Stepping back, the king pulled something out of Jor’calla’s chest—a heart. He raised it high, like a grisly trophy, and grinned. “One less problem for the future.”
One of the robots walked forward, holding an open sack, the bottom of which was glistening and dripping with dark liquid that could only be blood. The king tossed the heart into the sack as if it were nothing more than a measly pebble and flicked droplets of blue blood off his fingertips.
Numbly, Alice turned her face back toward Jor’calla. Though she’d only just met him, she mourned his death. He must’ve suffered so much—both here and in reality—but, rather than beg for his life, he’d used his final breaths to try to tell her something. He’d been trying to help her. He hadn’t deserved this. She doubted any of the king’s victims deserved this.
The king stepped back over to Alice and took firm hold of her jaw, smearing warm, blue blood over her skin. He wagged the knife toward the robots, and they released her. The king took hold of her in their stead, wrapping his arm around her and drawing her close with seemingly as much strength as his mechanized minions. He pressed the flat of his blade along her spine.
Alice stiffened and forced herself to meet his gaze, narrowing her eyes as disgust, hatred, and anger rose in her throat like bile.
“Now that I’ve concluded my business with Jor’calla, I have some time to spare for you,” he said, brushing his finger over her bottom lip in a way that, like his voice, was frustratingly familiar and unsettling—but which she could not place. “Shall we begin your lessons?”
His mouth descended upon hers.
* * *
Though the Red King was not nearly as predictable as the Hatter, he had certain habits that Shadow had learned to recognize and exploit—the most interesting of which was, perhaps, his tendency to make unnecessary displays of force.
No one was quite sure where the king’s army of automatons had come from; nobody was quite sure where anything in Wonderland came from, in fact, but there was nothing else in the whole world quite like the king’s minions. There’d always been something familiar about the faceless, unfeeling soldiers that Shadow couldn’t place, but he never let himself dwell upon that notion for long.
All that mattered was that he knew how to take advantage of their weaknesses.
He’d gone outside ahead of Alice and Jor’calla to deal with the black-armored machines, knowing they’d pose the greatest threat in this situation—the king alone was easy enough for Shadow to handle. The automatons’ eyes—or sensors, or whatever it was they were called—had always had difficulty detecting Shadow, especially when he didn’t want to be seen; that allowed him more than enough space to work.
True to form, the king had arranged his guards along both sides of the path, ten in each line, with ten more having marched into Jor’calla’s home.
Nothing sounded more entertaining to Shadow in that moment than the thought of the king ordering his soldiers to attack only for all of them to simultaneously malfunction. The king’s face would turn a shade of red that by itself would’ve been enough to justify his most commonly used moniker.
All it would take was a few disconnected wires where each automaton’s neck met its head…
Shadow had only made it through the first line when the other automatons emerged from the building, dragging Alice and Jor’calla along with them.
Alice struggled against her captors like a cornered animal, displaying a ferocity that Shadow hadn’t yet seen from her—he was equal parts proud and aroused. But those feelings quickly vanished when he realized why she was struggling.
The Red King had no intention of being nice to her. The Red King wasn’t nice to anyone. He wanted something from Alice—likely wanted Alice herself—and he wasn’t the sort to stop before getting what he desired.
Neither was Shadow.
Shadow hurried along the second line of automatons, working as quickly as he could. Leaving the machines fully functional would only complicate his escape with Alice; even if they couldn’t do much to harm him, they could certainly harm her.
But his frantic pace wasn’t enough to keep him from hearing what the king said to Alice—about making her take him with her mouth. Jealousy and rage roared to life within Shadow. He clenched his fists, digging his claws into his palms, and involuntarily released a low growl that nearly revealed him to his foe.
When the king sliced open Jor’calla—a decent person, even if he was sometimes quite rude—only a minute later, Shadow knew he was out of time. There was no more room for elaborate plans, no matter how entertaining they’d be.
The threat to Alice was too great.
Shadow was creeping around the machine soldiers, meaning to sneak up behind his foe, when the king pulled Alice against him and kissed her.
Kissed her.
He kissed her!
Shadow’s rage grew into something powerful and primal, sweeping through him from head to toe to the tip of his tail. It was heavy; it was fiery; it was raw. For as long as he could remember, he’d played his games with the denizens of Wonderland because those games were fun. And those people had looked at him like he was a freak, had called him the Grinning Ghost, the Faceless One, the Slinking Shadow. And he’d never hated any of them—not even the ones who’d been angry at him, who’d tried to kill him. It had all been too amusing.
But there was nothing amusing about this. There was no fun to be had here.
Even after witnessing the Red King’s cruelty over an unfathomable length of time, even after countless games—most of which culminated in violence—between Shadow and this man who called himself the ruler of Wonderland, Shadow had never hated the king.
Until now.
Shadow had planned to toy with the king for a little while before escaping with Alice. He’d planned to taunt and tease, and he’d been in a good enough mood that he probably wouldn’t have killed the man before going.
That was no longer the case.
Because the Red King had kissed Alice. Shadow’s Alice.
