Allison and the Torrid Tea Party: A Dark Reverse Harem Romance (Harem of Hearts Book 2)

He’s going to die, isn’t he?

I sit in the back of a carriage made of fucking porcelain and stare at North’s comatose form, blood leaking from his head at an alarming rate. In a way, that’s a good sign, I guess, because if he’s bleeding then that means his heart is still pumping, so he’s still alive.

Dead things don’t bleed.

“If you don’t give him medical attention, he’ll die before you make it to wherever it is that we’re going,” I say, staring up at the three men sitting in the back of the carriage with me. They’re all situated on the floor in a semi-circle, sipping tea. Like, laced-with-drugs, seriously-going-to-mess-them-up tea. And then what? North will lie there and bleed to death, and I’ll sit here, shackled to the wood floor, forced to watch.

“Oh, well, wouldn’t that be a shame,” the Mad Hatter says, his hat lilting to one side, this disheveled dishabille that he wears so well. And those eyes, the color of marmalade, this honeyed orange shade that I’ve never seen before. But hell, why should that surprise me? After everything I’ve seen in Underland so far, it’s hardly the weirdest.

The man holds his teacup in hands dripping with ink, tattoos crawling out from beneath the black jacket he’s wearing, over his knuckles, along his fingers. He’s so dainty about it, too, like he’s actually got some manners in that crazy head of his.

“You don’t care if he dies then?” I continue as the three of them continue to lounge in the back of the jostling carriage. It’s a big round, white thing that looks like a fucking teapot on the outside. The driver’s sitting on a platform perched on the top of the spout, and the handle was used to open the massive door I was shoved through; there’s not a single window in the whole damn thing, but I can see flashes of lightning through a circle in the roof, where I’m assuming there’s some sort of ‘lid’.

The screech of a jabberwock echoes outside the carriage, but nobody inside of it seems bothered except for me. Leaning back against the wall, I put my hands over my ears as the three men pass around a pot of tea like it’s a bottle of whiskey. Only difference here is they pour it into a teacup before they sling it back like a shot.

“We’re going to drop him off close to a musking female jabberwock nest and see what happens,” the March Hare says, twitching his velveteen ears and crossing his legs at the ankle. The look he gives me is downright lascivious, but I think, rather than checking me out, he’s fantasizing about North being ripped apart by an angry dragon.

“What the fuck does musking mean?” I ask, adjusting myself slightly and listening to the awful clank of my chains. We’ve been in this carriage for the better part of an hour and frankly, I haven’t been able to brainstorm a way out of this one. Some part of me wonders if the twins’ll come for me, but I’m also not into the whole being-saved-by-a-prince routine. Err, princes in this case, I suppose. But still. I have to just assume that I’m alone here and try to find some way out of this mess.

“Musking,” the Mad Hatter replies with this awful curve of a smile transforming his face. “That’s just a dirty science word for horny as hell.” He takes another sip of his tea and then tosses the cup aside, letting it shatter against the back wall of the carriage before crawling toward me, his honey-orange eyes bright, his skin as pale as moonlight. When he smiles, doves cry. That’s how scary this motherfucker is. “We’re going to leave him out there, helpless and prone, and see if there’re any takers.”

“You’re sick in the head,” I snap back at him as he reaches out and curls some of my blonde hair around his fingers, pulling it to his face for a sniff. Seriously? What a pervert. When I jerk back, all I end up doing is yanking my hair painfully; the Mad Hatter does not let go. “What’s the point of all that anyway, taking a hostage only to watch him die? What purpose does that serve?!”

“Who says it serves a purpose,” the Mad Hatter—Raiden Walker, I guess, is his name—purrs, using the handful of my hair to pull me toward his face. “The Duke of Northumbria is a supporter of the King of Hearts—and a hefty giver of tithes to the crown—so we figured, we came all the way out here to nab you, why not grab him at the same time?”

“Cruelty for cruelty’s sake,” I retort, but the pale—and admittedly handsome—man in front of me just grins bigger and snaps his fingers. Bingo, I guess, I’ve figured it all out. He lets go of my hair and then sits back, propping one knee and throwing his arm casually across it. The strangely beautiful color of his eyes drifts down to my neck, watching my pulse hum and throb beneath my skin.

“Cruelty is in the eye of the beholder,” he says, just as vague and weird as everyone else that lives here. They can blame all their strangeness on the Riving if they want, but I blame it on testosterone poisoning. Clearly, with a ratio of ten men to one woman, that must be it. The air is thick with it. My guess? The Duke and this guy, Raiden, they have some sort of pissing war going on. “Tell you what?” he says after a minute, just when my eyes begin to stray over to the March Hare and the Dormouse. I turn my attention back to him and our gazes lock. “Answer me a riddle and I’ll let the Duke go.”

