by ERIN BEDFORD
I frowned. “And what’s that?” I blew a harsh breath between my teeth as Coby balmed my wounds. The cream might have smelled pleasant enough, but it stung worse than my monthlies.
“What’s what?” Carban knelt behind me and worked on the buttons on my dress. I glanced over my shoulder at him, but he simply undid the buttons and started on my laces, not once straying to touch my skin. A small pang of disappointment went through me.
“What am I supposed to do?” I asked softly.
“About what?” Coby asked as he wrapped my leg with a piece of cloth. Each brush of his fingers against my thighs caused my throat to hitch and my breath to come out quickly. Coby’s eyes met mine and an arch of his brow told me he knew exactly how he was affecting me.
I forced myself to breathe like a regular person and not some crazed harlot, then gave an aggravated shake of my head. I shifted out from under his hands and stood, my hands going to the front of my dress to keep it from falling. “It is impossible to ask you two anything.”
“Not if you ask the right questions,” Carban murmured by my ear, sending a shiver through me.
I spun around and pointed a finger at him. “Keep your distance, good sir. While I appreciate your help with the guards, I do not know you or your intentions. I’d like to keep my honor while I can.”
The twins chuckled darkly before Coby took a step forward and bowed elaborately. “My apologies, Alice. I am Coby of the Needle clan, and this is my brother Carban.”
“We have been tasked by the seer to guide you on your journey.” Carban picked up the dress behind me and held it out above me. “Lift your arms.”
I glanced at the two of them, pursing my lips tight. “Close your eyes.”
Sighing as if it were all a big bother, Coby covered his eyes with his hand.
Then Carban closed his tight and said, “Come now, we haven’t got long before the guards sniff you out.”
“Sniff me out?” I asked, dropping my dress and corset and leaving me in my chemise and drawers. At least they weren’t too dirty. My drawers had seen better days. I tried to put my arms in the dress, but Carban shifted it away from me.
“Those too.” He pointed a finger at my undergarments, his eyes still closed tight. “As far as your question, you’re human. You have a particular scent to you.” He and his brother took a deep inhale of breath, a rumbling groan leaving their throats and making me blush. “Hard not to notice. Now, take the rest off.”
My lips twisted in a frown, staring up at him as if he had to be peeking. “I won’t be properly dressed.”
Coby lifted a shoulder, and a slow smirk slid up his lips. “Who is to say what is proper? You are in the Underground now. Proper is relative.”
I shifted in place for a moment, fighting against twenty years of conditioning telling me I couldn’t do as they asked. Then I remembered. It’s a dream, and even if it wasn’t, my mother wasn’t there to chastise me for not being properly dressed. No one would know as long as I kept my skirts down. With the way my adventure had been going so far, that wouldn’t be very likely.
“I need drawers at the very least,” I argued, not completely convinced. “I’m not going to walk around with all my private parts free for anyone to grab at.”
Coby snorted. “Nothing here is free, least of all your lady parts.”
“Here, here,” Carban added then gestured with my dress. “Let’s get this on first then. We can worry about your… others.” He said the words like it was something obscene as if he were thinking too deeply on what my others looked like. It made me shift and blush. Thankfully, they still had their eyes closed.
Sighing in defeat, I threw my chemise off and dropped my shorts. Coby made a sound that made me think he might be looking, but one sharp look from me and his eyes were screwed tightly shut. I lifted my arms and stepped toward Carban, allowing him to bring the dress down onto my shoulders.
The thin blue material was cool against my skin, making my nipple pebble and my skin tingle. The sleeves ended at my shoulders in bunched-up puffs of fabric. The bodice hung loose around my chest, each movement making the material skim across my chest in a teasing manner. The skirt hung down to my knees and flared out as I twisted from side to side. I definitely needed undergarments.
“Much better.” Carban nodded and reached out to adjust part of the neckline. “I think we over exaggerated the bust line though.”
Coby moved around us and picked up the matching corset. “That’ll be fixed once we get this part on.” He started to wrap the darker blue garment around my front.