Snarling, he darted behind the king, sank his claws into the man’s scalp, yanked the man’s head back, and drew the gun from the king’s hip.
“Fuck!” The king released Alice and lifted his arm as though to reach back and stab Shadow.
“No more games,” Shadow growled as he jabbed the barrel of the gun just behind the king’s ear and pulled the trigger.
The boom of the gunshot echoed through the trees, followed a moment later by the light, splattering sounds of chunks of the king’s brain and skull raining on the forest floor nearby. Using his grip on the king’s hair, Shadow thrust the limp corpse backward.
“Shadow,” Alice rasped, her big blue eyes bright against her pale skin. An instant later, she lunged toward him, throwing herself into his arms.
He caught her in an embrace, but his attention was focused on the automatons beyond her.
The machines along the sides of the road snapped their heads toward him. Sparks flew from their necks, and small explosions blasted their heads apart in rapid, irregular succession. But the ten on the path—the ones who’d captured Alice and Jor’calla—just stared at Shadow with their glowing red eyes and lifted their weapons.
“Didn’t get them all, we’ll talk soon,” Shadow said quickly, lifting Alice off her feet and spinning her around so he was shielding her from the robots with his body.
She released a startled cry; when she repeated his name, it was with alarm.
Shadow darted forward, willing himself somewhere, anywhere, but right here.
At least half a dozen guns boomed behind him.
His foot came down on…nothing.
Chapter 10
Victor drew in a strained breath as his eyes snapped open. For several seconds, he could not release that breath; it burned in his lungs like a cloud of fire, exacerbating the dull throbbing in his head. His discomfort only began to fade after he finally exhaled.
“That fucking shadow,” he growled through his teeth
.
Clutching the arms of his chair, he sat forward. The small, dimly lit room spun around him. He squeezed his eyes shut and reached behind his head to press the release on his sim-needle. The device detached from the connection port implanted at the base of his skull and fell away.
That damned faceless glitch had been a thorn in Victor’s side for years, constantly disrupting his leisure time. But now he was also disrupting Victor’s business. That was unacceptable. This situation, this shadow, needed to finally come to an end.
Victor shoved himself out of the chair and walked toward the door. His legs felt rubbery and unsteady, and his stomach churned; being jolted out of such an immersive simulation almost always brought on sim-sickness, but he refused to be placed in a temporary comatose state after a forced despawn. That was for the patients, for the worms.
Victor Koenig was the director of this facility. He wouldn’t be stopped by a little nausea.
“That was the last time.” He threw open the door and strode into his office, his sim-sickness recoiling from his growing anger.
He’d been despawned by the shadow more times than he cared to count, but years of hunting—and many, many programmers and simulation specialists being hired and fired—had turned up nothing. That faceless, always changing shadow was a ghost in the system, totally untraceable.
Victor tugged the tablet from his belt and activated it, synching its display to the holoscreen on his desk as he sat down there. For what must’ve been the millionth time, he pulled up the patient records list and scrolled through it, scrutinizing every one of the pictures it displayed in a search for any features he could attribute to the anomaly that had plagued him for so long.
He knew the shadow was one of the patients. But which one?
“Going to find you,” he muttered. “You won’t escape this time.”
Victor paused when a familiar face appeared on the list—a young woman with blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Alice Claybourne.
He’d had her in his grasp despite Winters’s ineptitude, despite the shadow having taken an apparent interest in her. She was the point where business and pleasure overlapped. There were far more attractive patients in the facility, many of whom were far more willing, but where was the fun without a little challenge? Conquest with no struggle seemed meaningless. At the same time…she did need to die. The financial gain he’d see through her demise was far greater—and more personal—than the government subsidy the facility would receive by bringing another new patient into her soon-to-be vacant immersion chamber.
He would take care of her—but he was going to enjoy her a little first. Something about the thought of breaking Alice was particularly appealing to him, especially if it would upset the shadow.
Fulfilling those goals, however, would be complicated so long as the shadow kept close to her.
“I’m going to take my time with you, little Alice.”
An insistent, chiming tone shattered Victor’s thoughts. Gritting his teeth, he tapped the tablet screen to answer the incoming call.
The holoscreen on his desk displayed a video feed with Doctor Kade’s face on it. She wore her usual expression—a little cold and largely unreadable. One day, Victor would get her into the simulation, just to see if he could make her face change. It’d be worth the effort to see her features contorted in fear.
“What is it, Olivia?” he asked.
“You’re out early, Victor,” she said in a dispassionate but subtly judgmental voice. “Have you seen the reports?”
“No. I haven’t checked my messages. I’m well aware of Accounting’s assessments, regardless.”
She shook her head. “No, the reports from Operations. Fourteen deaths since the change was implemented.”
“Good.” Perhaps he’d not been set back by the shadow quite so much as he’d assumed. “Causes?”
The doctor raised a hand and slid up her glasses to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Cardiac arrest induced by total overload of their nervous systems.”
Victor smiled; the news was good enough to make him forget about the shadow, if only a little. “Just as you predicted.”
