War of Hearts: A Reverse Harem Alice in Wonderland Story (Her Wonderland Kings Book 1) by Stefanie Marie

Author:Stefanie Marie [Marie, Stefanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

In Which I (sort of) Learn to Use a Sword

I was dreaming.

I knew it was a dream.

That didn’t make it any less terrifying.

I was at the bottom of the rabbit hole again. Surrounded by brambles that were turning into wolves and crowding me, nipping at my heels and forcing me back, back, further back until I bumped into something—a person.

I turned, and Bryce was there. Or someone who looked like Bryce at least; he had the same wild, greenish-gold eyes, the same cruel curve to his smile. But his skin was much paler—grey, almost—and his movements were inhumanly quick as he stepped toward me. He wore a black jacket with an upside-down heart wrapped in thorns stitched over the chest, and in his gloved hand he held a curved knife.

Blood dripped from the blade.

Everything was wrapped in silence.

The only thing disrupting that quiet were those slow, surreally loud plops of blood.

I reached toward my heart, hoping to feel warmth or light or anything that might help protect me—but all I felt was blood. Breathing hard, I felt my way through the warm stickiness of it, pressing against the soaked, torn fabric of my shirt, searching.

The Heartstone, insisted a voice in the back of my mind. It should be there. It should save you—

I felt no stone.

I felt nothing.

Never mind the stone—there was a gaping hole where my actual heart should have been.

“What have you done?” I whispered, slowly lifting my eyes to the Shade of the Nightmarcher standing in front of me.

He shook his head.

It wasn’t me.

I spun around.

Four crowned figures stood there, bodies silhouetted in the strange lighting at the bottom of the hellish pit I’d jumped into.

I bolted upright, awake before their faces became clear.

“Bad dreams, Rabbit-heart?”

I turned and saw Caden watching me. He looked concerned—or as concerned as that normally carefree and cocksure face of his could look—and he motioned for me to join him beside the fire.

But I didn’t want to sit beside him. I didn’t want to sit still. I couldn’t. Instead, I stood—quietly and carefully so I wouldn’t wake Emory or Rhett, who had been curled up on either side of me—and then I paced the length of the campsite. Back and forth, back and forth, my feet following the edge of the firelight like I was balancing on a tightrope.

No falling over now; it’s too late, you’re already in the middle of it.

After a minute Caden got to his feet as well, the concern etching deeper into his features. He stepped onto my tightrope and forced me to stop walking it, placing a gentle hand on my arm.

“Let’s find some way to distract you, how about?”

I eyed him suspiciously, and he responded with a smile worthy of a saint.

“That sort of distraction isn’t what I meant,” he said, “but I’m flattered that your mind automatically went there. And we absolutely could make that a reality, if that’s what you want.”

I took a deep breath. It wasn’t that I was completely opposed to

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