He didn’t seem to notice she’d spoken. “But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”
She frowned, looking to the others for help in deciphering some meaning behind his cryptic words. The Wolf blew air through his muzzle. Gerard only shrugged.
Hatter was worse, no doubt. There used to be a time she could at least piece together his meaning. Now-oh dear-he truly needed his mate. She knew he was tired of searching. So was she... Especially after the last Alice. The great-grandmother Alice Hu.
Danika clenched her wand tighter. What if the girl looked like the original? She swallowed hard. The last Alice had been cruel, a charlatan. She’d fooled them all. Especially Danika herself. She’d fallen prey to the girl’s outwardly loving exterior. But she’d soon learned they’d had a viper in their midst. The girl had wanted nothing more than the power of Wonderland. She’d never wanted the Hatter.
A reality made all the more sad because she’d never seen Hatter so taken. He’d made a fool of himself-in his mind anyway. He’d shown Alice the wonder and strange beauty of Wonderland, expecting her to love the talking flowers and vaporous cat-shifting loons as he did. But she’d despised it all, wanted to change everything; she’d rejected his uniqueness as madness and mocked him behind his back to others.
Once he’d discovered her deception, something in him had fractured; where once he’d been irreverent, often laughing, he’d turned moody and withdrawn.
Now Danika was set to bring him another Alice, knowing this one to be the right one, but what would he feel knowing this Alice came from that Alice? Would he even give the girl a chance? Would he hate her because of who she was? The thought made Danika sick.
If the magic hadn’t demanded Danika find him an Alice, she’d have brought him a blasted Jane and to hell with all the Alices everywhere.
“Yes, just so.” She sighed in answer to his nonsensical ramblings.
Gerard snorted. “Only bride who’ll have him is one freshly buried. Honestly, fee, cruel torture.”
She planted hands on her hips in her best authoritative pose. Not easy for one barely 10 inches tall. “Your turn will come soon enough, Gerard.”
He shuddered, and she nodded, pleased her words hadn’t faltered. “Now off with the lot of you. Freshen up, get sober, and for the gods’ sakes, wash.” She eyed Gerard in particular.
They all sat staring at her. She glowered. “Go, I say!” And gesturing at them with her wand, she lifted them from their seats. Wolf yelped the loudest as Danika tossed them from the garden.
“Blast you, sorciere demon,” Gerard’s thick growl rose above the grumbles of the rest.
She grinned and twirled towards Hatter. He was staring at her, eyes full of pain, of hunger, of something he felt would be forever out of his reach.
“Cursed,” he whispered.
She patted his cold fingers. “Hatter, you are not cursed. We just haven’t found the one yet. But we will. I swear it.”
Danika’s words sounded sure, but in her heart she trembled. What will he do: was now the chanting mantra tattooed in her skull. She didn’t have a choice, he was unwell, and he didn’t have much time. She bit her lip.
“Let me be, Danika.” He stood. “I do not want a mate out of necessity, or one chosen for me by this crazy up-is-down and down-is-up world. I will not do this again.”
“I love you, Hatter, but hear me well. I’ll never stop.”
He clenched his fist, brimstone burning in the depths of his cold black eyes. Then he blinked and smiled, a slow curling grin. “Do you know, fairy?”
She frowned. “What, my dear?”
His eyes were glazed, his body swaying. “The answer to the riddle?”
Danika’s lips thinned, heart bleeding. He couldn’t even hang on to his anger before the madness claimed him.
She swallowed hard. “I do.”
“And?” He lifted up on his toes.
“Poe, dear.” She touched his bristly jaw. “Poe.”
He snapped his fingers and with a sharp nod, walked off muttering, “I knew it.”
If Miriam hadn’t told truth, if this wasn’t the right Alice, Hatter wouldn’t survive another year. Alice Hu had to be the one, because without the Hatter, Wonderland could never be the same.
Available Now!
Sneak Peek at The Witching Hour
Grim Reaper Saga - Coming September 2012
Chapter 1
The haunting, eerily lyrical strain of Type-O Negative filled the alleyway like a siren’s wail. Beckoning. Unrelenting. Deathly.
Undetectable to all mortal and immortal alike, Cian stood within the shadows of Club X. A popular club that catered to the interests of the supernatural’s. The outsiders. The vampires, werewolves, and witches.