Allison and the Torrid Tea Party: A Dark Reverse Harem Romance (Harem of Hearts Book 2) Read online

  The Mad Hatter ignores me until North is shoving him back and surging up with a gasping, choking sound, almost bumping his head against our captor’s forehead.

  “What in the bloody fuck?” the Savage Duke growls, and my heart swells with relief. Holy fucking shit. I hadn’t even realized until that moment how goddamn stressed I was. Without giving myself even a second to question my luck, I throw my arms around North’s neck and … kiss him?!

  Oh, well, whatever.

  I tongued him in the training room and that was just pure lust.

  This is so much more important than that … And even though it takes me a moment to remember that he just sucked down some dude’s blood, I don’t care. I pull back and put my forehead against his, my skin erupting in little goose bumps as he clamps his hands on my hips and squeezes tight, claws digging into the thin silk as he lets out this animalistic snarl and curls his tail around my ankle.

  “Welcome back to the world of the living,” Raiden says as North’s gold eyes light on my face and then flick over my shoulder to look at the … well, actual fucking vampire dude?! I don’t bother to turn around, reaching up and spreading North’s hair to look for the missing chunk of skull and flesh that I saw earlier.

  It’s gone.

  All closed up. Just smooth skin and gold hair and hard bone underneath it all.

  “What on earth are you up to, Hatter?” North asks in that crisp British-but-can’t-be-British accent of his. He pulls me even closer against him, squashing my breasts to his chest. There’s not a lot of fabric between us, and I’m not wearing underwear so … I wish we weren’t being kidnapped by a maniacal vampire mercenary.

  “Oh, you know me, my loyalty goes out to the highest bidder,” Raiden says from behind us, his voice casual despite the fact that both North and I are now free. He’s not worried about being attacked? If he really is that powerful, we’re fucked. If he’s just that cocky, we might be okay. “Nothing personal, really.”

  “Please,” North says, curling his arms around me and holding me so close I feel like I might choke. But he’s so damn warm, and I’m so glad to see him alive. Plus, I’m riding the high of being shackled and then set free. “You’ve never liked me.” The smirk that crawls over his face morphs rapidly into a wide grin, his teeth white in his bronze, bloodied face. “Especially not now that I have the love of the Alice.”

  “Love?” I ask, but it’s hard to want to argue, trapped in the back of the carriage like this. I push back from North, but he only lets me go enough to turn around and sit on his lap, my back to his front. Does not make the position any less sexual. Between my legs, a throbbing starts up that I do my absolute best to quell. Now is hardly the time for thoughts of thick cocks and wet cunts and all that nonsense.

  The Mad Hatter leans forward as I swipe some long, blonde tendrils out of my face.

  “Your hair wants cutting,” he remarks, those orange eyes glowing in a flash of lightning. Between bouts, it’s almost pitch-dark in here, just a few stray shafts of moonlight cutting through the ice-cold drops of rain leaking in through the ceiling.

  “You should learn not to make personal remarks,” I snap, narrowing my eyes at him and tucking my hair behind my ears. “It’s fucking rude.”

  He just smiles at me and then pauses when the carriage comes to a stop.

  “And here we were planning on leaving you out for the female jabberwocky to pick apart,” Raiden says with a small sigh, nodding his head to indicate something to the March Hare. The other man taps his palm against the wall twice and the carriage begins to rattle onward. “I was hoping they’d rape you, steal your seed, and leave a corpse.”

  My jaw drops open, but the Mad Hatter is already turning around and crawling back over to the teapot that’s on the floor near the March Hare. There’s not a lot of standing room back here, so he leaves himself completely open and vulnerable as he moves back to his original spot.

  Turning my head into North’s arm, I whisper as quietly as I can, “I have the Vorpal Blade with me.” He tightens up, but it’s too late. I’ve already made a mistake. As soon as Raiden turns around and slumps back against the wall next to his companions, he’s smiling.

  “You think I’m stupid enough to miss a blade? Also, I should warn you, having been bitten and turned into one of the undead has given me spectacular hearing. If I were you, I’d keep all my secrets to myself.”

  He picks up the teapot and pours himself a new cup. So far, I haven’t noticed the Mad Hatter showing any signs of that light, ethereal nonsense I experienced when I was high on tea, but maybe he’s just a heavyweight? A little patience might be called for in this scenario.