“Ask me a riddle and if I get it right, you give him medical attention and keep him alive. You don’t even have to let him go; he can stay with me.” The Mad Hatter raises two dark brows, his black hair curling out from under his hat in a defiant sort of way. I figure beggars can’t be choosers and it’d be better if North were alive and being held prisoner than lying half-dead and free in the middle of the forest.

“You’re an interesting one, aren’t you?” Raiden glances over his shoulder at the March Hare, still slowly sipping his tea and watching us with eyes the color of dark chocolate, bitter and sweet at the same time. On his other side, the massive hulk of the Dormouse is sprawled and sleeping, teacup clenched in his huge hand.

“Smart, too,” I quip, crossing my arms over my chest and hating the feel of the cold chains against my skin. I’m still wearing my dressing gown, and really, it doesn’t provide a lot of coverage. In the darkest depths of my mind, I realize what could so easily happen to a girl like me, dressed in a nightie and kidnapped like this. The awful, awful fate I avoided that night at the hands of Liam and his friends—the salvation that cost my brother his life and my mother her freedom—that could all be revisited on me here.

But these men, they seem … well, mad. And if I can just keep them talking, maybe I can hold them off from trying anything else, buy myself time to escape. The Vorpal Blade is still there, resting against my thigh. I can practically feel it pulsing against my skin, begging me to spill blood. Or maybe that’s just because I’m pissed off and hating these guys right about now?

A bit of crimson warmth from North’s head wound soaks into the edge of my nightgown and I glance down, touching my fingertips to it and holding them up in a quick flash of lightning that briefly illuminates the dark interior of the carriage.

My blue eyes lift up to the Mad Hatter’s orange ones.

“Ask me the damn riddle,” I growl, dropping my hand into my lap. I’d scoot out of the way of the blood, but there’s nowhere for me to go. I’m chained down; North is chained down. I can’t even put his head in my lap or stroke the side of his face with my fingers. Seeing him like this, I wish I’d gone all the way during training and had sex with him.

What if he dies? What if I’m sitting here and he takes one, last shuddering breath? The thought makes my insides churn with anxiety, like a swarm of moths pulling apart an old blanket, leaving it riddled with holes. I can feel their tiny mouths nibbling away at me as I sit there and stare my captor down.

“Okay then,” he starts, his voice this ice-cold lilt that somehow has me leaning forward to listen as he taps a tattooed finger against his lips. In my heart of hearts, I’m hoping that this time, life stays true to the prophecy, to the original book. Because if so, I’ve got an answer for the riddle I so desperately want him to ask. “Why … is a raven like a writing-desk?”

Fuck. Yes.

I try not to smile too much when I hear those words, the riddle from the classic novel and the same one used in the Disney adaption with Johnny Depp.

Oh, come on, this is almost too easy!

“Assuming you have no real answer in mind,” I begin, because Lewis Carroll was once quoted as saying that it was originally intended that the Hatter’s riddle had no answer. Later on though, about thirty years after the book was published, he made one up. “I’ll give you one: because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is nevar”—I spell this part out because the word never is intentionally misspelled to read raven backwards—“put with the wrong end in front.”

I sit back against the wall of the carriage and wait while the man stares at me for some time and then gives me this slow ass fucking smile that flashes me two sharp white canines in his mouth. Not like a cat, not like Chesh, but like … a vampire. The dude looks like a fucking bloodsucker.

“You’re a clever little Alice, aren’t you?” he asks and then tosses me a key. “Go ahead,” he continues, reaching up to adjust the hat on his head. It’s huge, at least a foot and a half tall, and slightly wider on the top than the bottom. “Free yourself, and him.”

Even though I’m skeptical as fuck, I unlock the chains, my eyes drifting back to the March Hare as he sits there, stoic and unblinking, bathed in shadows. I have no idea what to make of him, but as long as he doesn’t move, I’m okay with his creepy weirdness.

“North,” I whisper, unlocking the chains and praying that maybe, just maybe, the man is playing dead. You know, like an exit strategy or something. But he doesn’t move as I unshackle him. How could he? With a hole in the side of his head like that.

Raiden leans over next to me and grabs North by the horn, yanking him across the carriage and into his lap. My entire body goes stiff as the Mad Hatter flicks his orange gaze up to mine and smirks. He’s fucking terrifying, this guy, and how the hell do I know he’s going to help the Duke and not just slit his throat? I answered a riddle, so what? Bad guys never keep their promises, right?

“I do love riddles. I’ll have to come up with another. Maybe if you answer the next one, I’ll let you go?”

I snort.

