"The Alice is like the sun that blasts away the shadows," the Turtle says, twisting his hand in a small half-circle. He summons darkness to his fingers, just like that. "But there’s always an eclipse to look forward to, isn’t there?"
"Eat shit," I say, whipping another match from the pouch on my belt, striking it, and lighting the pistol’s fuse. The Turtle begins to laugh, head tilted back, his Adam's apple bobbing with the chortle. The Queenmaker launches my little cannonball into the air, and sends it right through the Turtle’s apparition. It falls over the edge of the cliff, and explodes in a sea of fire that reaches the sky. "If you didn't come here to talk, then what is it that you want?"
"To state our intentions," the Turtle says. Just like I thought originally, he's clearly the leader of the two. "And let you know that there's only one future queen of Underland." His mouth stretches wide, flashing swathes of empty pink gums.
"There's a future queen of Wonderland," the King of Hearts says, but almost like he's bored. Apparently, their intimidation tactics don’t work for shit on diagnosed socio or psychopaths. Oddly enough, I'd almost like the guy if I hadn't seen him murder one of the poor card servants earlier. "Underland won't last long."
The Mocking Turtle—let’s call him M.T.—stretches his mouth into a grin, and I watch as he bends down and picks something up in his hand. I can't see anything until his fingers are curled around the creature. Only then do I realize he's holding a lobster, an animal unfortunate enough to actually be in the same plane as that nutjob which, in turn, makes me really glad that I’m not. I will take a Recitation any day, thank you.
The lobster’s clearly still alive, claws waving around as the Turtle lifts it up to his face, opens his mouth so wide it looks like his jaw is coming unhinged, and then bites the thing's head clean off.
It might 'just' be a lobster, but I get the idea that M.T. would enjoy it just as much—or more—if it were a kitten or a puppy … or a human baby.
“Tastes like the sweet flesh of an angel infant,” he says, licking his fingers as the Gryphon crows with laughter. Both Tee and Dee move around me, tearing their knives from their belts. But this meeting is done; we all know it.
"Get the fuck out of my kingdom," the King says, his voice like a sonic boom, just as powerful as the blast of the Queenmaker. With a snap of his fingers, he dismisses the two Recitations like fog in the wind. Their see-through visages shimmer and fade, ripped back through those red doors on the floating island. They slam shut, forming the shape of a heart and leaving nothing but the scent of rot and blood in their wake.
When the King turns back to look at me, bloodred hair dripping onto his forehead, I feel like I can see the hint of a cruel smile on his face.
"How do you feel about staying in Underland now, Alice?” he mocks, before waving his hand for Rab, the White Knight, and the soldiers to follow after him. The King of Hearts disappears inside the castle, and me, I disappear all the way up to my room.
"You have no idea how good it feels to lie down," I say, turning my head slightly to the right to look at Dee. His blue and black hair is rumpled, and his smile is sweet, but there's a shadow lingering across his face that mimics the darkness eating away at his brother's.
"We're only going to get a second alone," Tee says, pacing at the end of the bed, his boots shuffling against the shaggy white carpet. It's a very similar, err, rug to the one that Rab had in his house: white with purple spots—i.e., something’s skin. Tee lifts his amethyst eyes to mine, sending a small shock through me. He's just so damn pretty, this fallen angel prince. "Whatever you do, don't mention the Looking-Glass. If we get a chance … no … when we get a chance, I'll take you through it. Allison, I'll take you home."
"Give me a few more days," Dee pleads, sitting up all of a sudden and running his fingers through his hair. "Give me a chance to show you what you can do here, all the changes you can make. Allison-who-isn't-Alice, you can turn Underland into Wonderland again, undo a hundred plus years of pain and suffering. You can fix it all."
Dee wiggles closer to me, sliding one of his wings underneath my body and making me shiver. What he doesn’t know is that I’ve already sort of, kind of decided to stay. The night Tee and I first made love, he looked at me like I was changing his mind about Underland, too. How can I throw that away? And how can I possibly leave this place in the hands of the Red King, the Mad Hatter, and that freaking Turtle-Dick? What kind of person would I be? It’d be worse than handing Underland over to Trump. An uncontrollable shudder overtakes me.
