Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Darius
A hand on my shoulder. A voice curling through the dark. “Darius. Come back from wherever you’ve gone.”
I surfaced slowly, dragging myself up from the depths of dreamless sleep. The kind of sleep that offered no rest, only absence. My eyes found Chester’s grin first—it always arrived before the rest of him—floating in the shadows beside my bed.
“What is it?”
Chester’s body shimmered into view, his head cocked at a disconcerting slant. His eyes gleamed with something I couldn’t name. Mischief perhaps. Or something closer to purpose.
“A riddle for you, Mad King.” He spread his hands lazily. “What does a little witch lose track of when she’s busy washing your linens and counting moons?”
I pushed myself upright, ignoring the sharp pain in my side and the unease prickling along my spine. “Speak plainly, Chester.”
That grin stretched wider, but there was no mockery in it now. Only a strange, soft knowing.
“Do you know what day this is?”
“I’m tired, Chester. What day is it?”
“It’s not Alice’s unbirthday.”
“Not her unbirthday.” The words filtered through the haze of exhaustion until they finally clicked. “You mean it’s her birthday?”
“What would an unwanted, lonely little witch want?”
The question landed like a blade between my ribs. Unwanted. Lonely.
I thought of her locked away. Watched. Guarded. The way my men looked at her—suspicion hardening their faces every time she entered a room. The way I'd kissed her, touched her, wanted her—while still treating her like a threat instead of a woman trapped in a world she never asked to enter.
We hadn’t welcomed her. We’d caged her. Or at least I had.
And today she turned another year older. Alone. In a world that wasn’t hers. With no one to even know.
Except Chester.
“How did you…?”
“She told me.” He paused, head tilting slightly. “A secret, she called it. As if the day of her birth was something to hide.” Those luminous eyes blinked. “Curious creatures, humans. They ache so quietly.”
My chest tightened. “What does she want, Chester?”
The grin softened—just barely. “I suspect, Mad King, she’s forgotten she’s allowed to want anything at all.”
I fought through the angry pain in my side, willing myself to stay upright. Beads of sweat rolled down my temples. “We’re in a cavern, Chester. What the hell am I going to give her?”
“Belonging.” He stretched the word out, savoring it. “Such a small thing. Such a hard thing. What makes one belong, I wonder?”
“I don’t have anything—” I stopped. My hand drifted to my chest. To the ink over my heart.
Chester’s grin widened, his eyes gleaming in the dark. “Ah. There it is. The Mad King remembers he has a heart after all.”
“She’s not one of us.” I kept my voice flat. The less they knew about what I felt for her the better. Feelings were weaknesses. And weaknesses got people killed.
“No? How curious.” He leaned back, arms folding loosely as he studied me.
“Tell me, Darius—how many times must a little witch save a king’s life before she belongs to him?
Once? Twice?” His head tilted askew, as always.
“Three times she’s dragged you back from the brink, and still she washes your blood from her hands like you’re no one to her. ”
My jaw tightened. Chester always spoke in riddles, but in this case, he was hitting the mark. She had saved my life, risked her life for me without asking for anything in return. And I had no idea what to do with that.
“The men won’t accept it.”
“Won’t they? Or is it the Mad King who won’t accept it?” His form flickered, fading at the edges. “We’re all mad here, Darius. The only question is what your madness will cost you.”
Chester wasn’t looking at me but past me. Something flickered in his golden eyes—amusement maybe, or something warmer—and I glanced over my shoulder.
Alice approached us. Her hair was damp, cascading down her shoulders in soft waves, and she had on a different tunic—brown—and green leggings. Simple. Plain. And yet I couldn’t look away.
Three times she’s saved your life.
Chester’s words echoed in my skull. I thought of her hands on my chest, washing away blood. The way she’d said never been accepted like it was just the way things were. The way she’d told Chester that today was her birthday like it was a secret too fragile to speak aloud.
And here she was, checking on me. Again. As if I mattered.
Something twisted behind my ribs. Something I didn’t want to name.
“How are you feeling?” Her voice was gentle. Careful. Like I might break.
I swallowed hard, shoving the feeling down where it couldn’t reach me.
“Why did you change your clothes? Did you bathe?”
The deflection came out sharper than I intended. Easier to ask questions than answer them. Easier to focus on her than the ache building in my chest every time she looked at me like that.
“I’m sorry. After scrubbing and washing laundry I needed to change. I didn’t mean to irritate you. If you’ll excuse me…”
Damn it. That came out wrong. Everything I said to her came out wrong. “Wait…”
Chester faded away, allowing me to stew in my own stupidity.
“What?” She put her hands on her hips.
Defensive. Guarded. I'd done that—made her feel like she had to protect herself from me. “Chester tells me it’s your birthday.”
She hung her head. “Yes. I’m twenty-one today.” She looked up, and I thought her eyes glistened. “Old enough to drink.”
The fight drained out of her so fast it startled me. One moment defiant, the next... broken.
My chest ached. Twenty-one. Alone in a cavern full of Unseelie and one demon who’d treated her like a prisoner. And still she tried to make a joke of it.
