“It’s beautiful.”
He shook his head. “Not this.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him what, but he was already leading them straight toward the water, splashing in, and giving her no choice but to follow. She braced for the cold, but it never came. It was warm, soothing. They sank in, water covering their heads. She held her breath.
Everything was black. How long would she have to hold her breath? Did he know where they were going? She looked around, searching for a cave, an opening with a pocket of air. Trying to stave off the panic, she hoped it wouldn’t be too much longer. He wouldn’t hurt her. He might want to, but he wouldn’t. She knew that, trusted that, felt it in the depths of her soul.
They sank deeper and deeper, and she was growing more and more dizzy
She tried to yank her wrist out of his hand; she needed to get back to the surface. Air was a desperate need now, her body shaking and her throat on fire. A blue glow radiated in a flash around them. He looked at her and frowned.
“Alice?” The glow added shadow to hollows, giving him a sinister appearance. “You can breathe here.” He demonstrated by inhaling deeply.
Her lungs burned. They were empty, deprived of sweet oxygen. She’d never gone more than thirty seconds at the beach without gulping for air. Black dots swam in her vision.
She wanted to trust him so badly.
He shook her shoulders, wearing a frantic look. “Do it, damn you, breathe!”
And then the matter was out of her hands. Instinct took over and she sucked, waiting for fluid to fill her lungs. Drown her.
It was thicker than air, but clean, fresh, with a hint of salty brine. She could breathe. She sucked in harder, greedy for more. And then she laughed a desperate choking sound of disbelief. “I’m breathing water.”
He closed his eyes for a brief moment. Then that hot gaze of his, the one that made her want to strip off her clothes and his, demanded she look at him.
“You must know, Alice, I would never hurt you. Never.” His knuckles grazed her cheek, and she felt that touch move like lightning through her limbs. Her nipples hardened into painfully sharp peaks.
His eyes danced with light again, a swirling pattern of movement, a chaotic rhythm that matched the frenetic beat of her heart. She held her breath again as he leaned closer, his body heat pressing against her. Lips touched hers, a feather-soft whisper at first, hesitant. Exploratory.
She curled her fingers into his jacket, and he groaned. The rumble vibrated her chest, and then he was not so soft, not so gentle. He was demanding, kissing, touching, tasting, sucking on her lip and swiping his tongue across the seam.
She parted her mouth on a loud moan and he darted in, massaging her tongue with his own. He tasted so good, like spring rain and wildflowers, and then his hands cupped her ass, making her burn and shiver as she moaned loud and long.
Alice pulled him closer, wishing she could crawl inside him, lose herself completely to the untamed sensations he yanked from her soul. Her fingers slid through the thick waves of his hair. Soft silk.
He was kissing her face, her cheeks, her jaw, her forehead, the tip of her upturned nose. Her body was alive and dizzy with joy.
She slipped her hands under his jacket, and taut muscles flexed under her touch. If she were a cat, she’d be purring. She pouted when he pulled back. His breathing was hard, but his grip on her was tender. The caress of this thumb trailed fire, raised goose bumps.
Had anyone ever looked at her like that before? She touched the corner of his mouth, a mouth that had consumed her. Passion lay buried in the man, deep and bottomless. She wanted more. She wanted all of it.
A loud croak shattered the mood. Without her even noticing, they’d stopped sinking. She was standing on the bottom of a lake and a fifty-foot frog stared at them.
“Hatter?” She gripped the collar of his jacket.
“This is what I wanted to show you.” His nose was in her hair. Alice felt hot and cold at the same time, her body tense and loose. How could having a man sniff her hair turn her on so much?
She dropped her head onto his chest, loving the sound of his heart beneath her ear.
“Would you like to see?” He sounded anxious and nervous. Sweet. She smiled.
Did he realize how hard it was for her to focus when he touched her? She looked back at the big, ugly frog and wrinkled her nose. “A warty frog?”
His eyes glinted.
“Oh, Hatter.” She couldn’t help teasing him. “Just what every girl wants to see when she’s out on a date with the hottest man alive.” She fanned her face, not noticing how he’d stilled.
