Huntsman's Prey (2 page)

A low snicker wrapped like a fist around her heart, making it beat harder with a renewed spurt of adrenaline. “That’s fine. But you’ll see. They’ll turn on you. They already have. Soon the reckoning will come. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Time’s slipping away… Oh and, Chrysalis, don’t forget to eat. You must build up your strength.” The hollowness of her laughter gripped Chrysa’s heart like a vice and then an undulation of glittering blue smoke lifted from the surface of the pool, and when it touched Chrysa’s skin the abyss of hunger came with it.

Then reflection vanished and Chrysalis stared at an empty, inky well of moonlit water.

The breeze stirred. Heart hammering in her throat, Chrysalis lifted her head and sniffed.

Darkness wrapped like a silken cocoon of decadence all around her, beckoning her to come, to follow the Piper into oblivion. Reflection was right. It was only a matter of time... why was she fighting this?

She squeezed her temples, trying in vain to drown out the sing-songy voice whispering in her head how very, very hungry it was. The moon hurt, it hurt so bad. The light of it made the ache in her bones flare to the point of torture. She wanted to cry, but if she started she’d never stop. Better to ignore it.

A field mouse dressed in a black silk bow and wearing a top hat, walked out from between the blades of grass. It stopped when it spotted her, tiny black eyes going wide, its musky scent of panic coated her nose, her tongue, and made her groan.

It adjusted its wire-framed spectacles, before swallowing hard.

The mouse was headed toward the great mouse ball. Once she might have asked to join him.

She smiled and he screamed.

Danika, in human form, paced the length of the Hatter and Alice’s quiet cabin. The two were in the back bedroom, discussing (none too quietly) what to do about their daughter.

Sighing, Danika flitted almost absentmindedly toward the delicious aroma of yeasty baked bread filtering from out of the kitchen. Her stomach growled, Alice’s food was ambrosia and had become her kryptonite.

She’d had no idea what that word meant first time Gerard’s Betty had uttered it, but the adorably geeky nerd had, with great patience, explained the mythos of a man called Superman, who Danika had to admit sounded deliciously scrumptious. Next time she met with Jericho she’d have to ask him to try on a pair of tights, apparently it was the epitome of male masculinity to wear them. At least so far as Betty was concerned, though Danika had a hard time picturing it.

Alice’s crying finally stopped.

Sniffing, Danika wiped her nose and the corners of her eyes. She hated to hear the lass cry, seemed like that was all she did anymore. Ever since Chrysalis ran away Alice had turned into a quiet, sullen woman. The vivacious beauty rarely left her home and Hatter was clearly at the end of his rope. Alice, and now Chrysalis, were the only things holding that poor man’s sanity together.

Without their strength he’d quickly devolve back into a quarter sane male bordering on permanent lunacy. Danika hadn’t wanted to come and share the news of the bloody massacre she’d come across in the woods, but she’d had no choice.

The three of them had to game plan a way to stop this soon before the fairy council took steps to end Chrysa themselves. And whatever method they devised to do it, would be ten times worse than what she hoped to concoct.

The Blue’s hatred of Danika and her boys had grown to legendary proportions, she knew Galeta was just chomping at the bits to dig the dagger in deeper. Hurting Danika through Hatter’s child would definitely do it.

Danika hadn’t shared with the couple her fears of the council yet, mainly because each time she did she felt like more of the villain than Galeta. Watching the pain filtering through Alice’s eyes, the love of a mother for her daughter, it was akin to a physical blow for Danika. Through the years Danika had grown to love the bad five and their mates as if they were her own. Ever since becoming a godmother she’d only ever developed this type of intense bond rarely.

So when they hurt, she hurt.

She’d had every intention of telling Alice and Hatter that the only way to ensure Wonderland’s safety was to put down their daughter. But the moment she’d stepped foot into their home, she knew there had to be another way. Jericho always told her to believe in him, to have more faith in her ability as a godmother, to believe in herself too.

