“I don’t need to be the primary, Dee,” Tee says, and his brother snorts, turning and leaning against the food cart. I need to get out of this damn bath, so I can see facial expressions.
“Contrariwise,” Dee snorts as I stand up and dry off (well, in a half-assed sort of way—there’s still some bubble bath in my crack). “You’re the older twin, so you should be the primary. Technically, you were the crown prince back home.” I wrap the fluffy white robe around myself and step out of the bathroom, trailing bubbles behind me. Both twins and Chesh turn to look at me with varying expressions on their handsome faces. “Don’t argue with me: you know I always win.”
“Fine,” Tee says, giving in surprisingly easy. My guess? He didn’t want to win this particular argument. “Then I accept the Duke, but not you.”
“Ouch,” Dee hisses, cringing and then winking at me as I pause next to the smorgasbord of … totally weird shit. It looks like food, but who knows for sure? I drop the cupcake wrapper off and trade it out for, well, I think it's a sandwich. There's a dark brown roll (did you guess that it was heart-shaped? if not, you fail, because it is) that smells like sourdough, and it's piled high with meat and veggies. What sort of meat, I just don't want to know at this point. Probably freaking jubjub bird again. “So awfully cruel, brother.”
“And what about the cat?” Chesh insists, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and lighting up. “Or has he not courted Midnight Knicker Dancer for long enough?”
“If you call me Midnight Knicker Dancer again, not only will you not be welcome in my harem, you won’t be welcome in my room, or even my good graces.” I sit down heavily on the edge of the bed with my food and try not to sigh with bliss. It's beyond soft. The King of Hearts really knows how to live. It takes every ounce of willpower I have to resist the urge to lie down and go to sleep. Back home, it's my favorite activity. In this world, it's a rare treat. I rub my hand down my face. “Let’s pick up this discussion later, when I’m running on more than just fumes. What do I wear to this croquet thing anyway?" My lids are heavy, and my lashes feel as if they're coated in sandpaper and sitting heavy on my cheeks. "And do I really have to play the game with a flamingo as a mallet and a hedgehog as a ball?"
"Even more proof that you are the Alice," Dee says, swinging back a heavy red velvet curtain on one wall and revealing a hidden closet. It’s about, I’d say, three to four times the size of my bedroom at home. There’s a crooked chaise lounge, no less beautiful because of its wonky shape, and a chandelier made out of skulls that are just a bit too human for my liking. The clothes inside, however, are exquisite: velvet, furs, brocade, leather, embroidery, silk, and more jewels than one girl could wear in a lifetime.
I miss jeans and t-shirts.
"How is that proof that I'm the Alice?" I ask, taking a bite of my sandwich and sighing with relief when it actually tastes good. I force my tired body off the bed with a groan and move to stand in the entrance to the closet. It’s too big, too grand; I don’t know what to do with it. As nice as it is, it can’t last. Nothing good ever really does. "I'm too tired for riddles."
"You just know the prophecy oh so well," Dee says, hip-bumping me out of the way and moving across the thick white rugs piled high on the closet floor. He opens one of the cabinet drawers on the far wall, digs around a bit, and pulls out a pair of black suede slacks, a peaked cap similar to his own, red leather riding boots, and a black and white checkered blouse. "You've even got it memorized.”
“So … there are flamingos and hedgehogs then?” I ask as Dee presents me with the clothes, and cocks his head to one side.
“What’s a hedgehog?” he asks, but my brain is too tired to deal with nonsense. I just push him out the closet door and kick it closed, so I can change in peace. I keep telling myself that in this castle somewhere is the Looking-Glass, my ticket home. I'll get to see my dad and my sister again, my cat, Dinah. Somehow none of that provides me much motivation, not when I know the fate I'd be leaving Tee and Dee to. And then there's North … and his cat. Fucking Cheshire Puss.
Ugh.
This is why I don't sleep with guys on a first date. Things get complicated; things are already complicated.
“How do I look?” I ask after I slip out of the robe and into my new outfit, throwing the closet door open with a dramatic flourish. Dee ruffles up his hair with long fingers and gives me a slow, calculating once-over.
