But one thought refused to be silenced, one voice continued to whisper in the back of his mind—I almost lost her.
The truth of it was undeniable, and its implications staggering, terrifying, soul-crushing. He could not shake it. His nascent calm was swallowed up in a flare of desperation—but that desperation was not purely driven by despair. A familiar fire rekindled low in his belly.
He needed Alice. Needed to be as close to her as possible, needed to feel her body, warm and alive, against his. He needed to feel as though he were one with her.
Shadow drew his head back, buried the fingers of one hand in her hair, and slammed his mouth down on hers. After her initial shock, she returned his kiss, matching his fire and desperation. Her fingers curled over his shoulders, and the press of her little nails, even through his clothing, was divine in the wake of all they’d just experienced.
Holding her tightly against him, Shadow shifted to get his feet beneath him. Once he was standing, he guided her legs up and around his waist, supporting her weight with one hand on her ass. He didn’t want to pull his lips away, didn’t want to break this physical contact with her, but he also couldn’t have her here, like this, amidst the aftermath of the attack.
He forced his eyes open and broke the kiss. Blood—Sithix’s blood, primarily—was smeared on her face, dress, and arms. He wouldn’t have that. Wouldn’t have her tainted by this. Wouldn’t have Alice, his sweet, determined female, mired in the trappings of death.
She opened her eyes, brow creased in concern and confusion. “Shadow?”
And still, he couldn’t help but look at her lips and long to kiss her again, right now. “Hold your breath, dear Alice.”
She searched his face for a moment before offering him a small nod. She drew in a deep breath and pressed her lips together tightly.
Shadow phased into the middle of the stream. The cold water was a jolt, but the discomfort was worth it for the way Alice clung to him. The rushing water washed away the blood that had clung to their clothing and skin within a few seconds. He phased again, much farther this time; they rematerialized hundreds of feet upstream, on an embankment overlooking the water.
Alice’s lips parted as she gasped for air. Within the next instant, Shadow reclaimed her mouth in a hungry, desperate kiss. Her hands clutched at him, and her thighs tightened around his waist. Though he could still smell a hint of blood, it was Alice’s scent—warm honey and creamy vanilla—that engulfed him.
He moved forward blindly. Water weighed them both down, pouring from their bodies and clothes, but he clasped Alice to him, refusing to let go, and stopped only when her back was against the trunk of a tree. He kissed her in reckless abandon, making full use of lips, tongue, and teeth, and she returned the kiss just as eagerly, her breath raw and ragged. Fire blazed through his veins.
“Now,” Alice rasped against his mouth, dropping her legs from around his waist. “I need you now, Shadow.”
Whatever conscious thoughts remained in Shadow’s mind were swept away, replaced by a driving, consuming need. In a flurry of motion, he moved his hands under her skirt, hooked his fingers under the waistband of her pants, and shoved them down. The scent of her arousal struck him immediately, and he groaned. His palms brushed over the smooth skin of her legs until her pants were at her ankles. She kicked the garment aside while he removed his own pants, nearly tearing the fabric in his rush to have them off, in his desperation to feel her bare skin against his fur.
His erect cock sprang free, throbbing and hungry. He looped his arms behind her knees, lifted her high, pinning her against the tree, and thrust into her eager sex with a guttural growl. Alice gasped, head thrown back, and grasped his shoulders. A powerful shudder coursed through his body as her tight, hot, slick walls clamped around his shaft. He released a shaky breath.
This was what he’d needed. This was where he wanted to be. Where he belonged.
In her arms.
* * *
The pain of Shadow’s entrance into Alice’s body was a flicker compared to the all-consuming need raging within her. Her mind and body were swept up in a maelstrom of desire that left room only for him. His cock, thick and hard, throbbed inside her, spearing her with its heat, and his body caged her against the tree, leaving no room for escape.
But she didn’t want to escape. She was exactly where she wanted to be. With Shadow.
Limbs trembling, Alice lowered her face, opened her eyes, and met his gaze. His eyes blazed with unspoken words—they were filled with so much passion that there couldn’t possibly be the right words, in this world or any other, to adequately convey it.
Shadow rolled his hips back, sliding his shaft almost entirely out of her, and slammed forward again. Alice’s breath hitched as pleasure unfurled inside her. He did it again, and again, each of his movements measured and deliberate but at once savage in their intensity. Breathy moans escaped her lips, and her fingers tightened on his shoulders. Her breasts bounced with his every powerful pump.
His rhythm faltered as he released another low, rumbling growl. He shifted a hand to her ass, squeezing her flesh, and slapped the other against the tree trunk. She heard wood splintering near her head and glanced toward his hand to see his claws buried deep in the bark.
Alice brushed her forehead against his arm, eyelids fluttering as the sensation within her continued to build, coalescing within her core. Every stroke of his ribbed cock sent an electric shock through her body.
Lifting her legs, she wrapped them around his waist and turned her face back toward him. His eyes—burning with teal fire—fixated upon hers; she felt like he was looking straight into her, like he’d opened something within himself so she could look back into him.