He dropped his hands, almost making her stumble back from his abrupt release. She frowned as he walked toward the green-skinned beast.
Just like before, when it seemed she was finally starting to make headway, he’d gone cold and walked off. She clenched her fists, nails biting into the palms of her hands.
Damaged goods. He was totally damaged. So why did it not make her want to run away?
It went deeper than her lifelong obsession with all things Wonderland. This wasn’t a book, and he wasn’t a faceless ideal. The Hatter was in pain. For reasons she could barely understand, she didn’t just want to help him; she wanted to make him better. Wanted to see him whole again, the perfectly wonderful, madcap Hatter.
She rubbed her arms and followed. He stopped by a webbed foot. The frog didn’t budge. It just sat, staring at them with the empty-eyed stare of a predator.
She tiptoed to Hatter’s side and slipped her hand into his lax one, trusting him, though her knees knocked at having to stand so close to the thing.
His fingers were spread, loose, and for a second she worried he might reject her. Then he sighed and gave her a squeeze.
“Ancient frog beneath the waves.” His deep voice rolled through the eerie blackness. “Hiding treasures of olden days.”
The frog’s giant mouth opened, a red yawning maw of death. Its pink tongue whipped out and wrapped around their bodies, the sticky wetness making her yelp. And then it swallowed them.
Alice held tight to Hatter’s hands. She’d show him she didn’t always panic, even though in her mind, she was frantically screaming.
Thankfully, the ride didn’t last long. She landed with legs sprawled, flat on her butt.
Hatter, of course, looked as devilishly delicious as before. Not a thing out of place. His clothes were perfect, his brows were raised, and every hair on his head was exactly as before.
He was laughing, and while the sound made her legs weak and stomach flutter, she was not happy that it was at her expense. Alice held her hand out to him with what little pride she had left.
“You know, you could be a gentleman and help me up instead of staring at me like I’ve grown a third eye.” Her cheeks burned when he jerked her up.
His hands rested casually on her hips. It seemed like he found any reason to touch her now. Not that she minded; she only wished it wouldn’t always be so hot and cold with him.
She crossed her arms and huffed.
He grinned and her heart jerked. He was breathtaking when he did that.
She turned her face to the side, and then her eyes widened when she finally noticed where they were. And the moment she noticed, the cave came alive with a roar of ticktocks.
Thousands, hundreds of thousands, of clocks hung and sat in every conceivable corner of the place. They were mounted inside the rock face, beneath the thick sheet of glass she walked on. Funny ones, nautical ones, bedroom clocks, grand domed clocks with large golden chimes dangling beneath; she’d never known there were so many different types.
Each clock was set at a different time so that some rang the top of the hour while others were just starting a day’s rotation, and some even spun in reverse.
“What is this place?”
He dropped her hand and walked to the center of the room, spreading his arms wide. “My ticktock life. Six o’clock, teatime. Don’t be late. Time. My t
ime.” He was mumbling again, his eyes glazed, lost in a different time and place, looking lovingly at each clock.
It was easy to believe he was crazy when he looked like that. His smile became a frown. He looked at her, and the madness evaporated. “I’ve lost my way, Alice. I’m no good. I’m lost in time. Pieces of myself. Do you understand?”
She’d started walking toward him before she was even aware of doing it. Like he was the spark to her fire, she needed to touch him, needed it as much as she needed her next breath. She reached, smoothing her fingers over his pinched brows, and he shuddered.
“What happened to you, Hatter?”
He took her hand, fingers tight on her wrist.
“Is it Wonderland? Has the magic made you crazy?”
He shook his head, eyes wounded, distant. She gripped the side of his face, forcing his eyes back to her and away from the madness that always pulled at him.
“I am time here. Don’t you see?”
What did that mean? “Are you saying you are time?”
He nodded.
“You?”
“Sometimes...,” he whispered, “sometimes I wish I could leave.” His voice was so low she barely heard him. As if he was afraid to speak too loud. “To be free, unhindered. To work with my hands.” He blinked, and she knew by the way his shoulders tensed up that he struggled to remember something. “But I can never leave. And you never stay.”