"Like a queen," he says, and then I'm sorry I even asked. How can I be a queen of anything when I can barely take care of my own life? Back home, all I do is read, sleep, and eat. Rinse, repeat. That’s my entire life; I can’t be expected to run anyone else’s.
“You look beautiful,” Tee adds as I exhale and pick my robe up off the floor. Maybe there are servants who do that sort of thing here, but having morbid little card creatures doing my laundry is not an idea that appeals to me.
“Good enough to eat,” Chesh purrs, arching his back and digging his nails into the bedspread. He hops off the bed and swaggers his leather-pant-wearing ass over to a tall, carpeted sculpture in the corner.
Oh. It’s a cat tree, as in a play structure made specifically for cats.
"Who are you anyway?" I ask, glaring at Chesh as he climbs up and then lounges on said cat tree—in full human form, I might add. His leather pants are too low slung, and there's a tantalizing trail of dark hair below his belly button. Normally, I'd try not to stare, but this is Underland, and I'm tired, and there's a vampire and a king waiting downstairs for me. So I just look at him until he reaches down, unzips his leather pants, and then— "Please don't lick your crotch while I'm in the same room as you."
"Would you rather lick it for me?" Chesh growls, mouth spreading into a cat's grin. I flip him off and take a red wool military jacket from Dee's hands, our fingers brushing together for a moment. He purposely tangles his with mine and pulls my hand close, giving my knuckles a long, lingering kiss with his hot mouth.
"I'm glad you're safe," he whispers, going down to one knee in front of me. Our eyes lock, and I feel this little quiver of excitement sizzle through me. I can't forget the feel of his wings on my skin, the warm slide of his body inside of mine. "I'm really glad." Dee gives my hand a kiss and a squeeze, and stands up, stepping back to give me some room. Tee hands over the thigh-sheath with the Vorpal Blade in it next, and the Queenmaker tucked in a gorgeous red leather waist holster with tooled black hearts.
“Thanks,” I say, licking my lips and glancing down at the black hearts on the toes of my new boots for a moment. There’s an awkward silence that follows that I’m so desperate to fill, I turn back to Chesh again. "Anyway, you ignored my question: who are you?" I repeat, focusing on the asshole’s pierced septum and wondering if I sound too much like Lar. Speaking of, where is that cheeky butterfly?
"Why, I'm the cat," Chesh purrs, sweeping his black and white tail around in a curious little wave. "The Cheshire Cat."
"I'm well-aware," I say, struggling and failing to put the new belt around my waist. Tee steps close to help, his body heat seeping into mine, his serious stare a welcome bit of steel in this crumbling world of rainbow madness. "What I meant was, who are you in relation to the hierarchy here? Are you the Duke's servant?"
Chesh blinks huge, gray eyes at me, and then yawns, flashing his bright pink tongue.
"Servant? You know as well as I that a cat serves no one but himself." Chesh sits up and leans over, his beautiful stomach muscles bunching up, my eyes drawn right back to that line of dark hair all over again. "I'm the Duke's friend. Don't you have any friends, Alice?"
"Allison," I say out of habit, sweeping back wet strands of hair from my forehead. "And that's it? You're just a friend?"
"Just a friend?" Chesh asks, cocking one triangular ear back. "Friends are rarer than diamonds and twice as precious. Are you quite mad?"
"Apparently," I say, shrugging into the wool coat and taking a deep breath. I’m about to play croquet with a bunch of mentally insane psychopaths; this is a new low
, even for me. I hadn't had much of a plan before I got to the palace, and I’m starting to feel like I’m even more out of my league than I first realized. "We’re all mad here. I'm mad, you're mad …" I trail off as Chesh howls with laughter, run my suddenly sweaty palms down the front of my new jacket, and get ready to face off against the King of Hearts.
The March Hare is waiting just outside the gargantuan double doors that lead from the palace to the royal gardens. He's got a carrot in his hand which should be funny, considering his brown rabbit ears and all, but really, it's almost sexual the way he eats it. He sucks the tip into his mouth, swirls his tongue around the orange flesh, and then gives me this easy, one-sided smirk.
"The Boss wants me to keep a close eye on you," he says, his voice laced through with an English accent. It's much less formal than North's, but it has this quiet, lilting quality, like I'm hearing his words inside of a dream.