Tee and I exchange a glance, and I swear, it’s like he’s reading my mind. His mouth twitches up at one corner.
"Who's this queen those assholes were talking about?" I ask, running my hands down my face. It's been … what? … a week and a half since I got here? And yet it feels like months. Years, even. But not in a terribly bad way. I mean, the Gryphon and the Mocking Turtle weren’t particularly pleasant, but all they’ve really done is incentivize me to fight back.
"The Alice is the one, true queen of Wonderland," Tee says, his voice pitching low. From the look on his face, I can see right away that this isn’t a subject he particularly wants to talk about. And yet … why? He’s been nothing but forthright the entire time I’ve been here. What’s so bad about this chick? "But if you liked the status quo … no, if you wanted things to get worse, how would you fight against a queen?" Tee blinks his dark-lined eyes nice and slow. "Only a queen can battle a queen."
"It's like a game of chess," Dee says, opening his azure eyes to look at me. "The king wants to be protected by a queen because in all reality, he's worthless." I prop my head up on a hand, breathing in nice and deep, past the sweet smell of sun-dried linens and soap, and pulling in two deep lungfuls of the twins’ shared scent. "So the other three kings, they'll want to go toe-to-toe with us."
"The other kings?" I ask as Dee sits up and takes his shirt off, getting it tangled in his wings and then simply tearing the fabric off like some romance novel MMA fighter. My heart starts beating like crazy because I just know that I'll have to free his wings for him again tonight. In fact, I've been fantasizing about what else that magic kiss might lead to since I saw the twins in the garden this morning. "I thought those two psychos worked for the Walrus and the Carpenter?"
"The Carpenter and the Walrus,” Tee growls, reversing my order, “aka the King of Clubs and his brother." He’s scowling so violently his face looks like it might split in half. "The Carpenter currently wears the crown. But don't worry: I'm sure they'll take over the Kingdom of Diamonds or the Kingdom of Spades next, and then they'll both wear jewels on their filthy heads."
"Did somebody say jewels?" a voice asks, just before a bag appears out of thin air, turning over and spilling a sea of diamonds onto the carpet. "Because I've brought more presents." The Cheshire Cat's kitty head appears upside down, grinning wildly at me. "I've made all of this, you know. With just my love for you."
"You're not in love with me," I say, crossing my arms over my breasts, and over the silky soft perfection of my new sleeping gown. I was going to go all modern and wear a tank and panties—because they do have that shit here—but hot damn. How could any girl resist a nightie like this? Edith drools over crap like this in the Frederick’s of Hollywood window all the time. Wait, though. Does that make this lingerie? Am I wearing lingerie right now?!
"Am so," the cat says, spinning his head around. His body appears next, like an ink drawing being traced into the warm air of the room. Outside, storm clouds have rolled over the castle grounds, and there's that same electric charge in the air from the other night. Wild magic, free magic, tainting and eating away at the landscape. I can't help but think how all of that power used to reside in the bodies of this world's women. Now, it's just a plague, like acid rain rolling across the landscape and poisoning everything in its path.
Is it any wonder that this whole world's gone mad?
"You are not," I say, throwing my feet over the edge of the bed and tucking the
m into fuzzy slippers with hearts on the toes. The King certainly has a thing for branding; all of his soldiers have sleeves of heart tattoos. Yeah. Not one heart tattoo, whole sleeves of red and black and gray. Or so Dee says. Hard to tell with all of that armor they wear. "And put those diamonds back where they came from. The last thing I want is to have my head lopped off for harboring stolen goods."
"Oh, the King would never lop your head off. Perhaps a stand-in dressed in blue and white. But never you, oh beautiful Alice." Chesh shifts in mid-air into his human form, and lands barefooted and quiet as a pussycat on the carpet. The look Tee throws him is one of supreme annoyance, but not outright hatred the way he looks at the King. Good sign, right?
“He may very well take your head then,” I say, wondering if the cat is checking out my nipples again, and debating how hard I may or may not want to punch him in the nuts.
"Have you ever heard of taking a head when there's nothing but a head to take?" Chesh's body disappears for a moment before flickering back into place. "It just simply doesn't make sense."
