Under the Lies

by A. K. Koonce

  Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Prologue

  Also by A.K. Koonce

  About the Author

  Under the Lies

  Copyright 2019 A.K. Koonce

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover design by Covers by Christian

  Interior art by Killer Book Covers

  Editing by Polished Perfection

  No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without express written permission from the author. Any unauthorized use of this material is prohibited.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  One

  Madison

  It’s a blaze of hate that’s searing through me as I walk with forced calmness. Each step I take is like a countdown to destruction, the ticking of a bomb, the sparking of a fuse.

  Leering slices through the crowd all around me. The people of Wonderland are fully displaying who they really are now, and these Elders, they’re cruel.

  They’re violent.

  They’re deadly.

  And they’ve focused all that nastiness on the one person they never should have touched.

  From his place on the ground, Alixx Stone’s bright eyes watch me as I pass through the shoving and yelling audience. His big wings are lowered, sitting in the dirt with a tired look of surrender.

  The heat of the sun and the sweat of the bodies around me are hardly felt as I walk to him.

  All I feel is that desperate look in Alixx’s eyes as he shakes his head at me over and over again, pleading with me to walk away.

  And let him die alone.

  With force, I break through the mass of screaming Elders, and the moment I step into the grassy clearing where only the prisoner and his jailers are lingering, a quietness follows me. I hear their whispers crawl along my skin, but it’s Elder Liddell who’s pinning me with a questioning gaze.

  “Madison, my d-d-d-dear.” He shakes his head as if he can work out the craziness that’s creeping into him. “Please go inside with your friends. I-I-I-It’s going to be a long evening, I’m afraid.” His trembling fingers straighten the old top hat on his head, and it takes me a moment to decide how best to handle someone like Liddell.

  I suppose I should fight craziness with craziness, the one trait I seemingly inherited from my demented grandfather standing before me.

  Pain slices through the wound on my leg as I lower myself down right in front of the poor little prisoner. I bet this is the first time in his life my assassin’s ever been on the receiving end of torture like this. I can’t help but wonder if the danger of it all is really registering for him or if it’s another twisted adrenaline rush for him.

  Alixx’s eyes eat up my every move as my palm lifts and my fingertips bring his chin up to fully meet my gaze.

  “D-d-d-do not touch him!” Liddell demands.

  These people have said that to me over and over again since the moment I laid eyes on this man. And it’s all I’ve wanted to do.

  I never look away from Alixx.

  “People always say that,” I whisper to the man just inches away from me. “They keep saying it, and it keeps making me want to do it even more,” I tell him.

  A small smile cuts across his lips, a touch of madness and a touch of affection there.

  “Why is it you never listen, Sweetheart?” Alixx rasps out on the saddest voice I vow I’ll never hear leave his lips ever again.

  My heart pounds so hard that I know exactly why that is.

  “It’s because I love you, Alixx.”

  His eyebrows lift high, his lips parting just enough for me to kiss him in a slow drawn out display of total love and deviance.

  A single kiss has never said fuck you like the one I share with Alixx Stone. Our love hushes the hate. It silences the violence with a single brush of our mouths, a stroke of our tongues, a bite of his teeth.

  Or so it seems.

  Big hands knock into my back, pressing me down to the ground hard enough that my cheek slams into the dirt. A hot copper taste floods my mouth as dirt billows up all around me. Chaotic noise climbs into the air all over again, screaming loud enough that I can’t hear the chastising words of Elder Liddell.

  And it’s all a distraction that I needed.

  Mick’s body pressing me down sets off the assassin in front of me. I know he won’t fight for himself, but he’ll fight for me.

  The magic that locks him in place trembles against an unseen force, shaking as he himself begins to shake, muscles tensing, eyes narrowing, jaw grinding.

  Magic explodes around him in pressing waves.

  It sends me back, and then even more slashing energy is all around me. A pounding beat sinks into me like a drum reverberating all through my body. It’s a terrifying thing that I can’t find the source of.

  Until I see Kais taking slow, calculated steps, booming energy into the very earth itself with every single step he takes. Power drifts off of him like smoke fuming up from a gleaming ember. His entire body is held differently. There’s something in him. Something dark that shadows over his existence as he looms over the man pinning me to the ground.

  And then fire combusts.

  Blinding light like pure hellfire alights his palms, and he sears that light into the man pressing down on me. Screams and shuddering agony crawl out of Mick’s mouth as something slices right into him, right through him, splitting him down the middle from the abdomen up as hot blood washes across my skin and sprays up across the man standing over me.

  And then Mick slumps against me.

  And dark, deadly eyes look down on the bloody mess he’s made.

  The same adoring eyes I love so much.

  Kais is a killer.

  I’m just now seeing him for everything I always knew he was. In another life, he was a soldier, a great and admirable soldier. But he’s done following orders. He’s made that evidently clear in this slaughtering moment.

