Underland, #1

by Rebecca Goodwin

  “Sorry, your highness, but I’m looking for something that belongs to my love,” the words rushed from my mouth and the validity of them sang through me. Even though no one heard them but me as the queen and her guards were too far away but they were approaching fast. I returned to digging, mulling over my emotions.

  Love. Yes. It felt right even though I was in love with more than one guy. Like I had when I claimed Rob for my court. If he was my beloved and I wanted to be with Chaz too, did that make him my consort then? And how did Hadden fit in? Cause I loved him too. I’d do anything for them including digging through a burial site for a pocket watch. I shook my head and kept looking. Any second, Hadden and the queen and her prickly guards would be here. Their footsteps boomed closer.

  Where was the watch? I’d searched under every rock and it wasn’t here. I’d lost. Soon the hourglass would run out of sand and I would be stuck here forever. My stomach lurched.

  I turned back to the white queen’s skeleton. I couldn’t leave the deceased queen exposed like this. It wasn’t right but I didn’t have time to create the elaborate grave she deserved. Carefully, I laid two rocks around her, one at a time. Another blast of magic hit my arm and the muscles cramped up.

  “Stop!” I turned to her. “You’ve won. I couldn’t find the watch.” Sadness choked me. I’d lost everything. My freedom, my life, my heart. “Let my grandmother go back through the portal to our own world, please.”

  “And have you run around here stirring up everyone with illusions of the white queen’s ancestors.” She tapped a crimson nail to her lip. “No, I think you should join her. Hadden, kill her.”

  “I-I can’t.” He frowned. “Not even for you.”

  “Try again,” she hissed.

  I held up a hand. “Wait, your majesty,” I said despite the last word sticking in my throat like a chicken bone. “Sounds like you don’t have full control over Hadden either. I claim him as my mate and part of my court.” My face flushed that I now how three men in my life and I loved them all equally and fiercely. And if he agreed, it might help me free him from the queen’s grasp as well.

  Chapter Twenty

  The watch wasn’t here, but it had to be. I was certain that the queen would’ve buried the timepiece along with her sister in the gravesite. Loss swallowed me whole, and a sinking sensation pulled at me. That the ground would suck me up and bury me as well. Hadden stood across from me with his brow pinched and he wore a look of anguish. My skin was tight and hot as anxiety swirled inside me. Several feet to the left of Hadden, the queen crossed her arms.

  “Hurry up, wizard, and bring me her head.”

  Next to Hadden, Chaz was in his human form and held Rob who was still in his rabbit form. The slow rise and fall of his chest brought me little comfort because he was so still.

  “Please.” I swallowed the sharp lump in my throat. I couldn’t accept my death with Rob so injured and bleeding. What if he didn’t make it? It would be my fault and I had to help him. “Let Hadden heal Rob before you have me killed. I want to know that he’s okay.”

  The queen laughed, her white bun on top of her head shaking with the movement. “No, he and Chaz belong to you now so they will suffer your same fate.”

  My heart hurt so hard I pressed a hand to my chest to ease the pain. “No. They have nothing to do with you and me or Grams.”

  I turned to my grandmother but she was staring down at the exposed skeleton of the white queen. Her face ashen but her eyes sparkled with tears. Was there more to all of this than what I understood? The queen said I wasn’t part of the white queen’s ancestry but what if that was a trick? Or what if she was wrong? Otherwise, why the animosity toward Grams and me? The hostility rather than just throw us out of her kingdom.

  Time to follow through on my plan. “Hadden, will you accept me as your mate as I do you?” Crap, I didn’t even know if the verbiage was right.

  “He doesn’t have his heart to answer you even if he wanted to.” The queen crossed her arms. But a bead of sweat trickled down the side of her face. She kept glancing behind me, to the right. Each time I looked directly at her, she refocused on me. Was I right? Was the watch here and I’d been too busy digging and worrying to see it?

  I glanced behind me, a glimmer inside the skeleton’s head blinked in the sunlight. What was that? I bent down, a whoosh of heat flew over my head. Hadden. He’d sent a magical attack at me and I’d ducked just in time.

