Chapter 24 Slaying Dragons
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
SLAYING DRAGONS
Tea time is fraught with tension. Everyone surrounds the table. Some even stand behind chairs, as we didn’t have enough for everyone.
“We’re here to plan a take down of the Red Queen.
All those opposed to this idea or all those who don’t want to fight can leave,” Hatter announces from the head of the table.
“Eleanor has and is trained with the Vorpal Blade. She’ll kill the queen’s favorite pet dragon; all we need to do is give her the distraction she requires. ”
Dragon.
The term flutters through my brain, seeming to weigh a ton.
I have to slay a dragon.
Nope, never going to get used to that idea.
“We’re all with you, Hatter. You tell us what we need to do.” A tiny kitchen mouse stands atop a tray of cakes, holding the smallest sword I’ve ever witnessed in the air in solidarity.
The creatures of Wonderland, big and small, are united in their mission to free themselves from tyranny.
And I’m the one who must achieve it for them.
It feels so heavy.
For hours, we plan.
Most of it is over my head, and the locations and names of creatures I don’t know get tossed back and forth. Lewis holds my hand beneath the table, all the while Finlo gives me weighted looks between conversations.
Once everyone has their marching orders, the table clears.
Even the Fettersnatch says goodnight and leaves, promising to be here in the morning to lead me into battle.
Battle.
To think about where I came from only weeks ago, and who I was in the woods, crying over a man, when this was my destiny all along, is insane.
I fell through a hole in the world, only to find myself.
Finlo helps me out of my chair, and my back feels stiff from hours of planning.
His face is still black and blue, but Sable healed some of the worst abrasions. I learned earlier that her tongue possesses healing properties.
She’ll be a great asset on the battlefield.
“Are you alright? You barely spoke during the meeting,” Finlo says, holding the house door open to allow me inside ahead of him.
Ariadne is already on the couch, knitting something with a smile as she looks up at us.
“I’m fine.”
“It’s a shame, you know?” he sighs, leading me back to his bedroom, where he shuts the door behind us.
“What is?”
Finlo turns to me, his hands firm on my shoulders. His big green eyes hold my gaze. “That I never finished your hat.”
“We have time for that. I’m not worried about a hat right now, Fin.”
“I’m new to this feeling,” he says, pulling me closer. His hands cup my face, and I feel like the most cherished creature in all of Wonderland to be in the Mad Hatter’s capable hands.
“What feeling?” I whisper.
His lips dust over mine, and my exhale is shaky and reserved.
“I lost my mind without you.”
A moan escapes me unbidden. “I know the feeling.”
“I’m never letting you out of my sight again.” His lips capture mine in a gruelling kiss, every ounce of emotion we’ve both felt in the past two weeks overflowing as our tongues lash together in battle.
Finlo pulls at my clothes, and I break our kiss, panting. “Ariadne is in the living room.”
“So.”
“She’ll hear.”
His hand wafts through the air. “She won’t. Take your clothes off. I’m dying to be inside you.”
The reality that Finlo was a virgin, and he’s now saying things like that has me feeling prideful and also wondering if I created a monster.
I quickly undress and stand before him nude as his eyes take an appreciative trip up and down my body.
He bites his fist before removing his own clothes, his cock hard as steel as he drops his pants.
He backs me to the bed, pushing me over as I get close.
I laugh as I bounce. “Fin!”
Crawling over me, he grins wickedly. “What?”
My answer is lost as he pries my thighs apart, placing his body between them as my sex throbs at the real implication of what he’s about to do, bearing down on me.
“I missed you, Tiger Lily.” His lips skim up my throat, his fingers probing my pussy before diving inside roughly.
“Ahh!” I cry out, not realizing how much I needed this until I’m pleading for more so quickly. “I missed you, too. I missed you so much.”
“I can feel that,” he teases, sinking his teeth into my shoulder.
The added pain surges adrenaline and endorphins through my blood, coating my veins in a latent hum of arousal.
“So wet for me,” he adds, and another wave of wetness pools around his fingers.
Yeah. I’ve created a monster.
Part of me wishes he’d forgo the foreplay and fuck me, the other part of me can’t fathom him stopping the closer he gets me to climax.
“Even during torture, I thought of you. Of the sounds you make when I’m inside you. Of the way you kiss me like I’m your oxygen,” he whispers, pulling his fingers from inside me, only to replace the emptiness with his length in one smooth thrust.
I cry out, arching into his body as I wrap my legs around him.
“Did you make yourself come while I was gone?” he whispers against my ear, his thrusts taking my breath away as my body burns and threatens to snap at any moment.
“I tried. I couldn’t… Fin, don’t stop,” I plead as he slows to look down at me with intrigue dancing in his eyes.
He speeds up at my words, using my head as leverage to give me everything he can. Everything he has.
“I can’t be quiet,” I realize as the underlying current of lust that’s been dormant builds to a beautiful climax in my body, feeling as though it’s going to be the orgasm to end all orgasms.
“Scream for me, Tiger Lily. I’ve dreamt of the sounds you make. They’re the soundtrack for every dream. You take up every space in my brain, in my world.”