My brows furrowed. “Why are you putting it on this way? The corset should go on the inside.”
Coby snorted, lacing up the back. “What good is it then? If you get attacked, your dress will be destroyed.”
Knocking on the front of the corset bones, Carban sniffed. “Nothing is getting through this baby. Made of goblin skin, the toughest around.” I grimaced at the thought of wearing a goblin’s flesh on my body, but then Carban let his fingers trail along the bones of the corset and the thoughts of flayed goblins left my mind. “We harvested the bones from the orc ourselves.”
“An orc?” I gasped and grabbed my chest. The corset covered my breasts, cupping them and pushing them up to give my small chest the illusion of cleavage. “Does it have to be so tight?”
“You can’t let the magic to escape,” Coby explained, as if that were any explanation at all, tying off the bottom and then coming around. He tapped a finger against his bow-shaped lips, his dark brows bunched together in concentration. “I think we’ll be alright, as long as she sticks to the back roads and stays away from any boggarts.”
Carban snorted. “That’s as likely to happen as we are to fight over a woman.”
Coby grinned and then frowned at my hair. “Your hair has seen better days. Do you mind?” he asked before taking apart my mess of a hair do.
“What’s a boggart and an orc?” I forced back a wince as Coby worked on my hair.
“An orc is a large monstrous motherfucker who would sooner chop your head off and eat it than ask your name,” Carban explained, leaving the room briefly but still talking. I had to strain to hear him from the other room. “Their bones are great for armor and embedding magic into clothing, hence your corset.” He came back into the room, holding out a silky piece of cloth with two leg holes, almost like a child would wear as a nappy.
I arched a brow, taking it from him. “What’s this?”
Wagging his eyebrows at me, Carban gave me a wicked grin. “To guard your others.”
I flushed and clutched the material to my chest, waiting for Coby to finish my hair.
Carban leaned against the sink and watched us with critical eyes. “As for boggarts, well, let’s just hope you never have to meet one. They’re worse than the orcs. At least you can kill an orc. Boggarts require special spells to get rid of them, and even then, it only works half the time. Those nasty buggers are worse than lice.”
Coby pulled my hair this way and that and then, with a slight pinch, announced he was done. “Have a look.”
I turned around to look in the mirror. To my surprise, my hair no longer resembled that a bird’s nest. He had somehow, without any help from curlers or water, gotten my hair to fall around my face in soft curls, parts of it pinned up beneath a tiny top hat sat off to the side of my head. “Oh, my! Coby, you are a marvel. A real master with your hands.”
Coby leaned against the counter on the other side of me, effectively placing me between both twins. He lifted one of the curls and tucked it behind my ear, his fingers brushing my cheek. “Oh, Alice. You have no idea.”
Flushing, I ducked my head and moved out from between the two. “Uh, thank you. I’ll remember that. So, orcs and boggarts. Are they Fae like you?”
Snorting, Carban ran a hand through his hair. “No nothing like us. While, they are Fae—”
“But Unseelie Fae!” Coby interjected.
Carban shot an incredulous look at
Coby. “Yes, Lower Fae. We’re High Fae.”
“Alright, I have no idea what that means…” I trailed off and then a loud bang came from the front room. Coby and Carban darted for the door, waving a hand for me to hang back.
Coby started toward the front. “Why, hello, what can I do for you gentlemen this fine day?”
A clanking of metal echoed through the shop as an official voice demanded, “Where’s the girl, Tweedle?”
“Tweedle. I see what you did there. Twins. Needle. Oh, how clever you are, my captain of the royal guard,” Coby’s voice rose in warning.
Carban ducked his head back into the room and gestured at my hands. “I’d put those on. The guards will not be gentlemen like as we.”
I hurried to do as he said, not caring if he looked or not. “What’s happening? Why do they want me?”
Carban pushed me further back into the bathroom and backed me up against the counter. I didn’t have a chance to wonder why he was crowding me all of a sudden before his face was close to mine. “Humans are not allowed in the Seelie Court. The Queen. She’s crazy.” He shook his head as the voice came closer. “There’s no time for that. I apologize ahead of time for this.”
