“Then neither is this.” But then Alice remembered his caresses, his kiss. Her heart thumped. He’d touched her.
“No, dear, you’re wrong. I know you’re his equal. The mate I’ve searched for all these years. I’ve seen how he looks at you.”
“Why do you think it’s me?” And why was her freaking heart pounding so hard? It didn’t matter. None of this mattered. She couldn’t stay. She couldn’t. Right? She shook her head, trying to stop the weird thought that said it was totally possible. Totally doable.
“Because you’ve loved him all your life. He’s been real for you all along, Alice. You have to make him see that. He must know the truth. Make him see you. Do whatever it takes—but make him see you. If you can make him see you, the land will accept you as part of itself. The curse will be broken.” Her blue eyes sparkled, black lashes quivering with gathering moisture.
Alice closed her eyes. “I can’t stay, Danika.” Though it was a ripping wound to say it. But she couldn’t abandon her life, her family. Not for a man she barely knew who didn’t want her anyway.
The smile turned into a frown. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, wee Alice.” Danika patted her hand. “Go find him, girl. Do not listen to the mad ramblings of a broken man. He means none of what he says and only half of what he doesn’t. You’ve got but two days, not even.” She glanced out the darkened window.
“That literally made no sense.”
Danika grinned, the twinkle back. “Aye, well, I guess he’s rubbed off on me.”
Stupid hope stirred like a lazy cat waking up, but Alice didn’t need hope. She needed to go home, back to the real world, and away from the pervasive temptation of a man who was no good for anybody.
“Do not abandon him now; there’s more to you than this.” Danika’s words echoed as she began to fade. When she was gone, the same door Alice had stepped through earlier reappeared.
It was her choice. She couldn’t look away from the door. The knowledge that he was on the other side of it was an incessant, hammering thought. She bit her tongue. It was her choice.
No! She wouldn’t go to him.
She just couldn’t.
Her foot twitched.
***
Rain poured around Hatter. The thunderous boom of the darkened sky made him feel not so alone. He sat in his favorite recliner, in the center of a wildflower-studded field. Wind howled, long saw grass swayed violently back and forth, cutting grooves into his bare hands, but he barely felt the pain.
Rain, like needle pricks, slapped at his face, drove his hair into his eyes. He didn’t care, didn’t bother to move or turn. He welcomed the rain, welcomed the deluge, hoping it would somehow erase the torment gnawing at his guts. Because she was here, in his world, and he wanted nothing more than to be where she was. Bathe in the beauty of a simple smile, touch her soft flesh and inhale the sensual scent of her body.
He’d kept his place normal. For her, after seeing how she’d panicked when she’d walked through the twists and turns of his home. She was a mortal. Human. A being incapable of comprehending and accepting the dichotomous nature of Wonderland where up wasn’t always up and down could sometimes lead nowhere.
So he’d muted it, kept it pretty. Banal. A white bird tumbled over and over, unable to catch its bearings in the tempest. It hurtled toward him, stick legs poking up at odd angles.
He snatched it just as it blew overhead.
What was this bird? He frowned. He should never have muted the magic. It was unnatural. And she wouldn’t stay. She should see it for what it really was and who cared if he scared her off? She’d leave and never come back. Just like the rest. All of them so fickle, foolish.
He’d sworn no more. Not after she’d left. The one he’d felt certain would be his Alice. But she’d been wicked, wanting nothing of him or what he’d offered.
The bird struggled in his grip, warmth flooded his palm, and suddenly the creature began to morph, to become what it really was. Its beak elongated, broadened at the tip.
So similar were the two Alices.
Its body thickened, turned a dusty shade of rose. Lightning struck right in front of him, but he didn’t jump. The bird flapped broad wings, the silver handle of its spoonbill tinkling with music as rain plopped harder and faster upon it.
Ozone swirled around him. He closed his eyes. But not all the same. This Alice was soft and sweet. She told him things. Wonderful, crazy things. Hunger for her, for his woman, clawed at his gut. He wanted to take her, claim her, and make her forget any petty desires she’d ever had for returning to her world.