“Happy birthday, Alice.”
Surprise sparked in her gaze at hearing that—before she buried it. “Thank you.”
She turned to leave.
“Stay with me.” The words scraped out of me before I could stop them.
She stopped but turned. Wariness flared in those blue eyes. It stung more than it should have.
I patted the seat next to me. “Sit next to me.”
She scanned the cavern and shook her head. “No kissing.”
I should have been disappointed. Instead, something loosened in my chest. She wasn't leaving. That was enough—for now.
“Then what would you want?” I kept my voice light, but my mind was already racing. If she sat down, if she stayed, I wasn't sure I could keep my hands to myself. Birthday or not.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. All I could think about was what Tinker Bell said.”
Tinker Bell. The witch who'd raised her, trained her, kept secrets from her. I didn't trust anyone who hoarded information—especially about magic as powerful as Alice's.
“What did she tell you?”
She glanced around the cavern nervously and wrung her hands. "I'm not sure I should tell you."
Now I really wanted to know. Secrets had a way of getting people killed in this realm.
“Why?”
A tear slid down her cheek. “Because you’ll turn me out like the coven wanted to.”
Turn her out. She was sitting here, trembling, waiting for me to throw her away like everyone else had.
“Please.” I kept my voice steady. “Tell me what Tinker Bell said.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, shrinking inward. “That my power could come into its full fruition. That if I can’t control it, I could go nuclear. Destroy everything.” Her voice cracked. “That’s why the coven wanted me gone. I’m a bomb waiting to go off.”
I studied her—this small, terrified witch who’d saved my life three times over.
“Alice. When did you first stop time?”
She blinked. “What?”
“When did it happen? The first time.”
“I...” She frowned. “Here. In the Elder Dimension. I’d never done it before.”
“And you did it on purpose. You controlled it.” I let that sit between us. “You’ve been here a few days and you’re already doing what twenty-one years in your world couldn’t teach you.” I held her gaze. “You’re not a bomb, Alice. You’re not out of control. You’re finally finding it.”
Her eyes seemed to go distant. “Find me,” she mumbled as she slowly sat down next to me. She was so close—close enough to kiss, to touch.
“Maybe it wasn’t me you heard in the mirror. Maybe it was about finding your magic.”
She looked up at me, her lips parting. Like the idea had never occurred to her. “You really think that could be it?”
The eagerness in her voice and the excitement in her eyes made her even more desirable. I leaned forward. “Yeah, I do. It’s not easy to do magic in the Elder Dimension. You have stopped time twice.”
She looked down at her palms as if she’d never seen them before. “But I didn’t know what I was doing.”
“Is that true?” I brushed my thumb over her hand. Her skin was warm and soft. “The first time, yes. But I think each time, you’re controlling it. You need to believe in yourself. You’re not a walking disaster. How many witches back in your world can stop time? Can Tinker Bell?”
“No. She can’t.” Another tear rolled down her face.
Damn Tinker Bell. Damn the coven. They'd given her power she couldn't control and then abandoned her to figure it out alone.
“You’re powerful, Alice. You belong with us.”
I was surprised I really meant that. I didn't let people in—not anymore. But somehow, she'd slipped past every wall I'd built.
She stared at me, her lips parted. Like no one had ever said those words to her before. Like she didn’t know what to do with them.
“You don’t mean that,” she whispered.
“Yes. I do. I know you’ve saved my life three times. I know you stopped time to do it—not by accident, not out of panic, but because you chose to.” I pushed myself forward, ignoring the fire in my side. “I know the coven who raised you couldn’t see what was right in front of them.”
Her chin trembled. “And what’s that?”
“Power isn’t the problem. It never was. It’s the people around you who were too afraid to help you believe in yourself. But we believe in you. You belong with us.”
The tears spilled over now, streaming down her cheeks. She didn’t wipe them away. She wrapped her arms around herself like she was trying to hold herself together.
“I don’t belong anywhere, Darius.”
I felt those words in my bones.
I slipped my arm around her waist—gently, carefully—and pulled her against my side. She came without resistance, her body trembling beneath my touch.
“That’s not true. You could belong here.” I kissed the top of her head. Home. I was offering her a home “With us.”
She shook her head. “Your men don’t trust me. They look at me like I’m—”
“They’ll trust who I tell them to trust.” I held her gaze. “I want to give you something. For your birthday.”
Those eyes. The same eyes that had haunted my dreams for longer than I could remember. Eyes I'd never been able to place, watching me through the mist, through the darkness, through years I'd tried to forget.
Her eyes.
My chest tightened around something I couldn't put into words.
She let out a shaky laugh. “You don’t have to—”
“A name. And a mark.” I touched my chest, where the hat sat inked over my heart. “The same one my men wear. The same one the Uncrowned Seven wear.”
It felt right.
And that terrified me.
Her breath caught. “Darius...”
“You’d be one of us, Alice. Family. No one could touch you. No one could cast you out.” I swallowed hard. “Not ever again.”