"Although I suspected when I first met you. Why do you think I had you come down to the ship so early? Coulda let y'all sleep in while we loaded cargo, but I wanted to get a good look at ya." She grins at me, pulls a knife from her belt, and promptly picks her teeth with it. "So, where's your dress then?"
"My dress?" I ask, because in the excitement of the last few days, I realize I haven't actually seen the damn thing. Got measured and fondled and caressed by Rab, but I never picked out fabric or anything. I don’t even know what style of dress it is that I’ll be getting. My bet is … that it’s gonna be red which is fine by me. Just so long as it’s not pink. "Good question."
"The dress will be delivered in …" Rab starts, stepping out of the painting on my right, the one with a white rabbit wearing a waistcoat. He's shirtless again, running his hands down his body in a way that just can't be accidental. He points to one of his clock tats. "About two minutes."
"Perfect," Lory says, settling herself into a wingback chair in the corner. "I'll wait and you can try it on for me."
“We’ll have a fashion show,” I say with a smile, sitting down on the bench at the end of the bed to eat my muffin and drink my coffee. “I’ll show you mine; you show me yours.”
“Bloody can’t stand dresses,” Lory says, shaking her head and sending her braids flying. “Makes me sick to my stomach; I’ll be wearing my military uniform. You’re more likely to see Dodo in a dress than me.” She slides her knife back in its sheath and grabs a muffin. “Hear you lot got into trouble last night.”
“And who’s spreading that rumor?” Tee asks, hanging up a pair of identical outfits on a hook. Must be for him and his brother. Really, they’re just nicer, more frilly versions of what they usually wear. Red military style coats, white button-ups, ruffled cravats, and black boots. The matching hats have giant red feathers sticking out of them.
“It’s all over the castle. Nobody’s stupid enough to miss the card servants scurrying to the hole in the back wall.” Lory glances over at Rab as he lays out the stack of clothes draped over his arm on my rumpled bedspread. Chesh leans over to sniff the items and wrinkles his nose. He doesn’t appear to have any intention of dressing up for the ball.
Fuck, I don’t even know if he’s invited.
Then again, he did practice dancing the quintrille with us, so maybe the King isn’t as he stupid as pretends to be? If he excludes Chesh, I’ll be pissed.
“Yes, well, we had some late-night visitors,” Rab says, popping behind the bathroom curtain and stripping down. Lory barely glances his direction, grabbing an apple and peeling it with her knife. The motion of her hand on the blade reminds of me of March, of the two Rabbits shifting into bandersnatch form to face the enemy. “But that’s been taken care of.”
“The Knave looks to have her knickers in a wad this morning,” Lory says as Dee picks candied insects off the pastry selection on the refreshments table. “Guess she’s finally realized she’s never getting Brennin Red’s dick, eh?”
“That’s about right,” Dee says with a yawn, turning around to see me scratching at my new tattoo with a chipped fingernail. When Rab comes out from behind the curtain, running a gloved hand over his white ears and dark hair, he pauses and grins at me.
“You like what you see, Sonny?” he purrs, and I raise an eyebrow. This is some gorgeous ink, but I cannot get over how it came to be. I look at the empty spot on Rab’s arm, and then back down at the lacey cameo of my new tattoo.
“Getting this … was one of the weirdest experiences of my life,” I say, tapping my fingertips against the tattoo and making a mental note to myself: during visits home, I need to cover my moving clock tattoo with pants or a long skirt. Not sure how I’d explain this fresh ink to my father.
Not sure how I’ll explain my two week long absence either.
My throat gets tight, and I push that thought aside. I just need to get through this stupid ball, and this stupid dance, and then I’ll figure out how to get into the Looking-Glass. Lord knows I’m no chess champion. Fuck, I barely know the names of the damn pieces.
“I’m so glad you enjoyed yourself,” Rab purrs as I stuff the rest of the muffin in my mouth. He moves over to stand beside me, cracks his knuckles, twitches his ears. His body starts to shrink, his ears get round, his nose flushes pink. Within a few seconds, Rab is sitting on the carpet in his mouse form, looking up at me with red eyes. “I’ll be with you the entire night,” he promises, climbing up the leg of the bench to sit beside me.