His fingers clenched and the bird grunted, clawed feet scrabbling to jump from his lap. But he held tight, squeezing harder.
Because the moment she returned to Earth, she’d never come back. If she left, she’d stay gone. Alice would forget Wonderland. She would forget him.
The bird thrashed now, talons shredding his pant leg until he felt the heat of its claws grazing his flesh.
“No, Alice,” he muttered. Rain fell down his face like tears. Maybe they were tears. He swallowed hard, looking down at the bird.
It labored for breath. Ribs expanding, its black eyes stared at him.
“Why do you look at me like that, bird?”
The spoonbill stopped struggling, but reproach burned in the depths of pain-filled eyes. He petted the wet feathers.
“Rose feathers. Tea roses. She rose in the moonlight. Moonlight shadows her face.” He closed his eyes again, his grip relaxing infinitesimally. “Face of a goddess. My Alice, my Alice.”
“Hatter?”
That voice. The singsong rhythm made him tremble, made his blood stir and his cock twitch.
Tiny hands caressed the lines of his jaw. His breath stuttered.
“Let the bird go, Hatter.”
Soft words, gentle, gentle. Like cashmere’s caress. Anything. Anything for you, Alice.
He released the bird. And Hatter drowned in eyes that sparkled with shades of bitter beer. Her midnight hair was plastered to her face, the tiniest body-hugging blue dress he’d ever seen fitted to her like a second skin. Beautiful, so beautiful his Alice was.
“Why didn’t you leave me?” His voice cracked. “You always leave me. Always.”
She shook her head. “Hatter, I’m not them.” That luscious mouth turned down in a frown and he touched the corner, lifting it. Never wanting to see her sad, not her. Not his Alice.
She kissed the tip of his finger and it was fire. Flames. Scorching him, making him shake. Want, need. More than ever. More than before.
“It’s raining, Hatter.” She glanced around, worry in her eyes. “Lightning. It’s not good to be out here. Let’s go someplace else.”
The rain relented, gray clouds broke apart, and sunlight peeked through. A fine mist swept in, bringing with it the fresh scent of springtime and flowers.
She was trembling, but not from desire like he was. Alice was rubbing her arms. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m here. Why am I here, Hatter? Why do I keep coming back to you when you don’t care?”
He did care. He cared too much. Why? He didn’t know. Because she was so beautiful? But the others had been beautiful too. Because she liked poetry? But she wasn’t the first.
Because she looked like the other one?
He didn’t know. She was different, but he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t know how to put that into words.
“You shouldn’t be so wet,” he growled. Not a good host. A good host would never let his lady get sick. Sickness killed.
His heart clenched. Black eyes. Lifeless eyes, staring at him from a pale, heart-shaped face. His breathing intensified as the image, always fragmented and fleeting, rammed his skull.
For just a moment, he remembered. Mother, pretty mother. Sick. Coughing. Wet, she’d been wet and he’d been young. So young. He’d wanted to play. The sky had grown dark. She’d told him. Warned him. Come home when it gets that way.
He hadn’t listened. He’d
just wanted to play.
She’d come to look for him.
Two weeks later, she was dead and he was alone. Crying, with no family and no home. Then he’d fallen. Fallen.
Sickness brought death.
“Hatter?”
That voice was a dulcet, lovely thing and it brought him back, snapped him from the violence of his mind. He jerked and she watched him, wondering if he was truly insane.
He frowned. I’m not crazy, not, not crazy. He wanted to scream it and yell it, to convince her not to give up on him and his wild ramblings as the others had.
Instead, he wrapped his fingers around her slender wrists. So very gentle, lest he snap them. So frail were they. Gentle. Gentle. She did not resist.
He pulled her onto his lap. She sat, stiff as a board, smelling like caramel and salt, honey and warm cinnamon. He wanted to trace her with his hands and his tongue, to see if she tasted as sweet as she smelled.