"Does he now?" Tee snaps, his teeth clenched tight. "Seems to me that your boss best defer to the King when it comes to the Alice."
"Oh?" March asks, tipping his top hat forward to shade the velvet brown color of his eyes. "You think the King of Hearts has any influence over the Hatter? That's a unique perspective."
"You think one mercenary asshole has the power to topple an entire kingdom?" Tee asks, stepping forward and putting the toes of his boots against March's. It gives me a little thrill, watching him stand up for me like that. Not that I can't stand up for myself, but it's always nice to have allies.
The look on the March Hare's face is demented. Deliciously demented, but still, it gives me pause. He runs his fingers along his chin and twitches one brown ear.
"Ask the Queen of Clubs," he drawls, and then sets off toward the grassy area on our left. I've never seen such a curious croquet-ground in all my life. Hell, I'm not sure that I've ever seen a croquet-ground in my life. It's all ridges and furrows; the croquet balls look like ivory lumps, and the mallets shimmer in the sun like bone.
The wickets are made up of the little card people, their grotesque faces twisted into silent screams. Just looking at them, with their human legs and arms bent into unnatural positions, makes me want to puke. Sure, the garden is beautiful, and the flowers smell like honey and sugar, but there's a tension in the air that I don't like. It snaps against my face with each gust of wind, stinging my lips and tangling my white-blonde hair into snarls.
It also brings with it the metallic scent of blood.
"What the fuck is that?" I ask, but I'm well-aware of what I'm looking it, shimmering in the sunlight across the courtyard.
It's a guillotine.
Not sure how I missed it before.
It’s impossible to miss now, considering the fact that it's spattered with blood, and there's a guard dragging a body away. For a moment there, my chest fills with panic when I see a pair of limp, butterfly wings on the back of the dead man. But then Lar is standing right beside me with a deep-set frown etched into his face. Relief pours over me in a wave.
“What’s going on here?” I ask him as he studies me with eyes like chips of ice, his pale blonde hair tinted with the slightest drop of blue. It goes well with his pale skin and provides a nice contrast against the vibrant sweep of his blue, black, and gold wings. He has the most mild of expressions on his face, too, like nothing in the world bothers him. His hands though, I can see them curling into loose fists.
“It’s nice to see you’re still alive, Sunshine,” he says, eyes going half-lidded as he smiles at me. The wind picks up strands of his shoulder-length hair and sends his sapphire earrings dancing. Light refracts through them and casts a blue glow on the white squares of my checkered top. When he finally lifts his head to look in the direction of the guillotine, his smiles fades to a thin line. "The King likes to kill decoys to vent his anger, when he can't be bothered to rid himself of the real thing."
"He's killing a decoy of you?" I ask, studying Lar's white jacket, tossed casually over his shoulders. I still can't get over how similar he is to the character of Howl from the movie Howl's Moving Castle. Kills me every time. I find myself subconsciously running my tongue over my lower lip. Hard to maintain a flirty moment though, knowing some innocent dude was killed because he looks like the Caterpillar. "Why?!"
"We failed the king by losing you," Tee whispers, voice low and dark. He won't look at me now, especially not when he sees my gaze swing over to the trail of blood that mars the perfection of the white gravel pathway. At the end of it, there's a whole sea of familiar corpses, wearing hats that match the twins, one with a tail that matches the Duke's.
I know then and there that I am always, always, going to hate the King of Hearts.
"We failed the King, but he fails himself if he loses us," Dee riddles, adjusting his hat to protect his eyes from the sun. I notice that most everyone out on the croquet-ground is wearing a peaked cap of some kind. Guess it’s in fashion around here. Even the King—can't miss that handsome face, not even from a hundred yards away—is now wearing slacks, a jacket, and a hat, too.
“Oh, but he’d kill me if he could,” Chesh says, curling his furry little cat body around Dee’s neck and staring at me from eyes like two full moons in his black and white striped face. “You’ll see no by-proxy murder of this pussycat. The King hates me with a violent passion. Not a cat person, but I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.” Chesh waves his tail across his body and disappears behind it, like he’s erasing himself from existence. The only sign that he’s still there is the faintest whisper of a purr.
