“Because you’d made a life-magic vow to her; you didn’t have a choice . . .” I stop short of telling him that I know only too well how binding those vows can be.
“Yes. But I let you leave again, last year after you were crowned. And all those nights I brought you to Wonderland in your dreams, even though it pained me for you to abandon our dreamscapes and return to the mortal realm, I let you go each morning to live your reality there. It may not seem much when compared to your mortal’s gallantry. But for me—self-seeking, arrogant prig that I am—that is the sincerest form of sacrifice. Letting you go. Do you not see that?”
Empathy claws through me. I struggle to find some word of gratitude or apology, but nothing seems sufficient. All I can do is nod.
As if waiting for that signal, he releases my hands, cups my face, and whispers in my ear. “My precious Alyssa, share reality with me. Give me forever. We will wreak such beautiful havoc together.”
Temptation shimmers through my blood, a taste of eternal power and pandemonium. His soft lips glide across my jaw. I’m dazzled by his touch, drugged by his promises, falling deeper and deeper into him. Before he reaches my mouth, I catch his hands and roll him off until he’s the one on his back, his wings no longer a hiding place but silky black pools along the ground.
I prop my top half over his so I’m in control. “I can’t think,” I whisper. “You’re making me crazy.”
“Insanity is the most pristine clarity.” He winds a leg around my hips and topples me onto him. “Let the lunacy in. Let it be your guide.” One corner of his mouth lifts to a boyish grin.
I push myself up on my elbows. I haven’t seen him this relaxed since we were playmates: bits of grass strewn through his hair, clothes messy and wrinkled. Even his T-shirt has come untucked. He stretches languorously under me, and the silvery scar on his abdomen catches the light, that telltale mark from Sister Two when he fought her inside Butterfly Threads just weeks ago. When he almost died to help me and Jeb escape. But I didn’t let him die, because I couldn’t imagine a world without him.
I can’t imagine a future without him, either. Not anymore.
Following a dark instinct and a darker desire, I touch the scar. His taut skin twitches and he catches a breath.
I jerk my hand away.
He snatches my arm and drags me back down so our noses touch. “It’s beautiful,” he says, his breath fragrant and fruited. “The mark left by your love when you saved my life. It matches the ones on your palms, from the first time you saved me. Again and again, your actions pay tribute to your true feelings. But I want to hear the words.” His lips caress my jaw and stop at my ear. “Say them.”
His low, purring voice electrifies my skin. The Wonderland queen thrashes to life. She shines light on the sentiment hidden inside the blackest corners of my heart, until I can no longer deny it.
I seek out his eyes, entranced by the depth of emotion there. “I care about you . . .” It’s a shallow, inadequate reply. The deepest truth freezes on my tongue: The netherling in me loves you, passionately.
Those words are too chilling, fragile, and extraordinarily unique to release; they might vanish like snowflakes if exposed to the heat of reality too soon.
But Morpheus is done waiting. He drags me closer, pressing my lips to his and kissing me in warm, exquisite strokes.
It happened too fast. I never saw it coming.
Oh, but my netherling side did, and she casts my human armor aside.
She guides my hands, knots my fingers through his hair, teases his tongue with hers. She won’t let me pull away, because she wants to be there again. In Wonderland, where his tobacco-flavored kisses always take us . . .
Because the things I loathe are the things she adores: His snark, his infuriating condescension. His menacing mastery of half-truths and riddles. The way he shoves me into the face of danger, forces me to look beyond my fears and reach for my full potential.
Most of all, because he encourages me to believe in the madness . . . in her . . . the darker side of myself: the queen who was born to reign over the Red kingdom and to give Wonderland a legacy of dreams and imagination.
His gloved palms seek the bend of my waist, the bow of my hips. He moves me on top of him, so close there’s not enough space for a blade of grass between us. His kisses grow insistent, desperate. His flavor winds through me, fruit and smoke and earth, and other things born of shadows and storms . . . things I can’t put a name to.