He moved his hands, running them along the length of her spine, slow and sure. She shivered and let out a tiny whimper. But this time he didn’t think it was from the cold.
Hatter pushed heat into his palms, drying her off, steam rising from her clothing. She sighed and dropped her head onto his shoulder.
His cock grew heavy, hard against his thigh. He trembled, feeling twitchy, almost on the verge of losing control, but he didn’t stop touching her or running his fingers down the sides of her thighs, up again, and around the generous swells of her breasts. Hard nipples rubbed against his palms and he growled.
“Lovely. My Alice.”
She nodded, voice liquid as she said, “Your Alice. Oh yes, Hatter. Yes.”
He no longer skimmed her body, he began to apply pressure, to knead and touch. He licked his lips, noticing a translucent drop of water slide down her neck, coming to rest at the base of her throat.
Such a perfect little drop, clinging to her neck, suspended, frozen in time. Refracting light, catching every color of the rainbow inside its liquid cocoon. Alluring, tempting him to kiss it off, but he couldn’t, couldn’t. Because to kiss it would ruin its symmetry. He blinked. The drop quivered, then continued on its journey, and he shuddered, aching from the absence of it.
“Oh gods, Alice.” He rested his forehead against her neck. “Why you?”
She turned, straddling his thighs. The warmth of her center enveloped him like a hug and he groaned. Nothing stood between them but a mere scrap of fabric and his pants. He wanted to shift, rub himself against the heat of her body.
Her fingers toyed with the wet hair on the back of his head.
“You make me crazy,” she said, then her eyes widened as if she hadn’t meant to say that, and his heart sank. Did she think him as mad as all the others had?
She smiled, all teeth, full lips curving up so prettily. He wanted that mouth on him, all of him. He gripped the armchair, refusing to touch her anymore.
The sky started to darken again.
She shook her head. “I have to tell you something. Something that’s painful for me, but you have to know.”
His body tensed, waiting to hear her say she hated him too, that she’d lied, that she would leave, that...
“You remember in the cave when I stopped talking?”
He narrowed his eyes and nodded. She shook, and he couldn’t stop from rubbing her arms, trying to calm her, aching to hold her, yet sensing this cost her a great deal and if she didn’t tell him now, she might never muster the courage to tell him later.
“When I was thirteen,” she began, wiggling closer, eliciting a thick groan from him. “I used to have headaches every day.”
She stopped wiggling, looking beyond him. “Sometimes they were so bad I couldn’t stop crying.” Her mouth thinned. “I didn’t think anything of it. My mom would give me some medicine, and I’d feel better the next day. But then I started to forget things. Like my homework and feeding our cats. Dumb stuff.” She shrugged and gave him a small smile.
He frowned, sensing this was more than just silly stuff.
“Then one morning I woke up, and I couldn’t remember my mother’s name. My sister’s. My dad. Nothing.”
He stilled her fidgeting fingers, rubbing his thumbs along her soft wrists.
“My dad was a doctor and knew something was wrong. So they took me to the hospital.” Her eyes were haunted, far away, glittering with unshed tears. “Do you know what brain cancer is, Hatter?”
His upside-down, crazy world paused. He couldn’t seem to catch a breath. He grabbed her head and tucked it against the crook of his neck, running his hand over the back of her thick hair.
“Are you sick, Alice?” His voice was gruff, and he felt like he might choke on the question.
She didn’t say anything for a moment. “No.” She said it so calmly that it was eerie. Was she sick? She shook her head emphatically and smiled. “No,” she said, stronger, “not anymore.”
The greasy ball of fear in his gut eased up, and he took a shaky breath.
Alice pulled away from him, looking at him as if she were imprinting his face to memory. Her eyes traced the curves of his face before she spoke again. “It was the size of a golf ball. They gave me a twenty percent chance of surviving the surgery.” She grinned, but it wasn’t a happy one. It was sad, laced with memories both bitter and hard to relive. “Only time I ever saw my mother cry. But I remember after the surgery, I was lying in bed and you came to me.”
He bit his lip.