“And why would you do that?” I ask as he lifts his wrist to his mouth … and bites it. Blood wells around his teeth, staining his tattooed skin before dripping onto North’s pallid face. The poor jabberwock man is completely out, his pulse so light that I can’t make it out, not even in a flash of lightning. He seriously looks like he’s dead, like I’ll never see those golden eyes again, feel that tail wrap around my ankle …

You just met this guy, so who cares? I try to tell myself, but it doesn’t matter. I just met him, but I like him. A lot. He’s charismatic and interesting, took the time to teach me, gave me the Vorpal Blade. He didn’t have to do any of those things.

“Because,” Raiden continues, pulling his mouth away from his arm and then placing his wrist at the Duke’s pale lips. “I’m a mercenary. I do whatever I want, whenever I want. The King of Clubs paid me to kidnap you … but, for example, if I decide I like you, I just keep you for myself.”

He presses his wrist against North’s mouth, but the man is so out of it that blood just puddles on his tongue and spills out the sides. Raiden lowers his gaze to the comatose guy in his lap, removes his wrist, and then places it at his own mouth, sucking out the blood until his mouth is full.

With his lips pressed tight, he leans down again and places his mouth to North’s, parting the Duke’s lips with his tongue and kissing him, forcing him to drink all of that blood. My cheeks heat, and I can’t decide whether to be pissed off, turned on, or … what.

“What are you doing?” I manage to choke out, but the Mad Hatter just lifts his orange eyes to mine and locks our gazes. He continues to kiss North until the Duke is shifting and groaning, dressed in a pair of cream silk pajama pants and nothing else. They’re stained with blood, just like his golden hair and sun-kissed chest.

The Mad Hatter ignores me until North is shoving him back and surging up with a gasping, choking sound, almost bumping his head against our captor’s forehead.

“What in the bloody fuck?” the Savage Duke growls, and my heart swells with relief. Holy fucking shit. I hadn’t even realized until that moment how goddamn stressed I was. Without giving myself even a second to question my luck, I throw my arms around North’s neck and … kiss him?!

Oh, well, whatever.

I tongued him in the training room and that was just pure lust.

This is so much more important than that … And even though it takes me a moment to remember that he just sucked down some dude’s blood, I don’t care. I pull back and put my forehead against his, my skin erupting in little goose bumps as he clamps his hands on my hips and squeezes tight, claws digging into the thin silk as he lets out this animalistic snarl and curls his tail around my ankle.

“Welcome back to the world of the living,” Raiden says as North’s gold eyes light on my face and then flick over my shoulder to look at the … well, actual fucking vampire dude?! I don’t bother to turn around, reaching up and spreading North’s hair to look for the missing chunk of skull and flesh that I saw earlier.

It’s gone.

All closed up. Just smooth skin and gold hair and hard bone underneath it all.

“What on earth are you up to, Hatter?” North asks in that crisp British-but-can’t-be-British accent of his. He pulls me even closer against him, squashing my breasts to his chest. There’s not a lot of fabric between us, and I’m not wearing underwear so … I wish we weren’t being kidnapped by a maniacal vampire mercenary.

“Oh, you know me, my loyalty goes out to the highest bidder,” Raiden says from behind us, his voice casual despite the fact that both North and I are now free. He’s not worried about being attacked? If he really is that powerful, we’re fucked. If he’s just that cocky, we might be okay. “Nothing personal, really.”

“Please,” North says, curling his arms around me and holding me so close I feel like I might choke. But he’s so damn warm, and I’m so glad to see him alive. Plus, I’m riding the high of being shackled and then set free. “You’ve never liked me.” The smirk that crawls over his face morphs rapidly into a wide grin, his teeth white in his bronze, bloodied face. “Especially not now that I have the love of the Alice.”

“Love?” I ask, but it’s hard to want to argue, trapped in the back of the carriage like this. I push back from North, but he only lets me go enough to turn around and sit on his lap, my back to his front. Does not make the position any less sexual. Between my legs, a throbbing starts up that I do my absolute best to quell. Now is hardly the time for thoughts of thick cocks and wet cunts and all that nonsense.

The Mad Hatter leans forward as I swipe some long, blonde tendrils out of my face.

“Your hair wants cutting,” he remarks, those orange eyes glowing in a flash of lightning. Between bouts, it’s almost pitch-dark in here, just a few stray shafts of moonlight cutting through the ice-cold drops of rain leaking in through the ceiling.

“You should learn not to make personal remarks,” I snap, narrowing my eyes at him and tucking my hair behind my ears. “It’s fucking rude.”

He just smiles at me and then pauses when the carriage comes to a stop.

“And here we were planning on leaving you out for the female jabberwocky to pick apart,” Raiden says with a small sigh, nodding his head to indicate something to the March Hare. The other man taps his palm against the wall twice and the carriage begins to rattle onward. “I was hoping they’d rape you, steal your seed, and leave a corpse.”