  He shoves the dead body off of me with the gentleness of his boot, and then I mirror him. I try to mimic him the way I mimicked Lighton’s smoke ability. Energy courses through me, I feel it clawing through each of my veins until it settles in my palms.

  Faint white light, pure burning fire settles in my hands.

  It feels chaotically euphoric.

  The screams and the stumbling of Elders rushing back to the castle climb around us. Liddell’s slit eyes glare back at me from over his shoulder as he shoves his people aside to rush into the safety of his home.

  Brody guides Cat over to our side, both of them fighting to get past the throng of Elders. Lighton rushes by them, and he’s at my side in an instant, taking in the sight of my fiery palms and bloody clothes.

  “We need to leave,” Lighton says, his hand slipping down my hip and pulling me away from the cowering crowd.

  “No, we need to strike. Now,” I command.

  Lighton’s brown eyes widen as he looks back at me. “If it were just them, I’d agree. They may lack magic, but they have other ways to harm us.”

  “What can they possibly have that could be a match for us?”

  A crawling cry rips throu
gh the air. A familiar barbaric sound that shudders fear right down my spine.

  “Fucking wingless monkeys,” Lighton growls.

  Those things already sliced up my throbbing leg just hours ago. And apparently, they didn’t stop at the base of Creatures’ Cliff.

  A storming herd of the abused, tattered creatures tear into the earth. Long claws and longer fangs snap in the wind, their body’s ambushing anyone that’s close enough, tearing into innocent people that stand between us and the hundreds of beasts that are rushing closer and closer with each passing second.

  I have no idea if Liddell did this or if the thrashing creatures followed me here.

  Either way, we’re fucked.

  “Where do we go?” I glance to the castle and then to the glistening blue water that surrounds us on nearly all sides.

  A small arm brushes mine, and I nearly leap out of my skin from the startling feel of it. A small blond boy with a tired expression looks up at me. “You know you’re going to owe me for this, right?” the Profit says.

  “Preston!” I fling my arms around him, but he winces from my heated touch and shrugs me off.

  “Stop. Affection costs extra.” He nods as if we’re meant to follow him, but I can’t imagine where.

  The thundering feet of beasts are closing in, so it’s not much of a choice at all when we all follow the mysterious boy to the edge of the earth, his gaze set intently on the distance.

  Everything Preston does is just a little bit off.

  So when he takes one more step, his foot held just above the drop that tumbles down into white wafting water that surrounds us, it’s no different. He free falls without care into the endless expanse of deep blue water.

  “Fuck the what?” Lighton takes a cautious step back, stumbling and pulling me right along with him like he can protect me from poor decisions made by my friends.

  “It is a nice day for a swim.” Alixx glances at me like he just wants to look at me once more.

  “Or a death,” Lighton says exasperatedly as Kais rolls his eyes.

  With his wings ruffling in adjustment against his back, Alixx walks to the edge, and I think he might really do it, but he comes back to me on hurried steps and, as his friend holds me, he presses his lips firmly to mine.

  Kissing him will always be a little bit of perfect heaven and a little bit of tortured hell, all rolled into one. I lean into him, but it’s a fleeting flick of affection.

  “You’re sure you love me?” he asks as he steps back. One foot after the other, he walks backwards, closer and closer to that deathly edge.

  He stands there teetering on the balancing inch that’s left of the world, wind lifting his inky hair up from the deadly scar that slices across his smooth skin.

  Alixx looks like an angel set against the crisp white clouds and blue sky.

  He looks divine. Innocent. Perfect.

  “We don’t have time for this.” Kais shoves the man’s shoulder, and Alixx doesn’t even waver as he dives right in with the biggest smile cutting across his lips.

  Kais looks back at us, his icy gaze shifting from me to the man who’s anchoring me solidly to his chest.

  I’m suddenly reminded of all those times people ask if all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you follow?

  I guess we’re about to find out.

  Warm fingers push firmly against my hips before pulling me hard, Lighton following me with every stumbling step I take. And then I’m pressed between their chests, their hands and their bodies holding me so close I no longer feel threatened by the world.

  I feel entirely safe surrounded by their strength.

  Even as Kais jerks me harder against him, the salty wind catches my long hair, and all three of us fall forward into the great unknown.

  It was never a choice at all.

  I’d follow these reckless men to the edge of the world and even farther.

  Literally.

  Two

  Madison

  The stinging chill of the waves slams through the safety of their arms, breaking us apart on impact. Panic claws into me as my limbs flail through the thick water enveloping me. My lungs burn for air in the darkness of the depths. I reach for someone, anyone, anything to guide me.

  But I’m alone. And once again, I’m fighting for my life in Wonderland, unsure which way’s up and which way’s down. It’s a terrifying sinking feeling within my stomach that drops nearly as fast as my body as I descend lower and lower despite how hard I’m kicking. My fingers dig into the liquid like it might pull me up if I try hard enough, like I might still have a chance of living if I just reach the surface again.