So that’s what she’d do. She’d figure this out, the cat told her to be mad. Well, how did one do that?

By going to the source of course. Together, they must be able to come up with something.

What she wouldn’t give to feel Jericho’s arms band around her, for just a moment. She sighed, feeling pathetically wimpy.

Flitting her wings in agitation, she picked up a clockwork monkey that Hatter had acquired at one of Caterpillar’s annual bazaars. The miniature brass chimp squealed and hissed, exposing its sharp, little golden fangs at Danika when she’d tickled its belly. Then it was jumping off her palm and scampering for cover behind a potted carnivorous snapping dragon flower. It howled as the dragon lunged for it.

In all the years that Alice had lived with the Hatter they’d amassed a wonderful collection of knick-knacks from all around Kingdom. A jinni’s golden lamp filled with the sands of time sat atop a mantle full of Hatter’s clock collection.

The man was positively obsessed with time.

A tree of thorns and blood red roses grew from the center of their wooden floors, golden apples dangled from its branches, tempting the unsuspecting to reach out and take one. But the apples bloomed from the seeds of knowledge and one bite was said to turn the eater instantly insane. Only the Hatter and Alice were immune from its deadly charm. Alice swore they made the best apple turnovers, Danika was sure she’d never know.

Rainbow crystals grew from the ceiling, casting prisms of variegated light around the cozy family room.

In all, the home was as mad and as beautiful as the couple that inhabited it. She was sure it was a constant thorn in their side that their beloved daughter hadn’t had a chance to get to know
it
, and them nearly as well as Danika now did.

Chrysalis had been locked away in one of the Hatter’s many private gardens for almost the length of her short life. That was partly why having her run amok through Wonderland right now was such a problem, the girl did not know her way. And like a caged, wounded animal, anything that startled or frightened her would likely be met with death and destruction.

The door to the bedroom clicked shut. One would never know the inner turmoil the two lived with as both Alice and Hatter walked out with an air of regality.

Alice was dressed in a black silk, strapless gown that flared out at the knees in a sort of mermaid style. It was one of Hatter’s designs, in fact the Hatter usually fashioned her clothes. He’d shifted his talents from hats to dresses, mostly because Alice wasn’t much into covering her glorious head of jet black hair.

What made the dress she wore so stunning and unique was that the material from the knees below took its color based off her mood. Right now the fabric was a dark smoky gray.

Alice’s make-up was also magic. The scrollwork of her eyeliner was a constant and shifting pattern, the black line undulated between an infinity pattern and a bleeding heart that represented Chrysa’s birthmark.

Alice was literally wearing her heart out for all to see.

Hatter was holding tight to her elbow, standing tall and proud beside her. Reminding Danika of a regal lion the way his dark, shaggy mane framed his rugged features. There was a day’s growth of beard on his square jaw, and the molten brown of his eyes were cold, but not distant. Danika knew her boy well enough to see the pain welling behind the seemingly broody gaze. Wearing his traditional black suit full of pocket watches, they appeared a striking pair.

Leading Alice toward a beige duvet, Hatter waited until she’d settled before sitting. The moment he did, Alice rested her legs on his.

“I’m sorry for that, Dani,” Hatter’s voice was a deep inflection of sound through the eerie quiet of the home.

Danika waved off his words. “I am sorry to have caused you and the lass such distress.”

Alice’s eyes squeezed shut as her gown shifted to deepest blue. “You told us once, Dani, that Jericho said there was a way to overcome this curse. Please, for Gods sake, tell us how.” Her honeyed eyes pleaded. “Give us some hope. Something.”

Nibbling on the corner of her lip, Danika watched as Hatter patted Alice’s thigh over and over like one would with an upset dog. She’d just told them of bloody entrails she’d found sprinkled liberally throughout the woods, it seemed beyond cruel to whisper words of “it will get better” or “it’s alright, it’s all going to be all right”. That would be nothing but a pack of lies and well Danika knew it.