“Don’t you think it’s a bit much, Victor? Fourteen?”
“They’re just the beginning—and only seven were by my hand.”
“It’s been less than five days.”
“And?”
“Twelve dead of identical causes in five days, Victor, with more to come?” Doctor Kade sighed heavily and lowered her hand. “You’re going to attract outside attention.”
“Perhaps. But these are the dregs of society, the unwanted. No one cares about them. And you are going to work with Operations and Engineering to ensure our explanations of these deaths don’t draw any suspicion.”
“Victor, this is—”
Victor leaned forward and slammed his hand on the desk, silencing her. “Don’t you dare tell me how to run this facility. We are nearly at full capacity, but we need new patients coming in to boost our revenue stream. I am solving a problem.”
She pressed her lips into a tight line, and the set of her eyebrows hardened. “You’re indulging yourself.”
“And you, doctor, are already complicit in all this,” Victor snapped. “I expect you’ll handle the situation accordingly.” He terminated the call before she could respond.
The video window closed, returning Alice’s picture to its former place of prominence.
No more games, the shadow had said.
Victor agreed. Too much was on the line now to let the shadow put it all at risk. The time had come to stomp out this problem, to grind it to dust beneath his boots, to make it clear to everyone both within and outside Wonderland—Victor Koenig was the fucking king.
And Alice had a role to play in this beyond his desire to conquer her, beyond his urge to take her apart piece by piece, beyond the money he stood to gain in silencing her forever. She would be the key to finding the shadow.
Victor leaned back in his chair, drumming the fingers of one hand on the armrest while he resumed scrolling through the patient list with the other. He absently ground his teeth as he perused the faces, unable to shake his irritation and impatience—at least until he stopped on a picture of a patient with unsettling, reptilian eyes.
Victor grinned. The shadow wasn’t the only anomaly in the system—just the only one they’d failed to identify and contain. Perhaps all it would take to erase the glitch was another glitch.
His grin remained in place as he made a call.
Chapter 11
For a moment, Shadow fought to regain his balance, extending his tail behind him as he teetered precariously on the edge of a small rise, but he’d already shifted too much weight forward. Clutching Alice against him, he fell, twisting to ensure he hit the ground first.
His shoulder took the brunt of the initial impact, and then he and Alice were tumbling down a steep hill. Shadow stiffened his arms in a desperate attempt to shield her as they crashed over grass and thick vegetation.
Finally, they came to the bottom of the decline. Shadow landed on his back, and Alice came down atop him, straddling his hips with her hair in his face. Her body was light, soft, and warm, and fit perfectly over his. The fires of hatred in his veins suddenly gave way to a different sort of heat.
“Hardly seems an appropriate time,” Shadow said, “but I’m willing if you are.”
Alice lifted her head and met his gaze. She searched his face for a moment before she scooted up his body, caught his cheeks between her hands, and kissed him.
It was a desperate kiss, demanding everything from him whether he was willing or not—and he was.
Electric tingles spread across his skin, arcing outward from his lips, and the intensifying heat inside him rushed to his cock. Closing his eyes, he slid one of his hands up and twined his fingers in her hair to cradle the back of her head as he enthusiastically returned the kiss. His other hand dropped to her bare thigh, fingers flexing as he warred with his urge to pull her pelvis ag
ainst his hardening cock. Her mouth was sweet, sweeter than any cake or ambrosial drink, and Shadow gladly gave himself over to the intoxicating haze her taste induced.
When she broke the kiss and rested her forehead against his, she was breathing heavily. Shadow, though tempted to resume the kiss, was content to hold her, to feel her against him, to be engulfed by her heady fragrance.
Something fell upon his cheek, something warm, wet, and smelling of salt. He opened his eyes and looked up to see tears trickling from hers.
The sight didn’t make sense to him; was she crying because the kiss had been so good, or the opposite? Was she crying because of what happened with the king, or because she’d been hurt?
“What is it, Alice?” he asked softly, moving his hand to her cheek to brush away her tears.
“He’s dead. He was only trying to help us, and the king killed him.” She sat up and turned her face away, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Her tears continued falling. “And it was s-so awful.”
Shadow didn’t immediately understand who Alice was talking about; it was ultimately the blue blood smeared on her chin that triggered his realization. Jor’calla.
“I’ve seen the king do worse,” he said. “Jor’calla will be back soon, and it’ll be like it never happened. He’ll be okay.”
She turned her eyes back to his, and a crease formed between her brows. “Did you not hear what Jor’calla told us? What the king said?”
“I heard, but I suppose I wasn’t really listening.”
“The Hatter is dead. Jor’calla is dead! It’s true death, Shadow. They are not coming back!”
Something in the back of Shadow’s mind shifted. He wasn’t sure what it was or what it meant, but it created a dreadful, sinking feeling in his stomach that he certainly didn’t like—especially in the wake of the passion he’d felt only moments before. “They’re not dead, Alice. Death is just a…a transitory state. The Hatter is probably already back, playing with his dollies, and Jor’calla will be back soon, just as healthy and insane as always.”
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