  “Get away from there!” the queen screeched. Her face turned purplish. “Kill her, kill her now!”

  I dove for the glinting object, hoping for the watch and not some crystal. The bones cold and dry across my palm but they were brittle and crumbled easily. “Sorry,” I whispered for defining her grave. I yanked the round, copper out. An old-fashioned pocket watch fit in my palm. I opened the flash and ran a finger over the glass case. My heart clenching. The second hand frozen. But the queen hadn’t said the timepiece had to be working or anything, only found. “I’ve got it,” I yelled and held up the pocket watch.

  The queen screamed. She jerked out a pulsing heart from within her dress. “Give me the watch and Hadden lives. Refuse and he dies. Choose either him or Rob, make your decision or I will slay them all.”

  My insides froze. I couldn’t pick one. All three of them fit a special part in my heart and made me whole. But what else could I do? If I refused, she’d destroy them and in so doing crush my heart and soul. I’d fallen in love with all of them equally. There had to be another way. What was I missing?

  The watch warmed in my palm I fought not to let go. What was up with that? Wait. I paused looking from Hadden to the queen and then down at my clenched hand. Was the watch’s magic? Excitement tickled my gut. Why else would the queen go to such lengths to hide it from Rob? Why not destroy the timepiece if she didn’t want him to have it? Why did she want a broken watch in the first place?

  I opened my palm, then clicked the button.

  “Noooooo,” the queen’s scream grew slower.

  Everyone around me appeared so still and unmoving.

  Of course, a time-warp or whatever! I raced to the queen and pried out the gem in her hand. Then I took Hadden’s heart back to him, pressing it to his chest as I’d seen her do when she removed it. It slipped inside like his chest was made of butter and the heart a piece of fire.

  “If you’ll have me,” I whispered to him, “I claim you too.”

  He blinked. The magic faded or I didn’t know how to use the watch properly. I dashed to Chaz and Rob while around us the queen and her guards started to move faster like they were coming out of a trance.

  As soon as I placed the watch in Rob’s hand. He shifted back to his human form. His white fur vanishing along with his cottontail but his wounds remain and he wasn’t healing. My chest constricted.

  “Thank you.” His voice soft as clasped the watch. I bent down and kissed him lightly on the lips, breathing in his sigh. Then he moved like a blur and returned with two glowing heart gems. He pressed both into my hand. “These belong to you.”

  Before I could argue, the gems sunk into my palms. The queen screamed, jerking me around by the arm.

  “How dare you take my hearts!” Her nails raked down my arms and I pushed her off me. She tumbled down to the ground. “Guards, seize her!”

  “No!” I held up my hands. The thorn guards stopped in place, looking from me to the queen and back. “What’s happening?”

  Chaz sauntered forward. “You’ve two of the three main hearts of the kingdom.”

  “I don’t understand.” I bit my lip.

  “Each of us,” he nodded to Rob and Hadden, “are joint rulers under one queen. Your sovereignty outweighs the queen’s now. All of our ancestors, since the white queen’s death, have been forced to serve the queen of hearts.”

  “Guards, I still own your hearts, kill her!”

  But her men made of thorn bushes didn’t budge.

  “She didn’t have your hearts,” I said. Confusion swi
rling with a thousand thoughts in my mind. I wasn’t royalty. How could I claim sovereignty over a queen?

  Hadden cleared his throat and strode toward me with a smile. “No, but she had a portion of Rob’s in his servitude and settled for half of mine.” He took out his heart from his chest and gestured to my chest. “But I can think of no safer place to put the portion of my heart I still have and trust than in you.”

  Tears stinging the back of my eyes, I nodded. He leaned down, kissing me before he put the heart next to mine. My whole body warmed. Then both of Chaz’s and Rob’s hearts entwined with mine and Hadden’s. Each one beating separately, yet distinctly against my breastbone. A harmony that complimented each other. I lost myself in the love pouring through me from their hearts. Overwhelming and wonderful. Like I was so full that nothing could ever harm me.