  More and more I drift, and when my shoes hit bottom, sinking into soft sand, bubbles of air flit up in front of me as the last little ounce of hope I was clinging to pushes from my chest.

  It’s nothing compared to the total fear that rips into me as my feet begin to sink. Sand slides into my boots, and the earth itself swallows me whole. It devours me in the span of a single second.

  It all presses in on me. It crushes my lungs, my thoughts, my body entirely.

  And spits me out on a damp, hard floor, my palms slicing over the rock just before my face lands there as well.

  A small, wet boot thuds in front of my lashes.

  “Took you long enough, shit,” Preston says with an echoing sigh.

  My head lifts, and I slowly take in the dimly lit area. Dark shadows make up the room aside from a few lanterns nailed to the rock wall. The floor is covered in divots and puddles. Everything is cold here. A fifties style arm chair is positioned next to the fire built into the stone, and Alixx sits there with one wet leg thrown carelessly over the other like he might make himself a gin and tonic at any moment. It’s all very odd, and the small cot pushed against the far side of the room only highlights that along with the strange kitchen-like counter on the other side. It’s…a cave.

  Beneath the sea. Beneath Wonderland.

  “What is this place?”

  Preston swallows slowly, his gaze shifting away from me.

  “It’s a hiding hole. When the demands of the two kingdoms become too much sometimes, I come here. Just…get away for a bit. From everyone.”

  An ache flares to life in my heart. That’s the most childlike thing Preston’s ever said. Wanderlust and Wonderland use him. They abuse him just like they do everyone else.

  And sometimes…he runs away from it all.

  It makes me wonder if he once did the same thing when he lived with his mother, who also used him. In the surface world, if his supernatural abilities to communicate with the other side ever got to him, where did he hide then? When this little boy’s abuse became too much, where did he go?

  Maybe he dived into the sea just like he did today.

  A thudding, slapping weight hits the ground at my side, big arms and long legs tumbling against my body all at once. I peer over to find two drenched men.

  Lighton lies on Kais’s chest, gasping and coughing up water while Kais just glares up at the cavernous ceiling above like he can’t wait for this moment to pass. Lighton’s body trembles, grinding into the man beneath him, and he clings hard to Kais’s shoulders like he might just drown here on dry land.

  That’s Kais’s limit apparently. His palm collides with Lighton, and he shoves his friend off, bumping him into me as Lighton rolls between us.

  Light takes another shaking breath as those amber eyes look up at me from beneath long, damp lashes.

  “You come here often?” His smirk tilts at one side, and I can’t believe he’s so ridiculous after all of that.

  But it does make me smile.

  I lower my head and just lean into his big body. Warm hands push along my wet shirt, and both of us just lie there and try to steady our breath and aching lungs.

  Two more bodies fall into the cave, but when graceful heels land on their feet, I know it’s Cat, as stealthy as ever.

  Brody, not so much.

  The sound of his body thudding to the
floor almost pulls me from my rest, but I hear Cat settling in at his side, whispering sweet words to him in the quiet.

  “How long can we stay here?” Kais’s deep voice carries through the cave in a smooth melody.

  Boots shift against the ground, and when I look up, Preston is pacing the length of the room.

  “For as long as you like. But to be honest, you can’t hide here forever.”

  “I beg to disagree. This hole you’ve made for yourself is a hundred times nicer than anything in Wanderlust,” Alixx says with a nonchalant lift of his hand.

  The boy shakes his head slowly.

  “Go back to Wanderlust,” Preston says flatly. “Tell them Madison isn’t Alice and you all were discarded like everyone else in Wanderlust was. They’ll accept you.”

  “And we’ll rot there. All of those people will rot there, Preston,” I grind out through clenched teeth, finally finding the strength to stand up with pain shooting through my beaten and battered legs.

  “And that’s better than death. Because if you go back to Wonderland, you’ll die!”

  A gasp pushes from my lungs like he slapped me with those words.

  It’s such a dramatic thing to say. If it didn’t come from a prophet, I’d shrug it off. But this boy, he keeps saying that to me.

  “Madison dies?” Cat asks even as she shakes her head like she refuses to believe that. Her big bright eyes look to me almost helplessly.

  Preston looks up at me as well, but he can’t seem to meet my eyes.

  And then he nods.

  My heartbeat is this slamming force like I can outrun all this. If I try hard enough, I can beat all of this. If I just try.

  “That’s not going to happen.” I tip my chin up, my shoulders squaring even if all I want to do is crumble to the ground.

  “Why are you so fucking careless?” Preston growls. “Even in the surface world. You fucking could have beat cancer, Madison. You could have done it. But you’d rather fight for everyone around you rather than yourself!”