"Do you just exist outside of this whole hierarchy then?" I ask, moving over to a small table near the door. There are tiny cakes and pies, a pot of hot water, and plenty of tea. There's a small part of me that considers drinking it, but then I remember where I am and what's at stake.
Somewhere in this castle, there's a Looking-Glass that leads to home. To Edith, to Dad, to … sort of Mom. And on the other side of these walls, there’s a pair of mercenaries-for-hire and a mad king who wants to marry me. Either way, getting high on boosted tea is not a good idea. I pull open the door to a tiny cabinet that sits on the back of the table and find it full of FUCKING DRINK ME bottles and FUCKING EAT ME cakes. Hmm. I push it closed again and leave the small key in the lock where I found it.
"You mean why am I such an insolent little prick?" Chesh asks, coming up behind me and taking a bit of my hair in his hand. He sniffs it, and I reach back to slap him away. As soon as our skin brushes though … ugh, I'm done for. I can feel the chemistry between us brewing like a witch's cauldron. If I drank that shit, I'd probably turn into a frog. "The answer to that is simple, Alice."
"Is it now?" I ask, piling a plate high with sweets. I'll go on a diet when I get back home. Or not. Turning around, I eye the tall, lanky frame of the cat with a discerning gaze. I'm desperately trying to find something wrong with him. Like, if he had a huge, bulbous red nose with tons of pores and pimples then maybe I could pretend I don't find him attractive. But he doesn't. No, of course he has a small, triangular nose above his full, wide mouth. His striped ears twitch in his ebon dark hair, and his silver piercings catch the dancing flames from the fireplace. He's got a piercing in the center of his nose—a septum piercing—as well as one on either side of his lips, and hoops lining both his cat and human ears. "So what is the answer to your stupid riddle?"
"I'm a cat, of course." Chesh shrugs his muscular shoulders and then scratches at the line of dark hair below his belly button with long inked fingers tipped in pointed black nails. He swishes his tail as he grins at me, and I roll my eyes. I figure he followed the Duke here: he seems pretty overprotective of North. So why then is he in my room?
The doors to my bedroom fly open and in struts North, still dressed to the nines in his stupidly tight leather pants. His white shirt is still unbuttoned and flashing bronze skin, and his golden hair is shiny and straight, highlighting the wicked darkness of his horns. He flicks his tail and smashes it into the wall, rolling up his shirtsleeves as he does.
And right behind him is the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, and the Dormouse.
"This is a ridiculous violation of my rights," the Duke says, and he sounds savage all over again. My skin heats up, and his eyes whip over to mine, the corner of his mouth raising up in a small snarl. He thrashes his tail again, knocking a sugar dish to the floor and breaking it, then crosses his arms over his chest. "This bloodsucking demon is demanding a room in the Suit of Hearts—one of the Suitor's Rooms, to be specific."
"You're telling me," the Mad Hatter starts, tilting his lazy top hat in my direction, "that I'm asking too much? The Alice is my future bride, after all." His orange eyes flash as he smirks at me, taking in my nightgown with a very discerning edge. There’s no doubt that he is checking out a whole lot more than just my nipples.
"You're a real piece of work, aren't you?" I ask as March helps himself to a heap of pink heart cookies from my table. He nibbles one and twitches a single brown ear in my direction, his dark eyes flicking to each of the twins and then over to the cat. I get the idea that the Mad Hatter is the brain of this operation, the Dormouse is the muscle, and the March Hare is the eyes, ears, and nose. He twitches his like he’s scenting for something. “Like I didn’t notice you disappeared the second the Gryphon and the Mocking Turtle showed up?”
“Calm down and have some wine, Alice,” March says, blinking big brown eyes at me.
I grit my teeth and curl my hands into fists.
“I don’t see any wine,” I choke out as March tilts his head to one side.
“There isn’t any,” he says as Raiden chuckles. The Mad Hatter pulls his cane out from beneath his hat, tapping it on the floor as he makes his way over to one of the leaded glass windows next to my bed. He stops to gaze out at the pouring rain like it has all the answers.
“Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” I snap, raking my fingers through my tangled hair. It’s time for bed—like way past time—and here I am with an entire harem of men in my room.
