Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Darius
I cradled Alice against me, her head lolling against my shoulder. She was so pale. So deathly still. Her chest rose and fell in shallow breaths—barely there, barely enough.
"Alice. Alice, stay with me."
She didn't respond. Didn't stir. Her skin was cold beneath my fingertips.
What had she done? What the hell had she done?
The harpy whimpered somewhere behind me. I didn't care. I didn't care about anything except the woman in my arms who looked like she was slipping away from me.
Steel sang against leather. I turned my head to see Grump unsheathe his sword, raising it over his head, his eyes fixed on the harpy with cold intent.
"No! Don't kill it."
Grump froze, his blade still raised. His eyes narrowed. "Why not? She's with them."
"Look at the ground, you stubborn bastard. Look."
He followed my gaze. The collar lay split in two on the forest floor. Black smoke slithered from the broken metal, seeping into the earth like something fleeing back to hell.
Grump knelt slowly, his sword still in his hand. He studied the collar, his jaw tightening. "Dark magic. She was possessed. Compelled."
"Alice knew." I pulled her closer, my chest aching. "She knew, and she nearly killed herself trying to save—"
Archer grabbed Grump's arm. His eyes were wide—wider than I'd ever seen them. He pointed at the harpy.
We all turned.
The wounds on the harpy's body were reversing. Blood flowed backward, retreating into torn flesh. Gashes closed. Skin knitted together as if an invisible hand was stitching her back together from the inside out. The lash marks on her back faded one by one, erased like they'd never existed.
"Impossible," Grump breathed.
Footsteps approached. Slow. Deliberate. Caterpillar emerged from the trees, smoke curling lazily from his lips. He looked down at the harpy, then at Alice in my arms, his ancient eyes unreadable.
He exhaled a slow curl of smoke. "Curious... most curious."
"What?" I demanded. "What's curious?"
He tilted his head, studying Alice's pale face. "She did not stop death... she unraveled it. Pulled the thread... and the wound was never there." Another pause. Another curl of smoke. "Can a thing exist... if it never happened? Can magic bind... what was never broken?"
He looked at the shattered collar, then back at me.
"The question is not what she did." His voice dropped lower. "The question is... what will it cost her to keep doing it?"
This wasn’t fucking happening. She was fine. Everything I’d fought for, everything I’d found—crumbling. “You mean she'll die?"
Caterpillar exhaled smoke again, watching it curl toward the canopy. "What would happen if she did? What would you do about it?"
My arms tightened around her. I'd been alone for so long. Fighting against an evil queen. Fighting to survive. Then she came. And for the first time in years, I had something worth losing.
I couldn't…wouldn't…lose Alice. The possibility carved a hole in my chest. "I'd burn this whole dimension to the ground."
"Would you?" Caterpillar's lips curved. "Interesting."
"He would, you know."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Then Chester stepped out from behind a tree—or maybe he'd been there all along. With him, you could never tell. His grin was wide and sharp and far too amused for the moment.
"He'd burn it all." Chester leaned against the trunk, arms crossed. "And then himself. Very romantic. Very stupid."
"This isn't a joke," I snarled.
"Who's joking?" Chester pushed off the tree and walked toward us, his steps silent. His eyes—bright and unnerving—fixed on Alice's face. The grin faltered. Just for a moment.
"She's still in there," he said quietly. "But she’s slipped into the shadows of her own mind.” His head tilted. "The question is whether she wants to come back."
I needed her.
The words carved through me like a blade between the ribs. Not just wanted—needed. She was the piece of me I hadn't known was missing. The key that had unlocked memories I'd buried for years. The reason my cold, hollow chest had started to feel something again.
I'd been lost for so long. Wandering through endless years, going through the motions, pretending to be alive when I was just... existing.
Then she'd stumbled into my world. Stubborn. Fierce. Terrified of her own power but brave enough to use it anyway.
And now she was slipping away from me.
I looked down at her face—too pale, too still—and something cracked open inside me. Something raw and desperate and terrifying.
She wanted to belong. She'd spent her whole life searching for a place, a family, a home.
She belonged to me. And I belonged to her.
"Alice." I brushed her hair from her cheek. "Come back to me. You're mine."
I cupped her face in my trembling hands and pressed my lips to hers. They were cold. Stiff. Nothing like the warm, soft mouth that had kissed me back in the armory.
I didn't care.
I kissed her like I could pour my own life into her. Like I could drag her back from whatever dark place she'd gone. Like losing her wasn't an option I was willing to accept.
Come back. Please. I can't do this without you.
Nothing happened.
Her lips didn't move. Her breath grew shallower—each one fainter than the last, like she was drifting further away with every passing second.
I grabbed her shoulders, shaking. “Alice, don’t you fucking leave me. I need you. I need you.”
Was it the queen's magic? That dark, twisted power still clawing at her from the inside?
Damn you, Alanna. Damn you to hell.
My eyes burned. Pressure built behind them, hot and unfamiliar. I blinked hard, my jaw clenching.