  “No! Get her!” the queen shouted. “Now, Cassandra!”

  A warning bell blared inside my head. Cassandra? That was close to my grandmother’s name... Cassie. Or was that her nickname? I frowned.

  Hadden jerked. A lancing pain hit my chest. My scream lodged in my throat. Sticking out of his chest and into mine was a huge thorn. Hadden slumped in my arms. Terror shackled my insides. The tip of the thorn tore down my chest, slicing me open.

  H-how did this happen?

  The queen smirked with her hands on her hips. A red pulsing heart glowed in her chest.

  Slowly, I turned to the person standing behind Hadden with the blunt end of the thorn in their hands, expecting to see one of her guards or some magic power she’d used. I sunk to my knees, blood rushing from my wound. My breaths shuddering. Instead of finding the enemy I expected, I found my grandmother with such malice on her face that I recoiled as though she had stabbed me again but this time hit my soul.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Grams’ heart! The red queen had control of my grandmother this whole time. My knees buckled and I fell hard to the ground, the queen’s laughter echoing in my ears. Blood pooled down the front of my shirt. Agonizing pain shot through my chest from the giant thorn that had pierced Hadden and into me. The fucking red queen had won. My failure sank like a bowling ball in my gut. Hadden slumped over in my arms. I screamed as my soul shattered.

  Chaz looked ashen but when he took a step forward as if he intended to comfort me, the queen asked and placed a finger on one of the beating heart-stones pulsing through the fabric of her black dress. Immediately, Chaz stiffened.

  “Stop, you’ve won,” I cried. “Haven’t you done enough, let them go. Take me and I’ll serve you for eternity.”

  “Alicia, no!” Chaz hissed.

  The guards snapped their hands on him, yanking him backward. He struggled against them, blood oozing from multiple cuts. Another curled his arm around Chaz’s mouth, cutting off his protests. But what else could I do? Both Hadden and Rob were injured and bleeding. Seeing the rise and fall of their shallow breaths made my own hitch in response. They were hurt because of me and this vile woman. She didn’t deserve to be queen and as soon as I could, I was going to kill her.

  “Let Hadden, my grandmother and the others go.” Blackness curled around the edges of my vision. My lungs felt like I was underwater on one side and drowning.

  Her face scrunched up like she’d smelled something bad. “Your measly heart for four others? Three of which make up my court?” She shook her head, strands of her taunt white bun loosening, giving her a look of madness rather than softening her features. “Do you take me for a fool?

  I inhaled a gurgling wheeze. Not like I’d live much longer anyway. I had to take a risk even if that meant damning us all. “Free them and I will do whatever you wish. Stay here for as long as you want.”

  “Do you hear that? This human has agreed to serve me for eternity of her own free will.” Her voice rang out with majestic splendor as though she accepted the nomination of a popularity contest. She stomped over to me and pressed a hand to my chest. At first, I thought she was going to heal me and make me regret my words. But she did much worse. The pain welding my bones like iron bars and I couldn’t move. She plucked out a crimson stone from my chest. How the fuck did she do that?

  A hollowness I’d never know before bore into my chest. Standing over me, the queen snapped her fingers and my wound of where she took my heart sealed up like someone zipped me up on the inside. Then her features, so like my grandmother, morphed. Lines around her eyes and mouth faded. Her wrinkles disappeared and her hair shifted from the white-gray she’d had to black.

  What the holy hell? She was young again and with her black eyes and hair. The hearts on her dress and inside her drifted into each other until there was one heart over her chest, beating and bright. One centralized heartbeat instead of dozens blinking independently.

  A sensation of doom rocked me as I realized I’d just made a huge mistake. That I’d given the queen exactly what she wanted.

  “No!” Chaz broke free of the guards holding him. “Fight her, Alicia or we are all lost.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Stand, slave,” the queen hissed.

  Unable to stop my body from obeying, I pushed to my feet. Bleeding on the ground in front of me lay Rob. Oh god, was he breathing? I bent to check on him when a fire scorched down my spine.