My jaw drops open, but the Mad Hatter is already turning around and crawling back over to the teapot that’s on the floor near the March Hare. There’s not a lot of standing room back here, so he leaves himself completely open and vulnerable as he moves back to his original spot.

Turning my head into North’s arm, I whisper as quietly as I can, “I have the Vorpal Blade with me.” He tightens up, but it’s too late. I’ve already made a mistake. As soon as Raiden turns around and slumps back against the wall next to his companions, he’s smiling.

“You think I’m stupid enough to miss a blade? Also, I should warn you, having been bitten and turned into one of the undead has given me spectacular hearing. If I were you, I’d keep all my secrets to myself.”

He picks up the teapot and pours himself a new cup. So far, I haven’t noticed the Mad Hatter showing any signs of that light, ethereal nonsense I experienced when I was high on tea, but maybe he’s just a heavyweight? A little patience might be called for in this scenario.

“Don’t attack him,” North tells me, his arms wrapped tight around my middle, just under my breasts. “Not with magic, not with the Blade. Just let it be.” He squeezes me a little harder and I grunt. “And thank you for saving me.”

“I’m not even sure how you’re alive right now,” I whisper back, but, of course, Raiden Walker, Vampire Extraordinaire, hears me and decides to comment.

“Vampire blood has incredible healing properties, doesn’t it, North?”

“You may call me the Duke of Northumbria, my right and proper bloody title.” The Duke leans back against the wall, taking me with him. I’m sitting there wondering why he isn’t shifting and tearing this place apart when I feel his pulse thundering against my back, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts. He’s physically healed from his wound, but his body is still recovering, damn it.

Still, shouldn’t a massive black dragon be more than enough to bring down this house of cards, so to speak?

But the rules of this game, of Underland, they’re all still a mystery to me. I’ll just have to follow North’s lead and hope he knows what he’s doing. He seems pretty interested in not only delivering me to the king, but also becoming one of my … gulp … husbands. Anyway, I figure I can safely assume he’s on my side.

“Well, Duke of Northumbria,” Raiden drawls, tapping his fingers against his knees and smiling at us with his long, thin, beautiful mouth. I couldn’t get that image of him French kissing North out of my brain if I tried—and I don’t much want to try. “I was going to kill you, but seeing as the Alice answered my riddle fair and square, I figure we can bargain instead. How much to take you both safely to the King of Hearts?”

“What?” I ask, blinking stupidly in his direction. “Are you trying to buy your way out of a contract you already signed?”

“We don’t sign contracts,” the March Hare says, speaking up for the first time in a while. He leans forward, his dark brown eyes the perfect match for his brown ears and brown skin. But all three parts of him are different shades, giving him this earthy sort of look. He’d be hot if he wasn’t kidnapping me, but what’s new? Basically every man in Underland is hot as fuck. “People give us money and pray that they’re not outbid. Think of it … like a silent auction or something.” He glances down at the Dormouse and then both he and the Mad Hatter reach down and pinch the big man from both sides at once. “Wake up, Dor!”

The Dormouse slowly opens his eyes.

“I wasn’t asleep,” he says in a hoarse, feeble voice, “I heard every word you fellows were saying.”

March snorts and gives the hulking man a scathing look.

“Bullshit,” he says with a curl of his full, generous mouth. “You narcoleptic fuck.”

“Ten thousand coins,” North inserts as I watch the Dormouse sit up and stretch his tree trunk-sized arms over his head. He’s just as attractive as his companions, but in a different way, not my style or type. He’s got that bulky bodybuilder look that’s a tad too much for me. And his face is a little Neanderthal, like I-drag-you-to-cave-by-hair alpha male-esque.

“Oh, please,” the Mad Hatter says with a roll of his eyes, pouring himself another cup of tea and then turning his attention in my direction, an earnest sort of look on his face. “Take some more tea, Alice?”

“I’ve had nothing yet,” I reply in an offended tone: “so I can’t take more.”

“Ah, you mean you can’t take less,” says the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.”

“Nobody asked your fucking opinion,” I snap back, and he smiles at me in a way that makes me wonder how dark and how brutal this negotiation is heading. He doesn’t just want money, does he?

“Who’s making personal remarks now?” Raiden quips triumphantly.

“Thirty thousand,” the Duke says, his voice this low, humming growl that vibrates through his body and straight into mine. It feels so good that I have to resist the urge to wiggle on his lap. Not here, not in front of these three assholes. “And you know the King will match whatever I spend.”