“You grabbed my hand and whispered that I would be okay.”
A wiggle, a worm of a memory tried to work its way through the muddle of his thoughts. Ephemeral dreams, never to be remembered, such fleeting, silly things.
White everywhere. The memory that had nagged at him from the moment he’d seen her began to form. Like riding through a dark tunnel and finally reaching the light... Blurry images took shape, and in an instant he recalled the dream with perfect clarity.
He’d been asleep when he’d heard a voice. A sweet little voice, crying and pleading with him to please come. Please come, my Hatter.
The call had become desperate, incessant.
Please, Hatter, I need you...
And he’d had no choice but to follow. He couldn’t sleep, not with the tears and the pleas, the way that voice had driven a spear through his heart. She’d needed him. Rarely did he visit the dreaming, rarely could he enter the consciousness of others, but he’d gone to her.
Such a little thing. Frail, skin so gray and chapped. A delicate china doll lying within a white cloud. She’d been so beautiful, silent. She’d opened her eyes and told him...
“Do you remember this at all? I’m such a freak sometimes. Of course you don’t remember. It was only a dream.” Her laugh was self-deprecating, as if she was embarrassed to admit it. Like she expected him to mock her, so she mocked herself first.
“You asked me: Was I real?”
Her face turned sharply toward his.
A black strand of hair slipped over her eye. He couldn’t help himself—he had to touch her. He wrapped the silken strand around his finger. She shivered.
His voice was raw, scratchy, but he forced himself to speak, knowing how desperately she needed to hear this. “When I said I was, you said—”
“That you were so beautiful.” Her tender words were a benediction to his ears. “And you said?” She waited for him to continue, a challenge, he knew, to see if it’d impacted him the way it had her. If after all these years, he could remember.
He smiled, the words as clear to him now as they’d been that day in the strange cloud full of beeping sounds. “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
“My favorite Confucius quote.” She turned her cheek into his palm. “You saved me that day, Hatter. I always felt like it was your magic that saved me. I fell in love with you that day.”
The ice around his heart thawed. She’d called him and he’d answered. His chest ached as the sky broke open with radiance, netting them in its golden was
h.
“Oh, Hatter.” She half sobbed and then started planting hot kisses on his face, his cheeks, his nose, and the fire that had simmered while she’d told her story roared back.
Gods, he wanted her, more than he’d ever wanted that other Alice. He growled, grabbed the back of her head, and slammed their lips together. No gentleness in this touch, he couldn’t. It’d been too long, and he’d been so empty. He needed this, her. Now.
“Yes, oh yes.” Her tiny moans drove him to distraction.
Her tongue flirted with the seam of his lips, and she tasted of sunshine. And magic. Magic? His heart’s blood sang in his ears. She was the one. She had to be. He could barely think. All he knew was he had to have this woman. This human mortal who’d cried out for him.
The Mad Hatter.
She’d not been afraid.
She’d wanted his touch.
He traced the curve of her neck; his fingers framed the hollow of her throat, thumb resting against it, feeling the frenetic beat of her pulse. He groaned, twining his tongue with hers.
His body throbbed, ached. He pushed back on her shoulders, laying her down, and she squealed. Alice glanced around. “Where are we?”
He’d not been aware he’d transported them until she’d asked the question. Barely pausing, he whispered, “My room.” Then he was kissing her again, tasting the sweet saltiness of her neck, licking the dip behind her ear.
She moaned, wiggled on him, and blood pooled heavy and thick in his cock.
“I want you,” he groaned.
Alice fumbled with her dress. She yanked, tugged, and then finally threw her hands out to the sides. “Just rip it.”
Grinning, he tore it and immediately was entranced by the sight of the red lace bra covering perfectly rounded breasts. His hand shook. “You are beautiful.”
Her lashes fluttered. “Touch me.”
He didn’t just want to touch her. He wanted to taste her. Lowering his head, he kissed the swell of each breast; his hands massaged their prizes before tugging the bra down. She had dark brown nipples, so pointed, so lovely.