  “I didn’t say you could move unless I said so.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Now come here and bring me the watch.”

  My hand curled around the watch in my palm. I’d found it too late to save everyone but I didn’t want her to have it. Rob needed it. He’d been looking for it for years and it belonged to him and his family, not this bitch.

  “Come, don’t make me ask twice.”

  No matter how much I willed my feet not to listen to her, they shuffled forward, dragging me closer. I glanced at Chaz, the guards had covered his mouth again. He strained against them. The vein in his forehead stood out against his red face. Then his skin shifted to black fur. He was going to change into his panther form! How? The queen had his heart. I bit the back of my cheek until the metallic tang of my blood filled my mouth in an effort not to obey her commands. But if Chaz could fight her and even Hadden had resisted, then I could too.

  Gathering every ounce of strength and determination I could, I shoved my will forward to stop myself from reaching the queen. My body trembled as it felt like hot coals had burrowed under my flesh.

  “You cannot resist me!” she screeched. “I have your heart!”

  My legs moved forward again. No! I refused to be her puppet while everyone I loved suffered. Again, I stopped my momentum and acid scorched a path down my throat and sank into my belly. My body trembled so hard my muscles cramped and seized.

  “I told you, I own your heart.”

  Her words cut into my soul, and I placed a hand to the emptiness I felt it in my chest. The vast cavern there. But softly against my palm was a bump, then another. Realization sent me reeling and I stumbled back. I still had Chaz’s and Rob’s hearts. I hadn’t given them up when I surrendered mine to the queen. Maybe there was still a chance to save everyone including myself.

  I stepped forward, my legs unlocking in a rush now that I was going along with her commands. My grandmother stared at her feet like some servant afraid to be beaten. She stood behind the queen, ready to be summoned. I’d get her heart back too. All of this ended now.

  Just needed to get close enough to retrieve my heart and grab my grandmother’s and Hadden’s. She frowned as I approached and I kept my expression pained as though I was still fighting her. I spared a gaze at Chaz, the guards had him locked down, half-human, half-panther and the pain etched in his eyes tore at me. I stumbled a step but kept walking.

  “Here, your majesty.” I held out the watch barely out of her reach.

  When she lunged for the timepiece, I slammed my hand to her chest, not knowing what the hell I was doing but knowing I had to try. The red from the single giant heart she wore pierced my palm. My scream ripped from my throat. Chaz’s roar echoed in my ears as he t
ransformed back into his human body, his eyes turning glassy like he was hypnotized. Was something similar happening to Rob? I’d just lost my one chance.

  No, no, no! Terror and anger twisted inside me. I would not let this bitch win.

  I kicked against her and she let out an oof but the red snaking up my arm didn’t stop. Gritting my teeth, I jerked back to get away but my hand was super-glued to her breastbone.

  “No one defeats the queen of hearts, not even my sister’s bratty offspring.”

  My thoughts whirled. Offspring? So it was true. I was related to the white queen? It wasn’t just a coincidence that my grandmother looked exactly like this woman. And I’d thought Grams was the queen—or at least the white queen until we uncovered the skeleton—but what if my grandmother was her descendant? Then that meant I was related to the royalty of this place. And that I could avenge my ancestor’s death and free all these people.

  A righteousness fueled my veins, giving me a strength I didn’t know I had. “Your reign of torture and your cruelty ends now!” I clicked the button on Rob’s golden pocket watch, hoping to god that this worked. The second hand, that had previously been unmoving, ticked to the next second, then the next.

  Her mouth opened in a silent scream. She broke free of the red binding us together with tendrils of smoke curling from the now open wound in her chest. Hundreds of beating hearts that looked like ruby stones floated out of her body. They implanted into the guards made from thorn bushes. With a shimmer, they changed to a human form. Soldiers wearing checkered jackets with white roses on their lapels. Hadden gasped when his own heart returned to his chest. Then I clicked the watch again, his wounds healing as if he went back in time before my eyes.

  Even my grandmother cried out in a mixture of joy and relief when her heart sank inside her.