“I quite imagine the King wants the Alice far more than he values sixty thousand measly coins,” Raiden continues, glancing across Dor’s lap and over to March. “Don’t you think our friend here would’ve gladly paid sixty thousand coins to see the Savage Duke raped by jabberwocky?”

“One hundred thousand,” North snarls, uncurling his tail from around me and slamming the long, black scaled length against the floor in frustration, quite like my cat Dinah does when she’s having a fit.

“Let me bash his head in again, sir,” the Dormouse growls right back, leaning his massive form toward us. In a flash of lightning, I catch the ragged stripes of scars across his face, and the small round ears sticking up from his tousled brown hair. “I’ll give you my wages for the next ten years to take the privilege.”

“You’re starting to annoy Dor,” March says, his voice crisp with a ‘British’ accent similar to North’s. But there’s something else to it, too, like maybe a bit of Irish? Fuck, this guy looks and sounds like Rob Evans! The sexual selection happening in Underland is seriously insane, like there are so many men they have to be hot as hell to have any chance of finding a mate. Makes sense from a scientific level, right? “And if you’re starting to annoy Dor, then you’re starting to annoy me, too.”

“Five hundred thousand,” the Duke spits, his arms tightening around my waist. “You bloody twat. Crook. Fearmonger.”

“Five hundred thousand, doubled by the King of Hearts,” the Mad Hatter continues, sipping his tea. “I like that. Oh, and also, I want to marry the Alice. Political power suits me, don’t you think? I’d make a fine husband.”

“Marry you?!” I blurt and then let out the most caustic, scathing laugh imaginable. “I don’t think—”

“Then you shouldn’t talk,” the Mad Hatter inserts, causing me to grit my teeth and clench my fists in anger.

“If I get out of here, I’m going to make it my personal life mission to dump your body down a well,” I snap back at him and he grins, flashing me those vampire fangs of his.

“A water-well or a treacle-well?” he purrs, and both men beside him let out these deep belly laughs, like that’s the greatest joke they’ve ever heard. Me, I don’t get it. I know treacle is like, syrup or molasses or something, but a well of it? I guess this world is weird enough for something like that. Still …

“Where would they draw the treacle from?” I snap back at him, even though I know it’s totally stupid and a complete waste of my time. These idiots are obviously talking in riddles—like Tee and Dee—so why am I justifying their stupidity?

“You can draw water out of a water-well,” says the piece of shit Hatter, “so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well—eh, stupid?”

I surge forward, intending to tackle this back talking a-hole, but North holds me still, his muscular arms like bands of steel around my waist.

“A million coins,” he grinds out, but the Mad Hatter and the March Hare just exchange a look across the lap of the Dormouse.

“Five hundred thousand from you, and five hundred thousand from the king, and this girl’s hand in marriage,” Raiden continues, staring me straight in the face. “Or else we take you to the King of Clubs, as planned. He has already promised me a spot as one of your husbands, Alice.”

“Allison,” I correct, but really, why bother? The people in this place are clearly deranged; they can barely seem to keep their heads on straight, so how on earth can I expect them to listen when I tell them my name. “So what you’re saying is, accept this offer and pretend I’m making my own choice about taking you as a husband or else you’ll sell me to the next highest bidder and then, what, rape me in our marital bed after the forced wedding?”

“Whoever said I needed to have sex with you to gain the political prestige of being married to the Alice?” he asks with a tilt of his head, his top hat falling to one side but still managing to stay atop his head of dark, wavy hair. “Let’s make a deal: the promised coins, your hand in marriage, but I won’t fuck you until you beg.”

“Oh, please,” I snort, with a sneer worthy of my little sister, Edy. “You’re fucking delusional.”

“Delusions are just illusions without any truth behind them,” Raiden says, and it’s such a stupid, useless riddle that I just count my lucky stars that he really did follow along with the prophecy and use the raven/writing-desk one in our bargain. If not, who the fuck knows what would’ve happened to North?

“Fine,” I say before the dragon … err, jabberwock … behind me can protest. “It’s a deal.”

The Mad Hatter reaches out and grabs my hand in a tight shake before the Duke can stop us, squeezing my hand tight and then lifting his knuckles to my lips for a kiss that’s too hot, too intriguing for a villain.

“Excellent,” he murmurs as March smirks at me and the Dormouse scowls. But the way he stretches out those three syllables … it feels like the mark of a dark promise.

What the hell have I just gotten myself into?!

A few hours later, after dozing in the protective circle of North’s arms, the carriage stops.

The sudden lack of movement churns my stomach, and I realize as I crack open my eyes how goddamn hungry I really am. There’s a brief moment there where I don’t want to wake up, where I want to sit with my nose pressed to North’s bare skin, breathing in that sweet, musky masculine scent of his.

