“She is mine, now and forever. I will never let her go, never. Never. Never. Wonderland is mine, as are you. All of you.”
He slapped her. Aeric had no clue what else to do. “You are mine,” he snarled, “I will kill you. I will bring her back. You will release Lissa and Chrysalis, they belong to me.”
She snorted, her pose now more seductive instead of wild. Thrusting her chest out, making certain each long, lean line of her body showed itself to perfection. “Come now, hunter, surely you know the better of us is me. Release me and I will give you all you desire. You wish your kitten, I am yours to please.”
Then she transformed herself, silkily, easily, into Lissa. With a mane of electric blue hair and her exotic endless midnight black eyes. He swallowed hard, wanting nothing more than to take her out of there. To hold his woman once more.
But though the body was the same, the woman was not there. Lissa’s softness, her gentleness, didn’t exist behind that hard gaze.
“You are not Lissa,” he spat, “you might wear the body, but the soul is vile.”
With a roar, she transformed back. But now her flesh burned even brighter, so bright he had to shield his gaze. The fire began to consume the netting, began to blaze out of control. Stinging his flesh, making it sizzle and burn, and waft a horrible odor through the air.
Aeric could hardly breath as the oxygen in the air was consumed, he couldn’t move from the shock, could only stand and burn and wonder what he’d done wrong.
The sky turned an immediate shade of pitch black, the moon was thick and heavy and dangling overhead. A pure pulse of brilliant lavender white light shot from its center and then a man’s deep voice snapped Aeric from his dull stupor.
“Siria, stop!”
The man was tall and powerful looking. With a shock of wild brown hair, his feet were planted solidly in the ground where just seconds earlier the moonbeam had landed. Beside him flew Danika, and beside her Hatter and Alice. The two of them were hugging, Hatter patting onto the back of Alice’s head he’d tucked into his shoulder.
Aeric twirled, confused by the sight of them and gasping in lungful’s of sweet, sweet air.
“Jericho, grab the net, her fire cannot burn you,” Danika pointed at Chrysalis.
“Danika,” Aeric choked out her name, still gasping for breath. “What is going on here?”
“She was going to kill you.” Danika turned soulful blue eyes on him as she worried her bottom lip. “Aeric, I never knew when I sent you here that reflection was as powerful as she was. I did not know who she really was, or what she’d done to my goddaughter. I didn’t even bloody know she existed!” She said the last with such a sincerity of remorse that he could not doubt her.
Hacking one final time, he slammed a palm against his chest and shook his head. “Who is she? Chrysalis could never really tell me.”
“She is Siria.”
He’d heard that name before, it was hard to place from where or when, but he knew it.
“The sun,” Danika supplied. “Many years ago I made a great enemy of her. This was her form of repayment. I thought Jericho’s curse and mine would be enough, but it wasn’t.” She hung her head. “And for that, I’ll never forgive myself.”
Jericho dragged the netting as far from the group as possible. Chrysalis writhed and screamed, shredding the last bits of her clothing until she was fully nude. Not that she seemed to mind or care. Spitting and hissing, she shoved her hands out toward Jericho’s face, frantically attempting to claw at him.
“Release me, Jericho, this has naught to do with you!” The voice was deep and shivered with a raw and untapped wellspring of power.
It made all the fine hairs on Aeric’s arms stand on edge.
“Siria, how dare you!” Jericho shook the bag.
Alice cried out, trembling in Hatter’s arms.
Danika wrapped her arms around the duo, looking at her husband with concern reflected in her gaze.
Aeric stepped beside the three of them, leaning in he whispered beneath his breath to Danika. “What are they going to do to her?”
Hatter’s jaw clenched and his nostrils flared as he whipped a furious gaze in Aeric’s direction. “You’ve mated with my daughter, I smell her on you.”
Aeric’s eyes widened and he took three very large, and cautious steps back.
Danika swatted at Hatter with no fear whatsoever. “This is hardly the time for a father’s jealousy.”
Alice nodded. “Agreed. Focus on our daughter and what we need to do to save her.”
That caused Aeric to frown. Forgetting Hatter’s sudden intense hatred toward him, he pointed at Jericho who was still dragging a kicking and screaming Chrysalis toward the body of water.