“Oh, how delicious,” Chesh purrs, clawing at the air above Rab’s head. “I could just eat you right up.”
“Do, and see what happens when I become a bandersnatch in your belly,” Rab teases, whiskers twitching. I will not forget what he said last night, twisted up into a magic induced conundrum. Royal blood, huh? I need to know what this third form is; it’s killing me.
“Put some nice clothes on; you’re dancing the quintrille tonight in front of the whole court.” Tee lays out an outfit for Chesh, too, and the cat’s ears go back in frustration. He obliges, stripping down and changing right there in front of Lory. She raises her eyebrows but doesn’t ogle. Guess she knows cat’s don’t give a shit about nudity; they will literally put their buttholes right in your face while asking for pets. Thankfully, Chesh hasn’t done that to me … yet.
There’s a knock on the door, and we all pause. Dee moves to open it, accepting a big red garment bag and four different sized boxes from a card servant’s creepy human hands. He slams the door in its face, and spins around, the bag dangling from his fingers. He hands off the towering stack of boxes to his brother.
“Excited, Allison-who-isn’t-Alice?” he asks, smiling from ear to ear.
“More like terrified out of my fucking mind.” I put my coffee aside and stand up, unzipping the bag and trying not to cringe at the amount of poof and lace that explodes out. “Oh dear,” I mumble, pushing the garment bag back to get a good look at what’s inside.
There’s a dress, a short coat, and a corset. And from the looks of the boxes in Tee’s arms, I would guess jewelry, hat, shoes, and … undergarments.
“Hmm.” I pull the items out, handing the coat and corset to Chesh while I lift the dress up for examination.
It’s a red ball gown with a satin bodice and a heavy skirt comprised of yards of flouncy, lacy fabric. It literally bounces when I shake it, and I narrow my eyes. I was hoping for something more modern, like the bat dress I wore last night.
“This is positively medieval,” I murmur, and Dee chuckles. The dress has off-the-shoulder sleeves, a heart-shaped neckline, and a deep V where the satin bodice dips into the skirt. I hang it up on another hook, cringing a bit when the hook reaches out to assist me, scooping up the wooden hanger from my hands. I take the black and white striped corset with the gold buttons out next and hold it up, imagining it layered over the dress.
Things are starting to look up.
“Okay, I can work with this,” I say as I take the velvet coat and add that to the ensemble. It has three-quarter length sleeves, epaulettes, fringe, and long coattails in the back. The front of the jacket should hit me at about mid-waist.
Tee sets the boxes down on the bench and removes my coffee cup before it gets a chance to spill.
Dee's like a kid at Christmas, tearing open the top box and pulling out a garter belt and thigh-highs.
"Oh Hearts on a card," he groans, rubbing the garments against his cheek. I snatch them from his hand and sigh.
"I'm not wearing these," I say, chucking them onto the bed where Chesh bats at them playfully. "I'll wear plain cotton panties, thank you very much." I shove the lingerie box aside and check out the hat box instead.
Inside, there's a crown.
A fucking crown.
It looks like the King's, gold with big red diamonds, sharp points pricking my fingers as I run a fingertip along the top rim. The bottom is padded with white fur speckled with black spots, big roses—real roses—clustered on one side.
When I place it on my head, I feel it seal to my scalp the way the Mad Hatter's top hat did last night. A spell. Which reminds me …
I take the crown off and hand it over to Tee.
"Take a look at this," I tell him, wondering where Lar is. I could use his help checking over the spells in my new clothing. Like I said, I'm not stupid: I don't trust the Knave for shit. Moving over to the nightstand on the left side of the bed, I pull out a wooden box filled with the March Hare's test kits.
I'm going to use every single one of them.
The door to the room opens and I feel a huge shock of relief when the Caterpillar waltzes in, dressed in red and looking fucking scrumptious in his new outfit. Of course, he's wearing a half-shirt under his red jacket which is a little weird, but I can see his beautifully taut stomach muscles, so I'm not complaining.
"You're here," I say, glad to see that Lar's recovered fairly well after last night. When the vision in his wings shattered, and that dust went floating everywhere … fuck, I was worried. He smiles at me from across the room, his red earrings catching the light.