But then I realize that the back door of the carriage is open and there’s sunlight streaming through. Outside, I see puddles reflecting back a blue sky dotted with shrunken gray clouds, like the rain’s reminding us it’s still there, that it’s only taking a quick break to recharge.

With a groan, I sit up and stretch my arms above my head, wishing I could’ve been kidnapped in something besides a purple silk nightgown with lace accents. Leather boots, breeches, a jacket, now that is proper kidnapping material. At least the Duke is shirtless and in blood-soaked pj pants, so I’m not the only person here who looks a hot mess.

“You weren’t kidding about the Hatter, were you?” I whisper to North as I sit up, adjusting myself so that I’m straddling his lap. He meets my eyes with his gold ones, dark horns curving out of his blonde hair. “He’s fucking insane.”

“Yes, well,” the Duke breathes with a sigh, “I can only offer my sincerest apologies, Miss Liddell, and admit my surprise at being attacked in my own home.” His voice drops down to an animalistic growl that rumbles us both. “But I can’t say I’m not at all shocked at this turn of events. As soon as the Hatter found out the Alice was in Underland, he was bound to seek your company—whatever the price.”

“Can’t you just go jabberwock on his ass?” I ask as North scoots me off his lap and sits up, getting onto all fours and stretching like a cat, bowing the front part of his body low and lifting his tight, hard butt up into the air for me to stare at, his tail twitching all the while.

“There’s no guarantee that I’d win a fight with Raiden Walker,” the Duke says, scooting over to the edge of the carriage and dropping into a puddle, sunlit gold water splashing as he lands. He turns and lifts his chin, ever the picture of royalty, sophistication, and bestial beauty all wrapped in one. North offers me his hand and I take it, hopping down beside him and wondering what the fuck this Raiden guy must really be like if he has a goddamn dragon nervous to face-off against him.

“Good morning,” March says, leaning against a tree and carving an apple with a knife. He braces his muscular shoulder against the rough bark, his fingers handling the blade with a precision that makes me wonder what else those hands can do. I mean, not to me, I’m not interested. I just mean in general. His brown eyes are flecked through with red and orange, like an autumn skyline, and his mouth is full and luscious, even as he wears it in a stupid, little smirk. The red apple peel comes off in one, perfect strip and then falls to the ground near his feet. In an instant, there are a half-dozen little flies dropping down to feast on it, their wings a shimmering iridescent turquoise, their bodies … in the shape of wooden rocking horses.

Fucking rocking-horse flies.

Fantastic.

I blink a few times and shake my head to clear it, putting my fingers to my temples.

“Good morning,” North replies with a civil coolness, his tail splashing through puddles as he swishes it in frustration. “Shall we get on then? What’s the delay?”

“No delay,” the Mad Hatter says, appearing out of the trees with the Dormouse on his heels. They’re carrying large chunks of soft, spongy flesh—mushroom flesh. That reminds me … I have a bit of the mushroom meat tucked in my sheath along with the Vorpal Blade! Well, fudge on a fucking stick. If I’d just remembered that a few hours ago, maybe I could’ve gone house-sized and kicked this son of a bitch’s ass?! “I’ll call Twinkle, and we’ll be on our way.”

“Twinkle?” I ask as Raiden adjusts his top hat, decorated with a little white slip under the orange-red ribbon that reads In This Style 10/6. He catches me looking at it and points up at his head. “Are you interested in this, darling? Because for my future bride, no price is too high for a hat.” He pulls it off his head and underneath, there’s another friggin’ top hat, this one white with a black ribbon. Raiden moves over to me and reaches out to put the first hat on my head, but I slap his hand away.

“What does the tag mean anyway?” I ask as he smirks and drops it back over his head, covering up the white hat underneath once again.

“Costs ten and one sixth coins,” he explains as I roll my eyes and the man puts two fingers up to his lips, letting out a shrill whistle that echoes through the towering forest of trees and mushrooms. I thought the King of Hearts literally killed people who fucked with his mushrooms? But none of the three assholes here seem to care as the Dormouse shoves the massive hunks of multi-colored mushroom meat into the back of the carriage, slams the door shut, and slaps his palm against the side of the oversized teapot.

The carriage takes off, the horses’ hooves splashing rainwater as they gallop off. I remember North telling me that in a wild magic storm, a horse is as likely to be a pumpkin as it is an equine. But the Mad Hatter’s horses are all wearing raincoats, little hats, and boots, and they seem just fine. Huh. Glancing down, I realize that my legs are now wet with this supposedly horrid magic rainwater.

“The wild magic moved on hours ago,” North tells me as Raiden continues to whistle, “and the regular rain washed most of the power away. Don’t worry.” He reaches down and takes my hand in his, squeezing me so hard that his talons dig into my skin, these shiny black hooks of claw that I actually find sort of … sexy?