“It wasn’t very civil of you to accept the Hatter’s hand in marriage if you weren’t going to let him stay in your Suit. A Suitor does belong in a Suit, after all, you must agree,” March drawls lazily, snapping a heart cookie in half. The Dormouse grunts from behind him, and I see this quick flash of annoyance on March’s face as he turns to look at the much bigger man. Dor has a Neanderthal’s thick head, and arms that are hairier than the Cheshire Cat’s fluffy tail. Gross.
“This girl don’t look like much to me,” Dor grumbles, shaking his head and ruffling up his brown hair with thick fingers. “Don’t see why we’re even bothering. Let’s kill her and the jabberwock and be done with it.”
“You are most certainly not qualified to comment on muchness,” March growls with a dramatic roll of his eyes, finishing his last cookie and taking up a cupcake next. “You’re not much in the way of muchness, yourself.” Dor narrows his eyes like this is the worst insult he’s ever heard in his life while I’m standing there trying to puzzle out what their fucking conversation is even about.
“Certainly it’s standard for a Suitor to live in the Suit,” North interrupts, digging his dragon nails into his palm and making himself bleed. I start to move over to stop him when Chesh rubs his cheek against the Duke’s shoulder and lets out a fierce purr. After a moment, the Duke of Northumbria stops and gives Chesh a scratch behind the ears, visibly less upset than he was a moment ago. “But Miss Liddell has only just arrived, and it’s custom for the primary to assign each man his Suit.”
“Tee is my primary,” I blurt, and all the men turn to look in the twin’s direction.
“The King is the primary, surely,” North starts, but I’m already shaking my head and waving my arms.
“No, no, nope. No fucking way. You tell that asshole if he wants to play ball” —I pause because that reference is clearly lost on these guys— “metaphorical croquet with me, he’ll listen to my demands. The first is that Tee and Dee stay with me at all times.” My throat clogs up, and I have to force the next words past my lips. “And the Duke.”
Oh, and the look he gives me … it’s so savage.
“Well, then,” March says, drawing a key out of the front pocket of his velvet trench, “you’ll be wanting this then.”
“The Queen’s Key,” Dee chokes out, and he looks like he’s about to have a heart attack. “Where did you get that?!”
“I pinched it, of course. The King should take better care of hi
s things, don’t you think?” He flicks the key in my direction, and I just barely manage to snatch it out of the air, uncurling my fingers to find a gold key with a heart on both ends, one big and one small. When I look up, March gives me this slow, dangerous little smile before pointing over to one of the paintings on the wall.
I follow along and glance over at the framed art piece. It’s an intricately rendered oil painting based on John Tenniel’s—the original illustrator of the Alice books—illustrations. Or … is it the other way around? This particular painting is of the Mad Hatter, mouth open as he sings Twinkle, Twinkle Little Bat to Alice. The only difference between this piece of art and the original, is the small gold lock in the center of the Hatter’s bow tie.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” I whisper as I shuffle across the carpet, the men’s eyes following my every move. As soon as I lift up the key and touch it to the painting, it slides into the lock and turns. The entire frame swings forward as I step back and find myself looking into a long stone hallway dotted with torches in the shape of top hats.
My eyes narrow as I turn to look at Raiden Walker, vampire-mercenary extraordinaire.
"Remember when I agreed not to leave the Duke naked in jabberwocky territory?" the Mad Hatter asks, twisting his hat around on his head. It keeps spinning long after it should've stopped. "This is all I asked for in currency. Well, this and a million coins." He flashes a vampire grin, strides up to me, and leans down to whisper in my ear. “Remember: not until you beg.” He stands up and just laughs when I punch him as hard as I can in the arm.
“You can sleep in there with the door locked,” I grind out, pausing to glance over my shoulder at the March Hare and the Dormouse. “But they have to go.” The look Dor throws me in that moment is pure hatred. If the Hatter let him off his leash, he’d probably tear me into little pieces and lap up the blood.
“Dor will go; March stays.” Raiden turns to go and then pauses, nose twitching as he glances back at the twins. He studies them for a long, agonizing moment, and then smiles. It’s not a very nice fucking smile, I must say. “I thought I smelled angels. Interesting.” With an exaggerated wink, he saunters down the red runner that covers the hallway’s stone floor.
Allison and the Torrid Tea Party: A Dark Reverse Harem Romance (Harem of Hearts Book 2) Page 9