Before I could ask what this was, his mouth was on mine. For a moment, I froze. Shocked that I was being kissed, my first kiss, and from a complete stranger in my dreams at that. Well, it could be worse.
When I didn’t push him off, Carban’s large hands cupped my face and angled it, his mouth capturing mine more fully. My fingers curled into the fabric of his vest as a small sound escaped from my throat. I couldn’t be certain, but I think I liked kissing him. Or him kissing me. I wasn’t doing much else but letting him have his way, something I planned to rectify.
I opened my mouth, my tongue tentatively dipping out to taste his lips. Carban groaned and ground his lower half against me, one hand leaving my face to drag my leg up over his hip. The hard feeling of his manhood against my core caused me to gasp, my head falling back. Carban didn’t seem to mind, moving his lips to my bared neck.
Too consumed by the new sensations going through me at the hands of this stranger, I didn’t realize we had an audience until Coby cleared his throat. “As you can see, captain. There’s no human here. Only our lover, Ally.”
Pushing at Carban to stop, I dropped my leg and adjusted my clothing. I didn’t know what game they were playing, but if I wanted to stay alive, I would play along.
“Hello,” I demurely greeted.
Carban moved to my side, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Captain, how are you? Did you need another adjustment to your armor? We’d be happy to take a look. No charge, of course.”
The captain of the royal guards stared at us for a moment. He had large violet eyes and pale iridescent hair which peeked out beneath his golden helm. The clenching of his jaw and flaring of his nostrils told me he didn’t believe our little ruse for a second.
“No, I do not need any adjustment. What I need is for you to come with me to the palace. The queen wishes an audience.”
Carban stiffened beside me but had a broad smile on his face. “Of course, anything for the queen. We’ll close up shop, escort Ally home, and then we will head to the nearest portal.”
“No, now. Her too.” The captain pointed at me. With that command, he gripped the hilt of his sword and whipped around, marching out of the bathroom.
THE CAPTAIN AND HIS guards marched us out of the twins’ shop and down the street. If I thought I was drawing attention before, now that I had the twins and guards with me, everyone was openly staring.
“Jeez, whisper for Reaper’s sake,” Coby groused, giving the onlookers a warning glare. “You’d think they’d never seen dead Fae walking.”
“Dead Fae?” I gaped at him, fear clenching my heart.
Carban took my hand in his, squeezing it in reassurance. “Do not fret. We will do our best to keep you safe.”
Coby snorted. “Do not make promises you can’t keep. We’ll be lucky to keep ourselves alive, let alone her.”
“Enough of the chit chat.” The captain shoved at Coby, making us all move faster. “You will be lucky to keep your heads. The queen is in a foul mood this day.”
“When is she not?” Coby muttered, earning a chuckle from the other guards and a glare from the captain.
“What my brother means is… what could have irked our good queen so?” Carban asked as he tried to smooth things over, holding onto me even tighter as if someone might snatch me away at any moment.
“Her wedding gift—” one of the guards started to answer but was cut off by the captain.
“That is for the queen to answer. No more questions.”
As we marched through the town, down a cobble street before all the other Fae, my mind began to whirl. From the kiss to the pain, I was beginning to think I wasn’t dreaming anymore. If I wasn’t dreaming, then that meant Wonderland was real, and I was living in it. To take that to its ultimate conclusion, that meant I had really run away from my own wedding - not really a terrible thing when I thought about it - and I wasn’t asleep, so my family was probably fretting themselves sick wondering where I was.
Which also meant, I had actually kissed Carban.
“My first kiss,” I breathed, earning me a curious look from Carban, but he didn’t comment on it.
My fingers went to my still swollen lips and realized I wasn’t upset about it. I supposed if I had to pick anyone to give my first kiss to, better a handsome magical creature than my lying fiancé… or would that mean he was my ex-fiancé now?
I shook my head. I’d figure out the semantics later. Now, I had to worry about keeping myself alive. I just hoped the queen they were bringing me to was not the queen from my dreams. That queen, from what I remembered, had been cruel and cold, cutting people’s heads off left and right and completely obsessed with her flowers and what color they were.
