She lifted her chin. “Because I’m not.”
“Why!” His face contorted into a mask of rage, and it was more than anger. Pain glittered in the depths of his eyes.
Alice squeezed her eyes shut, her truth burning the tip of her tongue. Did he really want to know, did she have the strength to tell him?
She gazed at him. Others might see him and see anger, fury, blinding rage. But she couldn’t. “Because…” She swallowed, opening herself up to someone in a way she’d never dreamed to do again. “When I was thirteen, I—” had brain cancer. She couldn’t say it. She desperately wanted to. Wanted to explain, but she didn’t have the strength to dip into memories that brought back nothing but pain and paralyzing fear.
“What?” he demanded. “I share my soul with you, and you give me nothing? What!” he demanded, and her heart bled.
“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.
Danika hovered in front of her, splaying her tiny hand on Alice’s chest. Heat poured through Alice like molten lava, and her heart felt like it swelled, growing to twice its size.
“But don’t you see? The land has already begun responding to you.”
She shook her head. “What does that even mean? How can I make this place fall in love with me?”
“By making him fall in love with you.”
“But he loved my great-grandmother.”
“No.” Danika was adamant, blondish-gray curls bouncing attractively around her head. “What he felt was pretense. Lies. Lust masked as love. Had any of the other Alices encouraged him, his love would have turned to hate, and that is why, in part, he despises them now. It wasn’t real. In fact, I believe deep down he knew that. That’s why he never lay with them. Not one. In fact, I doubt he touched many of them.”
“Then neither is this.” But then Alice remembered his caresses, his kiss. Her heart thumped. He’d touched her.
“No, dear, you’re wrong. I know you’re his equal. The mate I’ve searched for all these years. I’ve seen how he looks at you.”
“Why do you think it’s me?” And why was her freaking heart pounding so hard? It didn’t matter. None of this mattered. She couldn’t stay. She couldn’t. Right? She shook her head, trying to stop the weird thought that said it was totally possible. Totally doable.
“Because you’ve loved him all your life. He’s been real for you all along, Alice. You have to make him see that. He must know the truth. Make him see you. Do whatever it takes—but make him see you. If you can make him s
ee you, the land will accept you as part of itself. The curse will be broken.” Her blue eyes sparkled, black lashes quivering with gathering moisture.
Alice closed her eyes. “I can’t stay, Danika.” Though it was a ripping wound to say it. But she couldn’t abandon her life, her family. Not for a man she barely knew who didn’t want her anyway.
The smile turned into a frown. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, wee Alice.” Danika patted her hand. “Go find him, girl. Do not listen to the mad ramblings of a broken man. He means none of what he says and only half of what he doesn’t. You’ve got but two days, not even.” She glanced out the darkened window.
“That literally made no sense.”
Danika grinned, the twinkle back. “Aye, well, I guess he’s rubbed off on me.”
Stupid hope stirred like a lazy cat waking up, but Alice didn’t need hope. She needed to go home, back to the real world, and away from the pervasive temptation of a man who was no good for anybody.
“Do not abandon him now; there’s more to you than this.” Danika’s words echoed as she began to fade. When she was gone, the same door Alice had stepped through earlier reappeared.
It was her choice. She couldn’t look away from the door. The knowledge that he was on the other side of it was an incessant, hammering thought. She bit her tongue. It was her choice.
No! She wouldn’t go to him.
She just couldn’t.
Her foot twitched.
Rain poured around Hatter. The thunderous boom of the darkened sky made him feel not so alone. He sat in his favorite recliner, in the center of a wildflower-studded field. Wind howled, long saw grass swayed violently back and forth, cutting grooves into his bare hands, but he barely felt the pain.
Rain, like needle pricks, slapped at his face, drove his hair into his eyes. He didn’t care, didn’t bother to move or turn. He welcomed the rain, welcomed the deluge, hoping it would somehow erase the torment gnawing at his guts. Because she was here, in his world, and he wanted nothing more than to be where she was. Bathe in the beauty of a simple smile, touch her soft flesh and inhale the sensual scent of her body.
He’d kept his place normal. For her, after seeing how she’d panicked when she’d walked through the twists and turns of his home. She was a mortal. Human. A being incapable of comprehending and accepting the dichotomous nature of Wonderland where up wasn’t always up and down could sometimes lead nowhere.
So he’d muted it, kept it pretty. Banal. A white bird tumbled over and over, unable to catch its bearings in the tempest. It hurtled toward him, stick legs poking up at odd angles.
He snatched it just as it blew overhead.
What was this bird? He frowned. He should never have muted the magic. It was unnatural. And she wouldn’t stay. She should see it for what it really was and who cared if he scared her off? She’d leave and never come back. Just like the rest. All of them so fickle, foolish.
He’d sworn no more. Not after she’d left. The one he’d felt certain would be his Alice. But she’d been wicked, wanting nothing of him or what he’d offered.
The bird struggled in his grip, warmth flooded his palm, and suddenly the creature began to morph, to become what it really was. Its beak elongated, broadened at the tip.
So similar were the two Alices.
Its body thickened, turned a dusty shade of rose. Lightning struck right in front of him, but he didn’t jump. The bird flapped broad wings, the silver handle of its spoonbill tinkling with music as rain plopped harder and faster upon it.
Ozone swirled around him. He closed his eyes. But not all the same. This Alice was soft and sweet. She told him things. Wonderful, crazy things. Hunger for her, for his woman, clawed at his gut. He wanted to take her, claim her, and make her forget any petty desires she’d ever had for returning to her world.
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 hi
s 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.
“Oh gods, Alice.” He rested his forehead against her neck. “Why you?”
She turned, straddling his thighs. The warmth of her center enveloped him like a hug and he groaned. Nothing stood between them but a mere scrap of fabric and his pants. He wanted to shift, rub himself against the heat of her body.
Her fingers toyed with the wet hair on the back of his head.
“You make me crazy,” she said, then her eyes widened as if she hadn’t meant to say that, and his heart sank. Did she think him as mad as all the others had?
She smiled, all teeth, full lips curving up so prettily. He wanted that mouth on him, all of him. He gripped the armchair, refusing to touch her anymore.
[Kingdom 01.0 - 03.0] Kingdom Series Collection Page 10