She dropped her hands. “But I’ve never been here before, Hatter.”
He gripped his hair with his hands and yanked, hair stuck out in different directions. “Always you. Haunting me, driving me crazy. Making me want what I cannot have.”
She denied it, shaking her head so hard the top hat slipped off. “Hatter, that wasn’t me. That was my great-grandmother. I’m not her!”
He growled and walked up to a cherrywood mantel that appeared like a specter behind him. He rubbed his fingers against a clock face with the obsessive compulsion of a man who’d done it many times before.
“All the same,” he muttered, “you all come, so beautiful. Smells—” He shuddered. “Gods, you all smell so good and I want you, but you’re all selfish, spoiled, and the land says no. And so you go and you never look back; you never remember the man lost in time. Time moves and it gets easier. I can breathe; I can forget. But then it’s time again and I’m weary, weary... weary of you all.”
She covered her mouth, a lump in her throat and hot tears behind her eyes. He didn’t want her at all. Danika was wrong—he couldn’t forget her great-grandmother or apparently any of the others. She wasn’t special to him. How could she be? They barely knew each other. She was just a face passing through.
He turned, brown eyes sparking with frosty hints of frightening anger. “And then you. You’re the worst of them. Quoting poems, telling me”—he swallowed—“things that I cannot believe. Trying to understand me. Always touching me. The heat of your body reaches to me. None of the others did that, none of the others cared. They only wanted the power or they wanted to go. You want to go too, don’t you, Alice?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. “Why aren’t you afraid of me?”
She lifted her chin. “Because I’m not.”
“Why!” His face contorted into a mask of rage, and it was more than anger. Pain glittered in the depths of his eyes.
Alice squeezed her eyes shut, her truth burning the tip of her tongue. Did he really want to know, did she have the strength to tell him?
She gazed at him. Others might see him and see anger, fury, blinding rage. But she couldn’t. “Because...” She swallowed, opening herself up to someone in a way she’d never dreamed to do again. “When I was thirteen, I—” had brain cancer. She couldn’t say it. She desperately wanted to. Wanted to explain, but she didn’t have the strength to dip into memories that brought back nothing but pain and paralyzing fear.
“What?” he demanded. “I share my soul with you, and you give me nothing? What!” he demanded, and her heart bled.
“Oh, Hatter.” She covered her face. “I... I want to, but...”
“But,” he said with a sneer, “but, but, but! Prove to me you’re different and choose to stay, Alice. Be mine. Choose me.”
She jerked, wanting to so bad. More than he could ever know. “What if I jump back and forth, visit family. Then...”
“No.” He growled it and her eyes widened.
“It can’t be all or nothing, Hatter. I’ve got responsibilities.” She didn’t want to go. But why did he demand all or nothing? Why couldn’t he share her? Fact was she’d be more here than there, but she didn’t want her family to worry. She wasn’t like him—this wasn’t home. Why couldn’t he understand that?
“I want you more than I’ve ever wanted another. Damn you, Alice, damn you all!”
He threw his fist out. It crashed into a clock, forever silencing it beneath crushed glass. Like a frightened, wild beast, his eyes were wide—the whites large and the irises menacing. Heaving air like a bellows, lungs and chest expanding like the devil come to claim her soul.
But instead of frightening her, it only made her sad. Yes, she wanted him to see her, Alice Hu, the slightly geeky girl who loved to read, bake cupcakes, and paint her toenails. The girl who’d dreamed of someday becoming a success like the rest of her sisters.
But she couldn’t blame him. How long had Alice after Alice been thrust at him? No wonder he didn’t remember her. She couldn’t imagine having to endure this torment year after year.
“I’ve only got two days left, Hatter.” She held up two fingers. “Just two. Why fight?”
He cast his eyes down, jaw clenched, muscle tensing.
She thumped her fist against her thigh, the clocks’ ticking sounding like thunder in her ears. “Can’t we try to be friends?”