No one had ever looked at her that way. She’d never thought it possible to see so deeply into a person, had never imagined that simple eye contact could carry so much weight.
But she knew he was holding back—and she knew it was because he feared doing her harm.
Alice trusted Shadow. His dangerous hands, with those lethal claws that could tear flesh to shreds, had always touched her only with gentleness, reverence, and care.
Sliding her hands over his shoulders and up his neck, Alice slipped her fingers into his hair and rasped, “Let go, Shadow. Give me everything. All of you.”
His eyes flared, and the heat in them intensified. He slipped his tongue out and ran it over his upper lip, which peeled back to reveal his fangs. This wasn’t his mischievous grin—this was a ravenous expression, and it ignited an inferno in her core.
Shadow sped his pace, grunting between his thrusts and his ragged breaths. Each time he pounded into her it was with more force than the last. Soon, his hands dropped to her hips, anchoring her in place and leaving her no choice but to take all of him. He dipped his head and ran his lips roughly over her cheek, jaw, and neck. His breath was hot, and the light graze of his fangs against her sensitive, flushed skin was thrilling.
Alice wrapped her arms around his neck and did all she could—she held on. She was his, wholly and completely his.
Her back scraped against the bark, and she could feel the bite of his claws as they curled into her skin, but she didn’t care. All she could focus on was his body and the way it moved, on the way he moved inside her. She was mindless with growing pleasure, which spiked higher and higher with every brutal thrust of his cock; the tiny twinges of pain on her flesh only enhanced that pleasure.
Shadow snarled against her neck, thrusting into her once more, and Alice shattered. She cried out as waves of ecstasy swept through her. It was unbearable, it was rapturous, it was glorious. She clung to him as her body shuddered and tightened around him. Her sex gripped his cock, seeking to pull him in deeper and hold him captive, but Shadow pounded in and out of her in a frenzy. She buried her face against his neck. The pleasure was staggering, almost too much to endure.
“Everything, Shadow. Everything,” she moaned. The sensations roiling through her were so powerful that sh
e couldn’t hold back the words burning in the back of her mind; they came out in a muffled rasp against his throat. “I love you.”
Shadow’s motions faltered. He tensed, and spasms wracked his body. The sound he released rumbled up from deep in his chest, emerging as something half-growl, half-roar—but it was, unmistakably, her name. He pounded into her with one final, forceful thrust, and then sagged forward, pinning her against the tree with his body as he buried the claws of both hands in the bark.
Alice held onto him, her limbs trembling and weak, and tried to catch her breath. Her sex continued to contract around his cock as aftershocks of pleasure swept through her. She loosened her grip on his hair, released a contented sigh, and stroked her hand down his back, wishing it was his bare body against her palm and not his jacket.
Sweat coated her skin, her damp clothing clung to her uncomfortably, chafing her, and the bark dug into her back, but for all that, Alice was perfectly happy where she was.
They stayed like that for a time—not that time held much meaning to Alice in those moments—their bodies connected as they slowly eased from the heights of their passion. When his breathing was finally steady, Shadow leaned back and looked down at her. He searched her gaze before he spoke.
“What was it you said to me, Alice?”
It took Alice a moment to understand what he was asking, and once realization struck, her eyes rounded.
I love you.
She hadn’t meant to say those words out loud. They’d been lurking in the back of her mind, whispering to her, but she hadn’t yet acknowledged them, didn’t even know if they were true.
They felt true when I said them.
Even spoken in the heat of the moment, they hadn’t felt any less true.
“Am I crazy, Shadow?” she asked.
His brow furrowed as he tugged a hand away from the tree and brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek, his current tenderness wholly at odds with his wildness from only minutes before. “Why would you be crazy, my sweet?”
“Because of this place. And you’ve called me crazy more than once before. So…I must be losing my mind.”
“Firstly,” he said, his lips tilting into a strange combination of skeptical frown and amused smirk, “I ought not to be looked at as a good judge of anything like that. You may be surprised to know that I’ve had a brush or two with madness in the past, myself. And this place…” He raised his eyes, looking straight up, and then looped them around in a circle—without moving his head at all—until he met her gaze again. “Well, it’s not real, so there’s no need to let it affect you.”
“But this is real,” she said, tightening her arms and legs around him, pulling him closer. “We are real.”
He groaned, and his eyelids fluttered for a moment. “Yes, we are. And the things you do to me, Alice…” Shadow grinned and purred appreciatively.
Alice’s sex contracted around his cock as his purr rattled through her.
He shuddered, his shaft twitching, and leaned his forehead against hers. “Now, what was it you said to me?”
Alice closed her eyes. “I must be mad. We only met a few days ago, but I already feel like I know you better than anyone, like I…need you. But I don’t really know anything about you.”
“I wouldn’t worry yourself too much on that last point,” he said, with oddly morbid humor in his voice. “I don’t know much of anything about me, either.”
Alice smiled, and tilted her face up just enough to rub her nose against his cheek. She opened her eyes and met his. “And despite all that…I love you.”