Not that she saw a problem with the occasional white lie, but at this point she was drowning in them. Ever since she’d noticed the change in Chrysa, it seemed like that was all she ever did with Alice and Hatter. Lie to keep their spirits up. Why she’d even created a false playmate for the child, telling them that Chrysa was playing with Gerard and Betty’s child, Shayera, now seemed like a horribly, cruel idea. In truth Danika had known that Chrysalis’ curse was so extreme it wasn’t safe to keep her around others not of her immediate family. The Shayera that’d played with their daughter had been nothing more than a golem.

It sickened Dani that they still didn’t know either.

She swallowed hard.
Be sure your lies will find you out. Bloody hell what a mess.

Nodding, Danika said, “Yes, Jericho did mention that we’d be able to break the curse, but that was many years ago now. He’s not mentioned it since and truth be told, I’m not exactly certain there is. I’ve looked at this from every angle.”

Hatter’s nostrils flared as his hands stilled. “What are you saying, fairy?”

“That perhaps we ought to consider changing tactics,” the last came out a squeak of sound.

Cocking her head, scrollwork pattern shifting into a question mark, Alice’s words were soft but tempered with an edge of steel. “What the hell does that mean?”

Gazing heavenward, praying for strength, Danika fessed up. “Look, what I know of moon curses is that they only get worse. In fact, all I’ve read suggests they never get better. It’s akin to the moonlight madness a werebeasty feels.”

A muscle in Hatter’s jaw ticked. “We saw her play with Shayera Caron, at some point she was able to control this. She can again.”

That dreaded knot of fear that’d sat in her gut for years suddenly roared to life, choking the breath from her lungs. Because there was the truth she’d hidden for so, so long.

Closing her eyes, she knew what she had to do. “She never played with Shayera.”

Their faces were total blanks. It might have been nice if they’d at least asked a question back, but they were looking at her with the expectation that she still had more to say.

“Bloody hell,” she grimaced, “I lied. The child you saw your daughter playing with in the hall of Forget Me Not was not real.”

“Say again.” Hatter’s scowl was a mile long. Alice’s dress had turned a bloody shade of red.

Just then Miriam’s words returned to haunt her:
Why must you always make things more difficult, Dani? If you’d just tell the truth the first time we wouldn’t be in this mess…

Those words had become a sort of running mantra between the two of them throughout the years. At some point Danika figured that she’d eventually learn from it, but no… here she was, in the same mess as always. Digging her way out of a hole she’d created, except this time there was no Miriam to roll her eyes good-naturedly. In fact, the couple before her looked seconds away from lunging and throttling her.

“Please explain how that is possible?” Alice’s voice was deceptively calm.

Moistening her lips once more, Danika gave a nervous chuckle. “It was a golem.”

“Bloody hell!” Hatter shot to his feet piercing Danika with a demonic glare of fury.

Alice, who was a transplant to Kingdom, looked between the two of them with a pretty scowl scrawled on her forehead. “And what exactly is that, dear?” she asked her towering and pacing husband.

With jaw clenched he threw out a fist in Danika’s direction. “It’s a piece of filthy clay designed to appear as human as you or I, only magic lets it live. Why would you bring that into our presence and not tell us what you’d done?” He growled the last bit at Danika who was currently the size of a quarter and trying to hide herself behind a large couch cushion.

With knees shaking, she knew she had to accept their fury and now grovel for them to understand. They were hurting, and facts were, in hindsight deceiving them (even if only to spare them the pain of knowing the truth) had been a rather heinous idea.

“Wait.” Alice held up her hand, her gown was now a soft shade of buttery yellow. “Just wait,” she sighed. “We cannot yell at her, Hatter.”

He still looked as though he wished to wring Danika’s neck, but instead walked back to his wife and gripped her hand. She kissed the his knuckles and nodded, then turned her pointed look toward the quivering fairy.