"I wouldn't miss your dress delivery, Sunshine," he says, turning to the red monstrosity and drawing a sigil in glowing gold over it. I move up beside him and open the first kit. I'm going to test several spots on this damn thing, just to be sure. "How are you feeling this morning?"
"Like total crap. Yourself?" Lar smiles, but he doesn't respond for a minute, drawing the same sigil over the corset and then the jacket. Nothing happens, and he doesn't say anything, so I'm assuming there's nothing wrong with the outfit.
When my first few test kits come up clean, I start to get annoyed.
I was almost hoping the idiot Knave would do something like poison or spell my dress, just so we could catch her embroiled in bullshit. My instincts are still screaming that something is wrong with that woman. You don't just lust after a position of power your whole life, and then roll over and take it when someone steals it from you.
No freaking way.
"Sleeping next to you, that revived me," Lar says, and I can't tell if he's joking, flirting, or being totally serious. He turns to glance at Lory, giving her a small nod of acknowledgement before he tests my new high-heeled boots, my jewelry, and even my stupid lingerie. "It's all clean," he says, but he defers to Tee for a moment. "Look it over yourself, too, see if there's anything I might've missed."
"Who are we distrustful of?" Lory asks as Tee touches the clothing with his fingers, rubbing the fabric together between like he's searching for residue or something. I don't know anything about angel powers, so I have to assume he knows what he's doing. Then again, assumptions make an ass out of you and shins, and …
Jesus Christ.
I’m mad, completely and utterly mad—and loving it.
"The Knave," I say with tight lips, and Lory nods her head.
"Good on you. I wouldn't trust that crazy bitch for nothing. She was the one who vetoed the King when he wanted to send food down the river. She let whole cities starve and then burn."
Well.
That's new information.
I wait for Tee to finish his inspection, and then raise an eyebrow.
"Everything looks legitimate," he tells me, trying for a smile. "But that doesn't surprise me. The Knave is smart. If she were to try something, it'd be more subtle than tampering with your dress."
"You're probably right," I say with a sigh, rubbing at my forehead. "This world is just making me paranoid."
"This world makes everyone paranoid," Chesh purrs, lying on his back and looking at me from eyes the color of a wild storm. I take the dress off the hanger and give it a long, lingering look. "Well, I suppose I could do worse for my first official ball. I wore jeans and a wifebeater to junior prom. This'll be a new experience."
I whisk myself off into the bathroom to shower and change into my outfit—which, of course, just has to include the white breastplate gifted to me from the White Knight. It’s supposed to give me courage, right? And tonight, I am going to need that shit in spades. Err, in hearts? Anyway, you know what I mean.
Tonight, Allison and the Alice, they'll be one in the same.
Wonder how the Knave will like that?
The ballroom looks completely different with the double doors thrown open, hordes of people moving between the foyer and the dance floor. Their outfits create a sea of shimmering red, white, and black, the fabrics shining under the flickering flames of the chandeliers.
I feel completely fine with the way the day is going until I'm standing outside those doors, starting to notice the ripple in the crowd as people turn to stare at me. This breastplate is supposed to give me courage? I call bullshit. I feel like the Cowardly Lion.
"We've got you," Dee whispers, giving my hand a squeeze. He's got his elbow through mine while Tee takes up a similar position on my other side. The cat is on my shoulders, lounging and probably napping, while Rab-mouse sits in the pocket of my velvet jacket. My makeup is done thanks to Tee because I have little to no makeup skills of my own; my rainbow hair is coiffed, this time thanks to Dee because … well, you get the drift. Lar stands just behind and to the left of me, like I really am a Queen and in need an escort. Hell, maybe I do because the White Knight stands opposite him, flanking me.
Wonder if someone will try to kill me tonight?
My panties are dry, my weapons are strapped in place, and my heart is pounding like I've just run a triathlon.
"I can't do this," I whisper as my throat closes up and I find that my feet have ceased to move. "I don't want to do this."
"Do crowds frighten you so?" a cool voice asks from behind me.
I don't need to turn around to know that it's the King.
Fuck.
