The Mad King (The Dark Kings #1)(99)

There was only one thing in all the worlds that he treasured more.

His Alice.

She’d stayed. She’d told him she loved him. She’d saved him from the madness of his mind. “My beautiful, beautiful Alice. Tick, tock, tick, tock...,” he muttered, entranced as the miniature bird chimed the new hour, blinking only when it returned to its cubbyhole.

Staring at the cavern full of memories, he inhaled deeply, smelling her sunshiny scent of vanilla and caramel still clinging all over him. They’d made love this morning atop a bed of spongy, golden brain coral as sunlight dappled the water around them a speckled shade of glassy blue and sparkling silver. Her honeyed skin gleaming, her glossy black hair covering her breasts, she’d reminded him of a seductive siren trying to lure an unwary soul to its death.

But hers was a death he’d gladly fall into. He’d steal a kiss from her poisoned lips with a smile upon his face even as he gasped his final breath.

There was no denying he loved her. Alice had changed his heart, his mind, made him find the beauty in a world full of chaos and madness. They’d been together a little over a year, and today was her birthday.

What could he possibly give her that she didn’t already own? His heart? She’d stolen it the moment she’d tossed the bread at the back of his head.

Another animal carving? He stared at his hands, at the long, blunt fingernails. These hands had traced the delicious curves of her breasts, her supple thighs, the long column of her throat...

Blood rushed through his veins, made his balls draw tight to his body and his cock ache. Just thinking about his mate made him dizzy, made him want. He always wanted her. Wanted to taste her, love her, and devote his life to showing her how truly precious she was to him.

And that’s when he knew...

A slow smile curved the corner of his lips as a mad, insane, and crazy idea began to form in his mind. She would love it. She would understand. He would show her his truest treasure, would give her the key to his undoing, the one thing he’d never shown another... Alice got him. She’d know what doing that meant. Alice would know because Alice knew him.

With a jaunty whistle, he straightened his crimson silk tie and fixed the bowler hat firmly upon his head. Turning on his heel, he went to make preparations for her surprise.

***

Alice lay atop the spongy coral and, with a yawn, unfurled her tired and deliciously sore body. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she patted the side of the bed where Hatter’s body should have been.

Shocked to note that his side was empty, she stared across the vast body of water. Hatter had a talent for finding the most out-of-the-way and secluded places in Wonderland to make love.

The brain coral garden was one of their favorites since nothing lived here. There was no chance of a flower honking at them as Hatter filled her body with his thickness. No chance of a woodpecker pecking wood as she moaned Hatter’s name in his ear over and over, driving her man to the point of frenzy. Licking her lips, she stood, staring at the perpetually azure sky above her, the glassy water beneath her, and frowned.

Where had he gone?

“Hatter?” She whispered his name. It wasn’t uncommon for Hatter to play games with her. He was the Mad Hatter after all, and trying to make sense of a man who often didn’t know whether up was down or down was up was about as pointless as trying to find an end to infinity. He simply was. She accepted it and moved on.

“Baby?” She spoke again, a little louder, shading her eyes from the bright glint of sunlight. But apart from the gentle breeze riffling her matted hair with its salt-scented fingers, there was nothing and no one around.

Just because he wasn’t around didn’t mean he couldn’t hear her. She and Hatter controlled Wonderland, twisted it to meet their needs. They controlled all within its environs.

Planting her hands on her hips, she pursed her lips. “Are you playing a game with me, sweetheart?”

A strong bolt of air suddenly whipped the water in front of her, lifting a thick funnel of it high and forming it into a shape. The shape started out oblong, but gradually it shifted, stretched, and pulled like taffy until what stood before her wasn’t just a column of water but a water replica of Hatter himself.

He was smiling, his eyes a sparkling sheen as they traveled down her very naked form. “Ravishing,” he muttered in that thick, whiskey drawl with a hint of a watery burble behind it. “I hated to leave you there, my love.”

Licking her lips, she took a step forward, craving his hands on her, his arms around her. A thousand days with Hatter would never be enough. She wanted everything. All of him, forever and ever and ever... Thankfully, that’s what they had. She belonged to Wonderland as much as he did, their stories forever entwined.

Tracing the tip of her nipple with her nail, she grinned. “Then come back to me, lover.”

His glassy features distorted into a mask of want and need as he lifted a turquoise hand. His fingers were cold and shocking against the heat of her skin as he palmed her breast in his hand, making her moan as she arched her back, giving him better access.

“I’ve never made love to you in this form, Hatter. I bet it’s wicked.”

His rumbling assent made her chuckle a very naughty sound.

“I would make you scream my name to the heavens,” he rumbled, stepping closer to her side.

Exhaling, stomach tickling with a heady throb of desire, she nuzzled the side of his ice-cold neck as her skin pricked from the delicious glass-like smoothness of his body.