He cared too much. Why? He didn’t know. Because she was so beautiful? But the others had been beautiful too. Because she liked poetry? But she wasn’t the first.

Because she looked like the other one?

He didn’t know. She was different, but he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t know how to put that into words.

“You shouldn’t be so wet,” he growled. Not a good host. A good host would never let his lady get sick. Sickness killed.

His heart clenched. Black eyes. Lifeless eyes, staring at him from a pale, heart-shaped face. His breathing intensified as the image, always fragmented and fleeting, rammed his skull.

For just a moment, he remembered. Mother, pretty mother. Sick. Coughing. Wet, she’d been wet and he’d been young. So young. He’d wanted to play. The sky had grown dark. She’d told him. Warned him. Come home when it gets that way.

He hadn’t listened. He’d just wanted to play.

She’d come to look for him.

Two weeks later, she was dead and he was alone. Crying, with no family and no home. Then he’d fallen. Fallen.

Sickness brought death.

“Hatter?”

That voice was a dulcet, lovely thing and it brought him back, snapped him from the violence of his mind. He jerked and she watched him, wondering if he was truly insane.

He frowned. I’m not crazy, not, not crazy. He wanted to scream it and yell it, to convince her not to give up on him and his wild ramblings as the others had.

Instead, he wrapped his fingers around her slender wrists. So very gentle, lest he snap them. So frail were they. Gentle. Gentle. She did not resist.

He pulled her onto his lap. She sat, stiff as a board, smelling like caramel and salt, honey and warm cinnamon. He wanted to trace her with his hands and his tongue, to see if she tasted as sweet as she smelled.

He moved his hands, running them along the length of her spine, slow and sure. She shivered and let out a tiny whimper. But this time he didn’t think it was from the cold.

Hatter pushed heat into his palms, drying her off, steam rising from her clothing. She sighed and dropped her head onto his shoulder.

His cock grew heavy, hard against his thigh. He trembled, feeling twitchy, almost on the verge of losing control, but he didn’t stop touching her or running his fingers down the sides of her thighs, up again, and around the generous swells of her breasts. Hard nipples rubbed against his palms and he growled.

“Lovely. My Alice.”

She nodded, voice liquid as she said, “Your Alice. Oh yes, Hatter. Yes.”

He no longer skimmed her body, he began to apply pressure, to knead and touch. He licked his lips, noticing a translucent drop of water slide down her neck, coming to rest at the base of her throat.

Such a perfect little drop, clinging to her neck, suspended, frozen in time. Refracting light, catching every color of the rainbow inside its liquid cocoon. Alluring, tempting him to kiss it off, but he couldn’t, couldn’t. Because to kiss it would ruin its symmetry. He blinked. The drop quivered, then continued on its journey, and he shuddered, aching from the absence of it.