I steel myself and glance casually over my shoulder, like I just can't be bothered.
But oh. Oh. Ooooooh.
The King looks good, wearing his lazy crown, his red and white robes framing his lean but muscular frame, a decorative sword hanging at his hip. He's got a huge, furred cloak on, too, and I get the weirdest urge to wrap myself up in it. Or … let the King wrap me up in it. When he moves, I notice the pants beneath his robes are black and white striped, very matchy-matchy to the corset beneath my breastplate.
Ugh.
"I'm fine," I say, turning back to look at the sea of unfamiliar faces. "I just don't care for parties."
"Oh, you don't?" Red drawls, swaggering up to stand beside me. "That's too bad. You'll just have to suffer through this one." He snaps his fingers and several very human guards clear the crowds away from the doors, unrolling a red runner and sprinkling it with bloodied rose petals.
Like, really?
We're going to do the whole song and dance routine?
A Rabbit wearing the Castle Heart emblem—a broken heart intersected by a sword—on his surcoat, runs up the aisle with a trumpet. When he puts it to his lips and blows, every single person in that room goes silent.
"I hope you weren't thinking to make an entrance without us?" Raiden asks, appearing on my other side. While the King is dressed in luscious red and white robes, Raiden is drenched in black, save the single rose decorating his massive, wilting velvet top hat. He's got on a pair of leather pants, a ruffled top, and a white tie covered in black bats. The March Hare is dressed similarly, except his tie has little brown rabbits all over it and his shirt is white. He's also wearing a much smaller hat … and eating a pear. Plus, he's got a whole series of glowing vials around his neck that I can only guess contain poison of some sort.
He flicks an ear in my direction as he takes a bite of the fruit, spattering his beautiful lips with juice.
I look away, toward the ballroom.
There's a set of steps that lead inside, and at the bottom of them, I see the Knave and her husbands waiting.
Fantastic.
Usually we enter the ballroom from the downstairs entrance, so I've never actually come in this way. Maybe that's why I never really noticed how fucking cavern
ous this place is? I mean, I knew it was big, but standing up at the top of these steps, it looks like a football stadium, full of judgmental courtiers and women dressed in military uniforms decorated in badges. Each of them is surrounded by clouds of men, and none of them look very happy to see me.
The general population, however, people like Dodo and Lory who are waving at me from the center of the room, seemed thrilled.
"I'm going to puke," I whisper, no longer giving a shit that the King is standing right next to Tee. The elder twin grudgingly steps aside, ruffling his feathers in annoyance, so that Brennin Red can take my arm, pulling me ahead of Dee and giving the cat a glare so intense, I swear it makes me sweat. Or maybe that's the three hundred pounds of lace and tulle I'm dragging around? Or perhaps it’s the thousands upon thousands of stares from the Court of Hearts?
"Please wait until after the quintrille, then you can be sick all you want in the privacy of your own room." Brennin pauses as the Duke strides up to us, wearing red breeches, a white shirt with tiny heart buttons, and the most ridiculous hat known to man. When he pauses next to me, he sweeps the hat off from between his dark horns and takes a ridiculous bow, tail trashing behind him.
“My mate, the gorgeous Allison Pleasance Liddell, the Duke of Northumbria awaits to accompany you to the ball.” I smile as North stands up straight and replaces his stupid hat with the giant cluster of feathers. His gold eyes sparkle as he takes me in and licks his lips appreciatively. The King simply rolls his eyes at our exchange.
“Fashionably late, as usual, North,” he says, letting the Duke take up on my other side. “Thank you so fucking much for joining us.”
“Anytime, Your Majesty,” he purrs as the King parades us over to the top of the stairs where the trumpet-wielding Rabbit is waiting. He lifts the instrument to his lips, gives three sharp blasts, and then unrolls a parchment scroll to read from.
"His Majesty, the King of Hearts, would like to formally present his future Queen of Hearts, the Alice, to the court. Make your judgments, state your intents, and if you should protest, now’s the fucking time. For tonight only, all executions are stayed!"
Allison and the Torrid Tea Party: A Dark Reverse Harem Romance (Harem of Hearts Book 2) Page 28