Chapter 26 Frabjous Day and Glass Unicorns
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
FRABJOUS DAY AND GLASS UNICORNS
The past few days were spent burying friends and family, and then celebrating their lives cut short for the cause. The devoid eyes of the Red Queen were the thing I couldn’t, and still can’t, get out of my head.
I’ve never thought of myself as the type who could kill, and now that I have, it’s as if I can feel the stamp on my soul marking me for hell.
Finlo has been distant, and I don’t know if it’s because I deviated from the plan and killed the queen and allowed the Chatterwocky to live, or if it’s because he doesn’t want to be tied to a killer.
I meander around my room, running my fingers over trinkets from childhood that I’d forgotten.
In all the trauma of killing the queen, every memory I’d forgotten came flooding back to me.
Every night that I spent laughing with Fin and Lewis. Every tea party.
Lifting a tiny glass unicorn, I smile at the memory of Fin giving it to me on my tenth birthday, to which I got angry.
I was ten and couldn’t fathom that he thought I was a child. It was because of my crush on the Hatter.
I’ve always loved Fin on some level. Now, that love has evolved and shifted into something else, but it was always there, waiting to be curated.
“He felt so bad after that birthday,” a voice says, and I startle, nearly dropping the unicorn to the top of the dresser.
Placing it down, I turn to find Lewis leaning inside the doorframe. “You spent the rest of the party in your room, and he listened to you cry outside the door. He was so scared you’d always hate him.”
I smile, tucking my face down as my eyes hit the floor. “I could never hate him. I wanted him to see me as more.”
“He does now.”
“Yeah, but things have shifted again.”
“Have they?”
“I killed the queen instead of her dragon. I spared the creature beneath her rule to cut off the tyrant’s head. I think he’s angry with me.”
“I don’t think he could ever get angry with you.”
“He’s been… strange.”
Lewis scoffs, sighing. “He’s the Mad Hatter, it’s his thing.”
I would agree with him if Finlo weren’t so… himself with me. He hasn’t seemed like the Mad Hatter to me for quite some time, if I’m honest.
“Things will settle. You saved Wonderland.”
“I hope I did the right thing.”
“You did.”
“But the scrolls,” I argue.
“Prospero brought them this morning. They altered after you slew the Red Queen.”
That’s news to me. “I altered my destiny?”
“We control our own fate. Even in Wonderland.”
My eyes run over the room, catching on the quilt made from patches of hatting fabric Finlo made for me soon after I arrived in Wonderland for the first time. “I don’t know if things will ever be the same again, Lewis.”
“They won’t.”
My heart races and my stomach sinks.
“They’ll be better.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Now, get ready or we’ll be late!”
I roll my eyes. “Late for what now?”
“For Frabjous Day, of course. You looked at the scrolls, did you not?”
“I did, but I don’t think I looked past fighting a dragon.”
“Well, you’re in for a treat, then. The White Queen has come home; there’ll be a celebration, and you’re the reason we’re celebrating. So,—”
“I can’t be late. Got it,” I finish for him, smiling.
“Meet me out front in an hour. We’ll go together.”
Once he’s gone, I slowly make my way out of my room and down the hall, hovering near the closed door to Hatter’s workshop.
My hand hovers over the door he’s been holed up behind since we got back from the mass funeral service two days ago.
Dropping it, I press my forehead to the wood, wishing like hell he’d talk to me.
Shit, screaming would be better than this.
He’s processing what happened, and I think I need to give him the time and space to do so, as he’d do for me if the roles were reversed.
“I miss you,” I whisper, knowing he won’t hear me but needing to say it, nonetheless.
An hour later, I’m dressed and leaving the Bog with Lewis. Hatter never comes out of his workshop to join us, and I spend the day being celebrated and doted over, when my mind is anywhere but with the people of Wonderland.
I have to wonder if it’s the end of my misadventure with the Mad Hatter, and this is where he sends me home, even if it breaks my heart even to think about it.
Walking inside the house, I close out the revelry happening around the tea table. Far too much funny punch was had, and I’m confident I’ll find all kinds of folk asleep on the ground in the morning.
The punch is coursing through my veins, and a buzzing urges me to stay upright. Lying down would make the world spin, even though I know I should probably go to bed.
My hand rests on my door knob as my eyes wander down the hall.
Light filters from beneath Hatter’s workshop door, and my heart races as I think of the man behind it.
What the hell could he be doing in there?
Spurred forward by spiked punch and delusion, I storm down the hall and burst into the room.
Hatter looks up from the table where he’s working, his eyes narrowing at me over the rim of dark glasses on the tip of his nose.
Removing a pin from his lips, he straightens. “Eleanor? Are you alright?”
“Nope!” I slur. “I demand to know why you’re mad at me.”
“What?! I’m not mad at you.”