I still didn’t know what purpose I was here for. In my dreams, it had all just been having fun and getting away from my humdrum life. The way things were going now, well… sans the kiss… I wasn’t having much fun.
Not to forget about this seer who claimed I was here for a reason. What reason though? What could I, a mere human, do in a world full of magical creatures who, I imagined, could kill me with a snap of their fingers?
My thoughts were put on hold as we approached a mirror on the edge of town. The mirror stood seven feet tall and had a silver ornate frame. It didn’t have a holder to stand in or even a wall to lean it against. It just floated in the middle of the street.
I glanced at the others, but none of them seemed to think anything was out of place.
The captain barked at one of his soldiers who stepped forward and touched the side of the mirror. The surface rippled turning into a silver goo. Giving it a wary look, I dug my heels into the ground when the twins started toward it.
“Come on, it’ll be fine, Ally,” Carban murmured in my ear, brushing a hand along my back. “It’s just a portal.”
The first guard entered the goo. It enveloped first him, then the rest of the guards as they stepped forward, sucking them into the mirror’s surface without a trace. Then Coby entered. When it was my turn, I swallowed hard, glancing around for any other way, but the longer I waited, the more the captain started to notice me.
“Is there a problem?” the captain asked, arching a pale brow.
I opened my mouth to answer, but Carban beat me to it.
“No, captain. No problem. Ally’s just a bit nervous. She’s never met the queen before.” Carban tightened his grip on my waist, urging me to keep my mouth shut. “Let’s go, Ally. The queen is waiting.” He brought me up to the mirror and then, without warning, gave me a little shove.
Letting out a sharp cry, I fell into the mirror. The silver goo wrapped around me cold and weirdly tingly along my skin. Thankfully, the trip didn’t take very long. I was in one second and out the next, falling into Coby’s awaiting arms.
“Why, hello,
what have we here?” Coby drew me to him, his hand low on my back, allowing me to get a big whiff of his delectable scent. I melted against him. The tips of his canines peeked out of his lips as he slid his tongue along his bottom lip.
I watched as his nostrils flared and his eyes widened. I thought he might kiss me like his brother did, but instead, he gave me a curious look before releasing me.
Carban followed through the mirror, identical to the one we had entered and stepped into the small receiving room where we now stood. The guards who had come before us waited by the door. They made no move to rush us, however. It seemed the queen wasn’t in that much of a hurry.
“I didn’t think you one to push your luck so soon, brother,” Coby teased, making his brother flush with embarrassment.
“What did you expect me to do?” Carban muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. “They would have scented her a mile away. You’re the one who said she was our lover.”
Coby smirked and slapped him on the back. “I know, right? Quick thinking, huh? However, it seems like you’re the one benefiting from my lie.” His gleaming green eyes moved to me, clearly wishing he had been the one kissing me earlier. “I don’t suppose you’d want to make it even and let me kiss you?”
I started to object and then glanced over at the guards who were watching us with growing interest. Lowering my voice, I snapped, “I don’t think now is the time to be bartering for favors.”
“So, that’s a maybe?”
“Coby,” Carban shook his head and walked toward the doorway, “let’s go.”
Letting out a disappointed sigh, Coby smiled and then offered me his arm. “My lady, let us go see what our fearsome Seelie Queen wants with us today.”
I eyed him for a moment and then, seeing no threat of him trying to sneak a kiss in, I looped my arm through his and allowed him to lead me out the way Carban had disappeared through.
The receiving room morphed into a long hallway with a multitude of doors and mirrors lining the walls. There were a few Fae with a similar look to the twins, leading me to assume they were High Fae, then there were a few creatures I didn’t recognize as any kind of animal I’d ever seen, but they all wore some kind of clothing. A vest here, a dress there. When I caught sight of a short, brown creature with a black beard and a red hat wearing only a shirt and no bottoms, I averted my eyes. It seemed the rhyme and reason to what they decided what was important to cover up seemed vastly different than home.