Why did she want that so bad? If it was all or nothing with him, then she couldn’t stay. She’d be leaving. So why couldn’t she just let this thing fade into nothing?
“Go away, Alice,” he whispered, and the words hurt her more than she’d thought they would. She winced. “Go back to your room. To the garden. I don’t care.” He turned his back on her. “Just go away.”
He didn’t want her. She closed her eyes, feeling disturbingly close to tears. He was a mess, a red-hot mess. Too much baggage, too much trouble. He was not the man she remembered. Maybe he never was, maybe she’d seen him through rose-colored glasses, turning him into something he could never live up to.
“I don’t know how to get back.” Her calm voice betrayed nothing of her quiet despair.
An outline of a door shimmered before her.
He leaned against the mantel, fingers running over the same spot as before. “It will take you anywhere you wish to go.”
He wanted nothing. He didn’t turn, didn’t move, not when she walked toward the door, not even when she turned the knob. She peeked around the corner, hoping he’d turn around, tell her he didn’t mean it. Hoping that the Hatter who’d kissed her senseless, would return.
He didn’t move.
She wanted to laugh, not because it was funny, but because she was bleeding and if she didn’t laugh, she’d cry. Alice opened the door and walked away.
Chapter 10
“Why are you here?” The high-pitched voice pierced Alice’s skull.
Alice glared at Danika, hating the fairy in that moment. Hating her because Alice had been happy—she’d had her dreams and hopes, but coming here had dashed them all and made them seem much less exciting and wonderful. “Because he doesn’t want me.” She shifted on the bed, pulling her knees closer against her chest. “I wanted to go back home. The stupid door was supposed to take me anywhere I wanted.” She looked at her feet. “I wanted to go home,” she said again in a reed-thin whisper.
Four hours later, alternating between anger, woe-is-me dejection, and a horrible need to cry, she’d finally come to the realization that the Hatter she’d known (or thought she’d known) had been a figment of a child’s overactive imagin
ation. He’d never existed. Her crazy, kooky Prince Charming did not exist.
He was just a shell, too damaged to love anything.
“The door cannot return you until the three days are up—’tis the way of it in Kingdom. Your time is not yet done, Alice. You must go back to him.”
“Why?” she snapped, angry again. “Why did you freaking bring me here? He doesn’t want me.” She laughed, a thread of hysteria lacing her words. “He’s damaged goods, Danika. There’s nothing cracking that shell.”
“No, no.” Danika shook her head. “Not so. I’ve seen how he looks at you.”
Alice jerked to her knees, crawling forward on the bed, backing the little fairy into the wall. “The same way he looked at all the others, I’m sure. I’m just another Alice, another loser. Just like my great-grandmother.”
Danika dropped to the bed, her tiny wings buzzing like a hummingbird’s. “You don’t believe that. And neither do I. You surprise him, dearie. You understand him. None of the others did or could.”
Alice stopped and sat back on her butt, wrapping a strand of hair around her finger, tugging on it like she used to when she was younger. “I want to free him, Danika. I do.” And she did. Even though he made her angry and want to cuss and do things her mother would blush to know about, she still wanted to help him. Save him. “But it’s impossible. He’s too wounded, too fragile. Every little thing I say or do seems to piss him off. I can’t do this. He doesn’t want me. He sees her when he sees me—I can’t win.” The last came out a petulant whine.
Danika hovered in front of her, splaying her tiny hand on Alice’s chest. Heat poured through Alice like molten lava, and her heart felt like it swelled, growing to twice its size.
“But don’t you see? The land has already begun responding to you.”
She shook her head. “What does that even mean? How can I make this place fall in love with me?”
“By making him fall in love with you.”
“But he loved my great-grandmother.”
“No.” Danika was adamant, blondish-gray curls bouncing attractively around her head. “What he felt was pretense. Lies. Lust masked as love. Had any of the other Alices encouraged him, his love would have turned to hate, and that is why, in part, he despises them now. It wasn’t real. In fact, I believe deep down he knew that. That’s why he never lay with them. Not one. In fact, I doubt he touched many of them.”