“You haven’t spoken to me or slept in the bed with me for days. Something’s the matter, and I demand to know what it is.”
“Are you drunk?”
“No.” I swallow thickly as he moves around the worktable. He is wearing no shirt and is only in tight, gray sweats. “Well, a little. I had some punch at the Frabjous Day celebration that you were supposed to be at, by the way!”
“Frabjous Day?! Was that today? Good heavens, I lost track of time.”
“Yes! It was today, and I had to go alone because you were holed up in here doing God only knows what, while I was preoccupied worrying about how to make you love me again.”
“Oh, Tiger Lily.” He stops walking when he’s close enough to loom overhead. “Nothing could ever make me stop loving you. I’ll love you beyond death. I love you beyond reason.”
Now, it’s impossible to swallow altogether. “Well, then.”
He smirks at my loss for words. “Did you come in here to scold me?”
“Yes. Is it working?”
“Maybe.” He lifts me, turns me, and plops me onto the worktable. The room spins a bit, and I close my eyes.
His hands on my hips distract me from my anger, and when his lips crush to mine, a moan I try to keep at bay meanders out of its own accord.
I wrap my legs around him as his hands explore.
His lips break from mine, skimming down my throat, teasing.
“I’m very mad at you,” I breathe, squeaking, when he nips my pulse point.
“I heard.”
“Don’t you care?” Gasping at the way his hands sink beneath my shirt and cup my breasts, I close my eyes.
His scent wafts over me, reminding me just how many things I love about this man.
“I do care.”
“What do you intend to do to make it better?” I ask.
He answers by hitting his knees and shoving the dress I’d worn to Frabjous Day up my thighs.
“Push your underthings aside, and I’ll show you.”
I’m locked on the look in his green eyes as I do what I’m commanded. Heat pulsing between my thighs.
His fingers spread my lips, and he leans forward to blow on my clit, something he’s picked up on me liking in past interactions.
“I might still be mad at you after this,” I sputter out when his tongue collides with my center, working me over before he pulls back, grinning.
“We have all the time in the world.”
Once he’s wrung an orgasm out of me, he stands and pulls down his sweats.
Perhaps he’s trying to distract me from finding out why he’s been in his workshop hiding, but when he presses inside of me, I inch closer to the edge of the table, uncaring about any of the details that got me here.
I cling to him like he’s the final breath in my lungs as he thrusts wildly inside me.
We come together like a volcanic eruption, and I’m feeling even drunker afterward.
Finlo cleans both of us up before helping me off the table.
“What are you working on?” I ask him.
He slings an arm over my shoulders and shuts off the lamps. “Nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s so pressing that you’re pushing work aside?”
“You are,” he whispers into my ear, sending shivers through my body.
We shower together, our hands wandering all over again before we finally make it to bed.
Silence is heavy in the dark of night, blanketing us. Silence is where the memories and the nightmares find me since I killed the queen.
“Fin?”
“Yes?”
“Are you alright? Truly?”
He sighs, and my heart speeds.
Turning on my side, I find his face in the faint moonlight streaming in the windows.
His head lolls, his eyes capturing mine. “I’m worried you’re going to leave.”
“What?!”
Of all the things I’ve been worried he was upset about, that thought hadn’t even crossed my mind.
“You fixed Wonderland. There’s no reason for you to linger. This world isn’t what you’re used to. I’m not what you’re used to. You could go home and live the rest of your life, and Wonderland would become only a distant dream.”
Biting my cheek, I ponder the idea of going home. It’s not like I haven’t. Everything he’s saying is accurate, but he’s forgetting one very important fact.
I love him.
Tossing a leg over his, I snuggle closer. I drop a kiss onto his cheek, lingering to breathe him in. “Finlo Pennington, I could never leave you. Can’t you see that?”
His smile lights up his face. And subsequently, my soul, driving some of the darkness from my recent slaying of the queen back. “You can’t?”
“No.”
“So, you’re going to stay in Wonderland?”
“I’m going to stay in Wonderland.”
He turns on his side, wrapping around me like an angry snake as he attacks me with kisses.
“I’m so happy! Oh, Tiger Lily, this is the best news!”
I giggle but soak in all his affection and energy. “Alright now, you’d better stop that before you start something again!” I warn.
His hand sneaks between us and beneath my shorts. “Oh no, I wouldn’t want to start anything,” he taunts, his tone dropping into something deep and gravelly.
“Fin,” I breathe as two of his fingers sink inside me and my thighs part.
“It’s the Mad Hatter to you.” He adds another finger.
“Mad Hatter,” I whisper.
Biting my ear, he says, “Louder!”
When he thumbs my clit, I scream out as I’m commanded.
Round and round we go, and I have to wonder if we’ll ever get enough of one another, or if our love and passion will drive us madder over the coming years.
But if madness is to become me, so be it.