Ensnared (26 page)

“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.

I’m carried far away where flames lap at my skin, blinding orange and yellow and white. Heat singes my nostrils.

I’m on the sun. Not an earthly sun, but Wonderland’s. Morpheus is with me, wearing a ruby crown. Together, we’re waltzing barefoot inside the fiery core, unaffected by the inferno swirling around us, aware only of our dance. Glowing embers gild our wings. My red gown, made of roses and netting and lace, catches a spark and burns away. His beautiful crimson suit does the same, dispersing like ash. Our spirits mirror our flesh, all secrets and desires laid bare. We’re free, face-to-face, on equal ground . . . with nowhere left to hide but inside each other. He opens his arms and I go to him, no hint of reservation.

The image fades. I’m on top of Morpheus again, fully clothed on the grass. It must have been a vision, like the one Ivory had of a banquet and a child, a glimpse of a future bequeathed to me by my crown-magic.

The profoundness courses through me, yet I can’t forget my humanness and my love for a mortal man who painted a room filled with beautiful dreams, a man who’s lost his way and needs me now more than ever.

That pressure on my heart scores through my chest, stealing my breath. I push free and gulp for oxygen as I scramble to stand.

“
Jeb
,” I mumble.

Morpheus snarls and gets to his feet, tucking in his shirt. He sweeps grass from his pant legs and straightens the tie at his neck. “That was a sorely disappointing proclamation of love. Perhaps you’d do better writing a sonnet, preferably with the omission of the letters
J
,
E
, and
B
.”

“I’m sorry.” I grind a knuckle into my sternum to ease the burning sting. “I have to do the right thing, for everyone. I just don’t know what it is. All I know, is everyone needs something different.
You, Jeb, my parents, Wonderland. I want to rip myself apart . . . be two beings altogether.”

Morpheus frowns. “Don’t ever say that, Alyssa. It is dangerous to wish for such things.”

“Why? I can’t change that I have two sides to my heart. No matter how much I wish it.”

“You should ne’er even think it. The only way you will ever find peace is if your two sides learn to coexist. You would not be the girl I shared a childhood with, without them both.”

His touching admission makes me consider something I haven’t yet. “The girl you helped shape to be a queen.” I look to the sky ceiling, drowning in my own indecision. “You always told me I was the best of both worlds. Taught me to embrace both my magic and my imagination. Now, I have two inner voices to follow. Each one is drawn to a different life in a different world. I’m hurting everyone because I’m confused. And I
hate
it.” I turn to him. “Maybe that’s what makes me want to hate you.”

He studies my features, silent and stoic, and I wonder if at last he regrets everything he taught me, everything he brought me into.

I skim my fingertips over the jewels flashing through gloomy hues across his face. “But hate is the furthest thing from what I feel for you. The very furthest thing.”

He captures my hand and presses my lace-covered palm to his chest, trailing his thumb across my knuckles.

I shove the tender moment aside to give my mind’s wheels freedom to turn. “You said we’re going to flush Queen Red out of Jeb so I can destroy her, forever. How are we supposed to do that without hurting him?”

Morpheus bends to pick up my tiara, returning it to my hair
and smoothing away wispy locks. “That, luv, will require the biggest sacrifice of all.” His thumb follows the strings at my neck. “And you’re the one who will have to make it.”

He doesn’t get the chance to explain before the door to the room flings open, revealing Jeb at the threshold. Even though he’s insisted that we’re over, déjà vu echoes through my conscience, as if I’ve been caught betraying him again.

That worry fades once his appearance registers: dripping blood, wild hair, pale face, and anxious expression. The feathers on his costume have fallen out—a bird that barely survived a cyclone. Worst of all, Dad’s not with him.

“Jeb, where . . . ?”

His gaze pierces us with otherworldly light. “Both of you. Come with me. Hurry.”

We sprint to the art studio. I’m one step behind the guys, trailing alongside Chessie and Nikki, who fling Morpheus’s requested cap at him as we rush down the corridor.

When we arrive, agonized groans greet us, and dread clenches my chest. The studio is shadowed. Hazy indigo light streams through the glass roof, remnants of dusk. A figure lies on the table, writhing in pain.