His words snap me like a rubber band, and I come violently, my body convulsing in pulses, stars dancing in my vision.
Finlo picks up his pace, dragging out my pleasure as he follows my orgasm with his own. “Oh, hell,” he moans, and a thrill prickles at the base of my spine that it’s my body causing him to come apart at the seams.
I’m thankful he doesn’t stop his movements because I’m not nearly as satisfied as I thought I would be after that.
Pulling out of me, Finlo looks down at me with wild eyes. “On all fours.”
Oh, fuck yeah!
I love the wild, untamed side of the Mad Hatter, especially when I’m on the receiving end.
I flip over, arching my back for optimal depth.
My eyes cross when he sinks back inside, harder than he had moments ago.
His hand skims down my spine, one target in its sight, and I don’t realize what it is until he has me firmly by the nape.
My head tugs back in his hold, my moans only growing louder.
“The things I’ve thought about doing to you while I was away are indecent.”
“No, they’re not!” I whimper. “Do them! Do all of them!”
My greedy little ass gets spanked, and I reward him with a moan.
Finlo Pennington is finding his kinky side, and I’m thankful to have been the one to awaken it.
“Again!” I plead, my body building back to a slow burning in my lower belly, tingling, worming its way up my legs.
He slaps the other ass cheek before I feel a very unfamiliar pressure against my asshole.
“Is this alright?” he asks, and my eyes fly wide.
A finger probes slowly at the tight entrance, teasing and adding a mind-numbing tension to my pleasure.
“Yes,” I moan.
The moment I hear him spit on my ass is the moment I think I’ve died and gone to heaven. The heaven where everyone’s insane and Finlo and I fuck twenty-four-seven.
His finger uses the spit to work inside my ass.
A momentary burn pulls my attention away from the cock inside me and has me worried that this was a bad idea.
Then, the two move in tandem together, working me higher and higher, and I’m screaming as much as I’m breathing.
“So good,” Finlo grits out. “It’s… so good.”
The pleasure coating his voice snaps my resolve, and I come in waves that overwhelm my system, my hands gripping onto the surrounding pillows for stability as I face plant into them.
Finlo cries out, spilling inside me and bowing over my back.
Hearing him scream my name will never get old.
Finlo collapses beside where I’ve plopped onto my stomach, and for a moment, both of us breathe through our racing hearts and final buzzes of pleasure.
“I love you,” he says, lolling his head toward me. “No matter what’s coming, I love you.”
With great effort, I pull up to kiss him. “I love you, Fin. I think I always have. I know that I always will.”
He grins against my lips as I capture them again.
“Tomorrow, we fight.”
“Tomorrow night, we fuck?!” I joke, and he laughs.
After cleaning ourselves up, we fall into a peaceful slumber, wrapped around one another like the battle for freedom isn’t looming on the horizon.
Even if I’ve been through some hard shit in my life, at least I fell through a hole in the world and found happiness, however fleeting.
Morning comes with terror on its heels. I rouse in a panic, searching the room for what could’ve woken me.
A wail breaks out, curling through the air. The hair on my body stands on end.
Finlo rushes into the room, attempting to get a boot on his foot while running, growling when he almost tips over.
“What’s happening?” I ask him, shucking off the blankets.
The cold, damp air of the room wraps around me before I find clothes to put on, which I do hastily because of the energy wafting off Finlo.
“She knows you’re here. She knows you’re in the Bog. I should’ve known better. Should’ve warned you off. I knew better. Large-headed women don’t belong here. It’s all my fault.”
His rambling has me scrambling toward the window and peeling back the curtain to find the source of the screeching.
The Fettersnatch, Sable as I know her, is in the yard, calling out as loud as she can as a shadow shoots by overhead, taunting her.
“Oh, God.” My whisper heats the glass before me, fogging it.
“You need to stay inside. I’ll get rid of them.”
“Get rid of who?”
“The Knave and…” He swallows as I turn back, fear likely etched into the angles of my eyes.
“The Chatterwocky,” I add, my voice shaking.
“Yes.”
“So, war has come to us?”
Finlo steps into me, his warm hand seizing my cheek in its grasp. “Let me go out and speak to the Knave.”
“What will you say? If she knows I’m here, it’s over. It’s time.”
Leaning forward, Finlo rests his forehead against mine. His eyes close. “I wanted us to control the narrative. I wanted this to happen on our terms.”
“One can’t control fate.”
“No. Not with the grubby hands of a caterpillar stirring the pot.”
“You think Prospero…”
“I know.”
“Why would he do that?”
“It’s his nature. If she solved his riddle, he would have no choice. There are rules here in Wonderland, Tiger Lily.”
Sighing, my eyes scan over to the Vorpal Blade, where it rests on the end of the bed, glinting against the cushion of the cedar chest pressed against the mattress.
“I’ll go outside.”
Fear rips through my chest, but is followed by thrill.
I knew this day was on the horizon, but now that it’s here, I’m questioning every bit of training Cirius handed down.
“No,” Finlo argues.
I begin to argue, but he cuts me off with his thumb over my lips. “We go together.”