“This can’t be happening,” I whisper as I shake myself out and rub at my temples with two fingers. There’s no one actively being shoved onto the guillotine, but I’ll be damned if I stand by and watch an innocent person die. “I can’t let this happen.”
“Tread with care, Sunshine,” Lar whispers, tugging on one of his sapphire earrings and giving the twins’ angel wings a slow once-over. “The King is already displeased with the lot of us.”
“Yeah? Well I’m displeased at his execution factory over here,” I grind out, gesturing wildly in the direction of the bodies. There are multi-colored crows pecking at the corpses, their feathers a sea of rainbow colors that reminds me of the dyed strands in my own hair. Just over the castle wall, perching in a tree, is a row of vultures with eyes like shards of obsidian.
I shiver and straighten my coat out, starting across the too-green grass with my metaphorical hackles raised, the men trailing along behind me. The March Hare is waiting along the way, falling into step beside us, but I ignore him, cutting a path straight to the King, the Duke, and the Hatter. I do not, however, miss the mischievous little smile March tosses my way. He’s eating again—a big ripe peach this time. I wonder if he ever stops?
"Well, well, so lovely to see you again," Raiden says, the orange-color of his eyes obscured by heavy lids and thick lashes. There are two card servants nearby, holding up frilly parasols covered in hearts. They shade Raiden's pale skin from the relentless rays of the late afternoon sun. "And so soon."
The Duke snarls under his breath, claws curling from his fingertips as he whaps his tail against the lawn, creating little divots. He’s dressed in a loose white top, fully unbuttoned and flashing bronzed skin, as well as tight brown leather pants and black boots with red hearts on the toes. His gold eyes glare daggers at the Mad Hatter before sweeping my way with a heat that’s twice as powerful as the sun’s rays. Now I feel like I might need a parasol.
"You're dressing people up like your servants and then having them slaughtered?" I blurt as the King turns slowly toward me, his face drawn into this expression of intentional neutrality that scares the crap out of me. He's not scared of anyone, not intimidated by anything—not the Duke, not the Hatter, and most especially not me. "The great wonder is, that there's anyone left alive."
Glancing around, I notice that the entire entourage that was parading through the garden earlier is seated and watching … and they’re all fucking staring at me.
"Here," says the King, his dark eyes sparkling in the sun. He passes over a mallet which, unsurprisingly, is a petrified skeleton. It looks like a flamingo, you know, except for the sharp teeth in the fossilized little beak. "Take a mallet, hit a ball, Alice."
"It's Allison," I correct, watching the dark shadows flit over the King's face—both physically and metaphorically.
"Well, Alice," he says, purposely putting emphasis on the name and tapping the skull of his mallet against the soft ground. He’s tall, towering over me and enjoying looking down his perfect nose, I bet. It really is a perfect nose, too. It offsets his full mouth beautifully, the scar just barely noticeable on the right corner of his lips, trailing down his chin, and slicing across his throat. His blood-red hair ruffles in the breeze, and I’d almost find him handsome if he wasn’t such a horrible human being. Or … is he human? I don’t even know. "Why don't you play a game with me? Winner can decide when the killing stops." He lifts his hand and the human guards in their red and white suits of armor drag one of the card people over to the guillotine, cutting the creature in half with the wicked metal blade before I can even think to utter a protest.
Blood sprays everywhere, and the scream that spills from its dying throat will haunt my nightmares for years to come. My hand drops to the Queenmaker, and I have to fight really goddamn hard not to blow this arrogant asshole's head right off.
“Careful, Miss Alice,” an icy voice whispers in my ear, just before Rab appears on my right side, holding out a mallet and a ball. His red eyes meet mine, and he raises his brows as if to say you have no idea what you’re messing with here. “The King is as vindictive as he is handsome.”
I snatch the equipment from Rab as the King smirks and twists his white-gloved hand around the base of his mallet. The way he’s looking at me makes my blood boil, like he’s a farmer inspecting his cattle and finding one of his beasts sorely lacking. My nostrils flare as I struggle to hold in my temper and do my best not to think about all the eyes on me. I've never been much for public displays; I'd rather sit in a corner and read.
Allison and the Torrid Tea Party: A Dark Reverse Harem Romance (Harem of Hearts Book 2) Page 6