His grin vanished, and his face became suddenly solemn—more so than she’d seen since she met him. He searched her face, nostrils flaring with his slow, steady breaths, and swallowed audibly. A troubled crease appeared between his brows, and the muscles of his jaw ticked.
Doubt and embarrassment washed through Alice, chasing away the pleasure she’d felt only moments prior. She drew her head back and looked away. It’d been foolish of her to let the words slip, to have admitted to saying them. She and Shadow had only just met. They were still strangers. Circumstance had brought them together in this virtual world, and though they were attracted to each other, though they desired one another, that didn’t necessarily equal love.
Maybe…maybe what she felt wasn’t love. Maybe…
No. It was love. And the knowledge that he didn’t feel the same for her, the chance that he would laugh in her face or reject her, was too painful to bear.
“I-I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…” She pulled her arms away and allowed her legs to drop from his waist. “You can set me down now.”
But his hands caught the backs of her thighs well before her feet touched the ground, forcing her legs back up. He released one only to cup the side of her face, press his thumb under her chin, and turn her face up.
The seriousness hadn’t left his face, but something burned in his eyes—something subtle but intense.
“You have changed everything for me, Alice. Turned my world upside down. I can’t even tell what’s real anymore, can’t tell if everything I’ve ever known is true or an elaborate lie…but like you said, this is real. We are real. And even if I don’t fully understand it, I know my love for you is real, too.”
Her heart thumped as warmth blossomed within her chest. “You do?”
He answered her with a kiss, wholly unlike the one he’d given her before their joining. His lips were tender, sensual, and caressing, and his tongue worshipped her mouth once she granted it entry.
Alice wrapped her arms around him and moaned as he slowly pumped his hips. There was no desperation in their lovemaking now, just a gradually building pleasure, just the joy of sharing in each other’s warmth, the contentment of their bodies and hearts coming together as intimately as two people could. Despite the slower pace, they were soon carried away on a swelling tide of pleasure that left them trembling against each other.
Chapter 17
Alice and Shadow spent the night in the woods, with the stream’s burbling long forgotten behind them. When darkness came—true darkness, during which not even stars or moon gave off any light—she curled up in Shadow’s arms, unburdened by fear. He would keep her safe.
She knew what they had to do, but Alice was reluctant to proceed with their plan. What if, once they left this simulation, once they left Wonderland, nothing was the same? What if she never saw Shadow again? What if he wasn’t even in the same facility as her? It wasn’t impossible that Wonderland was a network connecting numerous facilities, each containing hundreds or thousands of patients. And Shadow didn’t even know who he really was, didn’t even know his real name. How would she find him once they got out?
Alice snuggled closer to him, and Shadow released a contented purr and tightened his arms around her. Her connection with him was stronger than any relationship she’d had in her life.
I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to lose him.
And it was with those thoughts that she’d succumbed to sleep.
They resumed their trek shortly after waking in the morning light, with only a brief side excursion—Shadow vanished for nearly a minute, and when he returned, Sithix’s knife-laden belt was buckled around his narrow waist.
Though his nearness urged her onward, Alice’s reluctance to go to Rosecourt, toward what was meant to be their escape from Wonderland, hadn’t diminished. They held hands through most of the journey, and even when their hands weren’t touching, they remained in contact—with his tail brushing softly against her leg, or Alice holding onto it while he walked slightly ahead. He seemed unwilling to let her out of his sight, unwilling to let her out of reach. And she understood; she felt the same way about him.
Even in this world, there were too many things that could tear them apart. There was too much threatening their togetherness.
Night did not fall again, but it felt like they walked for days, like they crossed hundreds of miles. Despite that sense, Alice was never once
bored or tired. Shadow’s presence soothed her, and his conversation—sometimes rambling, sometimes more lucid than she’d ever heard him, but always entertaining—filled the time perfectly.
At some point during their travels, she realized that she hadn’t eaten anything since arriving in Wonderland. Even that realization didn’t awaken her appetite. Thirst and hunger didn’t seem to apply here—she’d only had some water at the stream in all her time in the simulation, not counting the drug-laced drink that had been forced upon her by Madame Cecilia. By now, she could simply accept that food and drink were for enjoyment rather than necessity in this simulation; it made as much sense as anything else. She still found it odd that she needed to sleep—it was as though her mind needed a break from Wonderland every now and then.
Alice’s favorite times were the handful of stops they made—not because they delayed their arrival in Rosecourt, but because those were the times during which she and Shadow made love.
The forest was, maddeningly, both incredibly consistent and impossibly varied. Though their appearances remained the same, the plants seemed, at random intervals, to change sizes, and at a few points all the colors were completely different—blue leaves, purple trunks, flowers that were the inverse of their usual colors. Alice and Shadow occasionally traveled through areas that were decidedly not part of the forest, the most memorable of which was a neatly tended garden that seemed to be made in the proportion of the trees and plants surrounding it. The barriers between flower beds—barriers that would’ve been perhaps six inches tall back home—stood almost as tall as Alice, and the stone benches set throughout the garden were high enough that neither she nor Shadow could even see onto their seats. The weatherworn statues, many of which depicted cherubic figures in various carefree poses amidst the flowers, were titanic.
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