“Dad!” I shove past Morpheus where he’s stalled in the doorway, cap clenched to his sternum.

Jeb’s already at the table, giving Dad his hand to squeeze.

Tears strangle me. For weeks I’ve been worried about Mom, when it was Dad who was in danger all along. Why couldn’t my visions have shown me that?

I press my palm to his chest. His ticklish, feathery costume muffles his rapid heartbeat. “Wh-wh-what happened?” I ask.

Jeb concentrates on Dad’s face. “I couldn’t stop them.”

“Stop who?” I press.

Instead of answering, Jeb growls—a guttural sound tangled with rage and remorse. I want to comfort him, but I also want to shake him. For letting my dad get hurt, for going without me.

Morpheus steps between us. “Patience, luv. Our elfin knight finally realizes he’s not the god he thought he was.”

My brain clutters with little-girl fears. “Daddy.” I lean over him, sniffling. “Daddy, look at me.”

His eyes flutter, but don’t open.

“We followed the glow, landed close to the abyss of nothing,” Jeb mumbles, his voice quavering and husky from his earlier outburst. “The knights at the Wonderland gate could see us. They used their medallion and sent a wind tunnel. We were waiting to be picked up . . . but we were attacked. The queen’s guards shook up a cage filled with scorpion flies and released a swarm. I tried to get out my sketchpad, to draw nets to capture them . . . like the ones I make for you.” He shoots a glance to Morpheus.

“Your magic failed,” Morpheus suggests.

“
I
failed,” Jeb says, eyes on Dad again. “The sound got into my head. Louder than a million locusts trapped inside a concert hall.”

Dad wails, rocking his head back and forth, trying to cover his ears. “Make it stop!”

“What’s he talking about?” I ask.

“He’s been saying that since he was stung,” Jeb answers. “It’s like he still hears them buzzing.”

“He was
stung
?” Is it me who asks the question? I’m not sure. Everyone’s voices are distant, and my body feels compressed, like I’m swimming through sludge at the bottom of the ocean.

“CC was able to kill most of them, and I came out of it enough to capture the others . . . but a couple got loose. I’m sorry, Al.” Jeb still won’t look at me.

Morpheus strips off his jacket, drags a sloshing bucket from beneath the table, and fills a sponge. “Where did they sting him?”

“His left leg, I think,” Jeb mutters.

“No. It isn’t true.” I push between them, gripping one of Morpheus’s biceps. “You said those things turn people to stone. He’s not stone, see?”

He peels my hand away. “We need to get him out of this costume, to assure he’s only been stung in one place.”

“This can’t be happening!” I shout.

Morpheus forces me to face him. “If he was stung only on his leg, it buys us time since it’s farther from his heart. Now get something to keep him warm. He’s about to be very wet.”

Chessie lights on my shoulder, patting my neck in a comforting gesture. Nikki takes me by my pinky and leads me to a peg where a drop cloth hangs. I lift it off. I’m no longer underwater. I’m flittering somewhere far away, tethered by a bungee cord that keeps snapping me back to something I don’t want to be a part of. Filmy twilight seeps through the glass ceiling, magnifying my disorientation.

I hand off the cloth to Jeb. “This can’t be happening. It can’t.”

Neither guy answers. They cover Dad to his shoulders, then use sopping sponges to melt off his costume underneath.

Strange, stupid conjecturing fills my head. The drop cloth isn’t melting. And what about the table? Won’t the water destroy it, and Dad fall crashing through? Maybe it’s not a painting; maybe it’s like the honeycomb-flowers, bat hide, rabbit meat, and rainwater. Something derived from the raw resources in this place.

All questions fade as I see the serious expressions on Jeb and Morpheus’s faces.

I move to the front end of the table and nuzzle the top of Dad’s hair, my fingers curled around his ears. “You’re going to be okay, Dad. Mom needs you to be okay. We both need you.” The scents of maple syrup, laundry detergent, and lemon cleaner surround me. It makes no sense he’d smell that way. My brain must be playing tricks because he’s always been home, safety, and comfort to me.