The Mad Hatter pauses in his whistling to sing a ridiculous little doozy of a tune, his voice this low, icy creepy sound that both fascinates and frustrates me to no end. His accent—because supposedly, he’s from my world, right?—is definitely a West Coast USA sort of sound, but heightened, elevated, like he’s a bit older than I think he is.

“Twinkle, Twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you’re at? Up above the world you fly, like a tea-tray in the sky. Twinkle, Twinkle—”

When he sings, I get chills. When he stops singing, cut off by the sudden sound of flapping wings above us, I feel the blood drain from my face.

What. The. Fuck. Is. That?!

My mouth hangs open as a massive bat swoops down low and drops two long ropes from its hooked back feet. With a skip and a hop, Raiden Walker steps onto a metal bar attached to the rope and then curls his arm around my waist, snatching me from North’s grip. Dor does the same, taking hold of the March Hare and the second rope at the same moment.

The dinosaur-sized fucking bat changes course on a dime, rising into the sky with huge, long flaps of its leathery wings. As dumbfounded as I am by the size and sudden appearance of yet another weird ass creature, I don’t miss the fact that we’ve just left North behind.

“Wait!” I scream as the air rushes past me and the ground … gets farther and farther away. My stomach lurches and like, I have a fucking thing about heights. Remember that C I got in gym because I refused to climb the damn rope? Well, now I’m on a rope with nothing to cling to except a vampire/mercenary asshole who wants to marry me.

And the ground … the ground is so very far away.

Turning my head, I bury my face in the hollow of Raiden’s throat and throw my arms around his neck. I even wrap my legs around him and hang on for dear life, my heart thundering in my throat, my eyes closed so tight they hurt. I bet the view is amazing. Hell, I’m sure it’s spectacular. I just don’t want to see it.

A roar sounds from behind us, this bone-shattering, eardrum-bursting screech that I somehow recognize as being North’s. Well, at least that answers that. He’s shifted and is following us via jabberwock wing. Good for him. Hope no horny females pop out of the trees and attack. How ironic, is it, that in this world, it’s the men who have to live with a low-grade anxiety at all times, wondering if a woman might pop out of nowhere and sexually assault them?

All those stories Tee and Dee told me about the Riving, and about my world—Topside—affecting Underland make so much sense when I think about it from North’s point of view. He’s living the life of a human woman … as an Underland male.

“I’m going to puke all the hell over you and this bat thing that’s carrying us,” I choke out, but the Mad Hatter just chuckles and wraps his arms around me, holding me tight. We move through cool, misty morning air, beams of yellow sunshine warming our icy skin. My dressing gown sticks to my body like plastic wrap, whipping in the wind along with my hair.

Fortunately, the ride only lasts maybe an hour, but to me, it feels like weeks. Weeks in the goddamn sky, hanging above a forest made of old-growth trees and mushrooms. By the time we land, I’m shaking, brimming with adrenaline, and the last person in either world anyone should mess with.

The bat drops us off in a copse of trees, undistinguishable from the rest of the forest, and then flaps patiently above us as March and Raiden re-tie the ropes around its feet. Looking up at it, it doesn’t look any different from the bats back home. Same piggish little nose and giant ears, leathery wings, black fur, hooked claws. Just … all in gargantuan proportions. Of course, it only looks that way until North lands behind it, a sinuous curve of black scales and horns and claws.

He hisses at the bat creature, and it hisses right back at him.

“Best control your male before he makes a fool out of himself,” Dor barks, but I’m not in the mood to take shit.

“Maybe you best control yourself because you’re already acting a damn fool!” I snap, storming over to the massive form of the black goddamn dragon sharing the copse with us. He’s a jabberwock, fine, okay, but he looks like a dragon to me, this lizard/cat/dog hybrid with big webbed wings, claws, and a long sinuous tail cutting ruts into the undergrowth. He smashes mushrooms and wildflowers that explode with poofs of bright dust and glitter.

Hope none of that’s poisonous because it sure as fuck looks it.

“Hey,” I say, putting my hands on one of his massive front feet. “Shift back for me, would you? I could use someone to talk—” Before I can even finish speaking, North’s wrapped me up in his massive tail and lifted me off my feet. He’s so large that even though it’s just the tip—get it?—that he’s using, I’m completely wrapped up in thick muscle and smooth, black scales.

The Duke’s eyes flash gold as he pushes his way through the trees and over to a spot of dewy nine-leaf clovers. I wasn’t even aware there were such things as nine-leaf clovers, but he lays me down in them, still holding me with his tail, and proceeds to sniff me from head to toe. His breath is hot as he snorts from his massive nostrils and then slowly, shrinks back down to size.