What the fuck was happening to me? I never cried. Never. Not in years. Not when I'd lost everything. Not when I'd forgotten my own parents.
But this woman—this impossible, stubborn, beautiful woman—was breaking me apart.
I kissed her again, deeper this time, desperate. Not gentle. Not soft. A demand.
Alice, come back. You did the impossible for the harpy. Now do it for me. Come back to me.
Something fluttered beside us.
I pulled back, my hand going to my blade—but it was the harpy. She'd crawled closer, her wings dragging, her body still weak. Her face was harsh and angular like all harpies, but her eyes...
Her eyes held something I'd never seen in a harpy before.
Gratitude.
She reached down with trembling fingers and plucked a feather from her own wing—a wince of pain crossing her face—and placed it gently on Alice's chest. A gift. An offering.
Alice's eyes fluttered open.
My heart stopped. Then slammed back to life. A broken laugh tore out of me, part relief, part disbelief.
“There you are,” I whispered.
Her gaze didn't find me first. It found the harpy. Something passed between them—something I couldn't name, couldn't touch. A bond forged in blood and impossible magic.
Alice lifted her hand, weak and trembling, and brushed her fingers against the harpy's clawed ones.
"Friend," she whispered.
The harpy's twisted face softened. She nodded once—slow, deliberate—then spread her healed wings and launched into the sky.
I watched her disappear above the treeline before looking back down at Alice.
She was awake. She was alive.
And I was never letting her go again.
I scooped Alice up into my arms and pulled her against my chest. She still had her bow and arrows, but they weighed nothing compared to the relief flooding through me. She was warm. She was breathing. She was alive.
“Darius, you’re too weak.” Her fingers curled into my shirt. She snuggled closer, and something in my chest burst open.
“The hell I am.”
My legs burned. My arms shook. The poison hadn't fully left my system, and every muscle screamed at me to stop, to rest, to let someone else carry her.
I didn't care.
I forced myself to move. One step. Then another. I didn't falter. I wouldn't. Not with her in my arms.
She was mine. And I would die before I let anything happen to her.
Alanna's magic had done this. That dark, vicious power had nearly ripped Alice away from me. And it was getting stronger—I could feel it in the way the shadows had fought back, the way the collar had clawed at Alice's life force like a starving animal.
What would happen when they finally faced each other? Alice and Alanna. Light and dark. Good and evil.
What if evil was stronger?
My arms tightened around her. My jaw ached from clenching.
It didn't matter. I'd stand between them. I'd burn the whole kingdom down. I'd tear Alanna apart with my bare hands if I had to.
No one was taking Alice from me.
No one.
I slipped inside the grotto with Alice cradled against my chest. Her breathing had steadied, deep and even; she'd fallen asleep somewhere between the forest and here.
I lowered her onto the cot next to mine, gentle as I could manage. She didn't stir. Her face was still too pale, dark circles bruising the skin beneath her eyes. But her chest rose and fell. Her heart beat steady beneath my palm.
She was alive. That was all that mattered.
I wasn't leaving her. Not tonight. Not ever, if I could help it.
I sank onto the edge of my cot, my elbows on my knees, and watched her sleep. My mind wouldn't quiet.
She thought we needed the harpy. Why? Harpies were vicious, merciless creatures. Tools of the queen and her allies. No one befriended a harpy—you either controlled them or you died by their talons.
Still, the feather rested in Alice’s fingers—dark, iridescent, and terrifyingly gentle. A contradiction she refused to let go of.
But Alice had looked at that broken, tortured creature and seen something worth saving.
So many questions swirled through my head, demanding answers I didn't have. But they would have to wait.
I scooted my cot until it pressed against hers, the frames scraping softly against the stone floor. Then I lay down beside her, draping my arm across her body, pulling her close until I could feel her heartbeat against my ribs.
She fit against me like she'd been made for this. For me.
I buried my face in her hair and breathed her in.
I never thought I'd feel this way about anyone—let alone a woman from another world. The Elder Dimension had beaten the softness out of me centuries ago. I'd become hard. Cold. A weapon with no purpose except survival.
Then she'd crashed into my darkness like a ray of sunlight, stubborn and scared and so damn brave it made my chest ache.
She'd unlocked pieces of me I thought were gone forever.
I couldn't lose her. The thought alone made it hard to breathe.
But would she ever truly be safe here?
The queen would hear about what happened in that forest. Ari had already seen Alice stop time—and now she'd reversed death itself. Word would spread. It always did.
They would come for her. Alanna would want that power for herself, and she wouldn't ask nicely. She'd capture Alice, break her, twist her into a weapon—just like she'd done to Joy.
My arm tightened around her. My jaw clenched until my teeth ached.
I couldn't let that happen.
Maybe... maybe I had to find a way to send her back. Back to her world. Back to Tinker Bell and the coven who didn't deserve her.
Away from me.
My chest hollowed out at the thought. But if it was the only way to keep her safe—if staying here meant losing her to something far worse than distance—
I'd do it.
Even if it destroyed me.