That sun-kissed bronze body is now hovering above me, every muscle taut, cock swollen and erect, horns curved and deadly. The wings are the last things to go, shifting off of his back as his tail unwinds from around my waist. The smell of man, musk, and arousal is unmistakable in the air.

The Savage Duke indeed, I think, as he pins my arms down and sniffs the side of my neck again. I wiggle, bringing my silken nightie riding up my thighs.

“Mate with me?” North asks, his voice barely above the level of a growl. My heart is racing, and I so desperately want to fuck this guy, take the beast out of him, and bring him down to a more manageable level. What’s hotter than that? Taking a wild animal like the Duke and making him feel human again. Something about that appeals to me.

We’re both basically naked, so the question of condoms is out; clearly he doesn’t have any.

“I don’t want a baby or a disease,” I choke out, even though it’s the hardest thing in the world for me to say. There’s nothing more I want to do right now than have sex with the Duke of Northumbria.

“Jabberwock,” he snaps out at me, dropping his forehead to mine and then nuzzling the side of my face and neck with this rumbling growl that does all the right things to my body. My core is already slick and throbbing, my nipples pebbled and tight. “No diseases. Can’t get a human pregnant.” His teeth are clenched tight and he looks about two seconds away from tearing out of here and destroying everything in sight.

Putting my hand to North’s chest, I try to use my magic to invade his mind the way I did Dee. Doesn’t work though. All it does is encourage him to press closer, running his tongue up the side of my neck. He pushes his pelvis into me, the only thing separating us the thin layer of my silken nightgown. But I can feel the hard tip of him push into my body, just a little.

My breath rushes out and I arch my back, dragging that nightgown out of the way just enough that there’s now nothing between us anymore. North drives into me and I groan, wrapping my legs around him as he fills up every empty part of me. My body contracts, gripping him tight, and he makes this sound in my ear that isn’t at all human.

His tail, that stupid tail that I’ve been fighting off for days, wraps around the top of my nightgown and yanks the lace out of the way, curling around my breast and squeezing it tight, the tip flicking across the hard pink point of my nipple.

My fingers dig into North’s hair, threading through the silken gold strands and then taking firm hold of both curved, wicked horns, holding on tight to him as he fucks me into the dewy clovers. My back is all wet from the foliage, and my core is all wet from my arousal and the Duke’s deep, wild thrusts.

Our mating is a little … well, like a mating and not much like any other sex I’ve had. It’s fast and wild and quick, but the Duke knows exactly what to do, dropping his tail between us and teasing my clit with the very tip. He keeps us going until my body locks around him and holds tight, my spine bowing in an intense, animalistic little orgasm. I claw at the Duke’s hair, yank his head close to me, and kiss him with tongue and teeth until I feel him tense up, exploding inside of me with a snarl that catches between our joined lips.

When I collapse back into the clovers, the Duke collapses onto me and just lies there, panting hard, breathing frantic. His tail twitches absently against the wet leaves of the plants.

“So much easier to come down from my other form with a mate,” he grumbles, and then pushes up, looking down at me with gold eyes and a satisfied smirk that both excites and infuriates me at the same time. I shove him off and sit up, the Vorpal Blade still strapped to my thigh, my heart thundering faster than the bread-and-butterfly’s wings as it sits on a flower not ten feet from me.

I know what the damn thing is because I remember reading about it, an insect with wings of bread and butter, the body of crust, and the head a lump of sugar. Mostly, it looks like its head is actually made up of two multi-faceted pearl-white eyes, similar to what a dragonfly’s back home would be. But I only stare at it for a moment because all three of our captors are coming through the trees, and I’m tugging my nightgown back down my thighs.

“Excellent,” Raiden Walker says, adjusting his hat as he grins at me with two sharp canines. The March Hare is still lazily eating his apple, cutting slices from it with his knife and then stabbing them. He sucks the bit of fruit right off the end of the blade. The Dormouse, on the other hand, just glares at North and me like he’s fantasizing about bashing both our heads in this time. “You’ve soothed the jabberwock, and now we see the king.”

He removes a small, golden key from the front pocket of his jacket, steps over to a large tree and bends down, unlocking a tiny little door.

“For the future Queen of Hearts,” March says, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a pair of bottles, both labelled FUCKING DRINK ME! I take them both, my heart contracting at the thought of the twins and what they might be thinking about my sudden disappearance. Without looking at the Duke, I pass over one of the bottles, our fingers tangling together and sending warm little thrills through my body.

Oh, what the hell? I can’t help myself. I flick my gaze his way and pop the cork on my bottle. He does the same, and we toast each other.

“Bottoms up,” I murmur, and then chug the sweet liquid in a single gulp.