  “Don’t attack him,” North tells me, his arms wrapped tight around my middle, just under my breasts. “Not with magic, not with the Blade. Just let it be.” He squeezes me a little harder and I grunt. “And thank you for saving me.”

  “I’m not even sure how you’re alive right now,” I whisper back, but, of course, Raiden Walker, Vampire Extraordinaire, hears me and decides to comment.

  “Vampire blood has incredible healing properties, doesn’t it, North?”

  “You may call me the Duke of Northumbria, my right and proper bloody title.” The Duke leans back against the wall, taking me with him. I’m sitting there wondering why he isn’t shifting and tearing this place apart when I feel his pulse thundering against my back, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts. He’s physically healed from his wound, but his body is still recovering, damn it.

  Still, shouldn’t a massive black dragon be more than enough to bring down this house of cards, so to speak?

  But the rules of this game, of Underland, they’re all still a mystery to me. I’ll just have to follow North’s lead and hope he knows what he’s doing. He seems pretty interested in not only delivering me to the king, but also becoming one of my … gulp … husbands. Anyway, I figure I can safely assume he’s on my side.

  “Well, Duke of Northumbria,” Raiden drawls, tapping his fingers against his knees and smiling at us with his long, thin, beautiful mouth. I couldn’t get that image of him French kissing North out of my brain if I tried—and I don’t much want to try. “I was going to kill you, but seeing as the Alice answered my riddle fair and square, I figure we can bargain instead. How much to take you both safely to the King of Hearts?”

  “What?” I ask, blinking stupidly in his direction. “Are you trying to buy your way out of a contract you already signed?”

  “We don’t sign contracts,” the March Hare says, speaking up for the first time in a while. He leans forward, his dark brown eyes the perfect match for his brown ears and brown skin. But all three parts of him are different shades, giving him this earthy sort of look. He’d be hot if he wasn’t kidnapping me, but what’s new? Basically every man in Underland is hot as fuck. “People give us money and pray that they’re not outbid. Think of it … like a silent auction or something.” He glances down at the Dormouse and then both he and the Mad Hatter reach down and pinch the big man from both sides at once. “Wake up, Dor!”

  The Dormouse slowly opens his eyes.

  “I wasn’t asleep,” he says in a hoarse, feeble voice, “I heard every word you fellows were saying.”

  March snorts and gives the hulking man a scathing look.

  “Bullshit,” he says with a curl of his full, generous mouth. “You narcoleptic fuck.”

  “Ten thousand coins,” North inserts as I watch the Dormouse sit up and stretch his tree trunk-sized arms over his head. He’s just as attractive as his companions, but in a different way, not my style or type. He’s got that bulky bodybuilder look that’s a tad too much for me. And his face is a little Neanderthal, like I-drag-you-to-cave-by-hair alpha male-esque.

  “Oh, please,” the Mad Hatter says with a roll of his eyes, pouring himself another cup of tea and then turning his attention in my direction, an earnest sort of look on his face. “Take some more tea, Alice?”

  “I’ve had nothing yet,” I rep
ly in an offended tone: “so I can’t take more.”

  “Ah, you mean you can’t take less,” says the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.”

  “Nobody asked your fucking opinion,” I snap back, and he smiles at me in a way that makes me wonder how dark and how brutal this negotiation is heading. He doesn’t just want money, does he?

  “Who’s making personal remarks now?” Raiden quips triumphantly.

  “Thirty thousand,” the Duke says, his voice this low, humming growl that vibrates through his body and straight into mine. It feels so good that I have to resist the urge to wiggle on his lap. Not here, not in front of these three assholes. “And you know the King will match whatever I spend.”

  “I quite imagine the King wants the Alice far more than he values sixty thousand measly coins,” Raiden continues, glancing across Dor’s lap and over to March. “Don’t you think our friend here would’ve gladly paid sixty thousand coins to see the Savage Duke raped by jabberwocky?”

  “One hundred thousand,” North snarls, uncurling his tail from around me and slamming the long, black scaled length against the floor in frustration, quite like my cat Dinah does when she’s having a fit.

  “Let me bash his head in again, sir,” the Dormouse growls right back, leaning his massive form toward us. In a flash of lightning, I catch the ragged stripes of scars across his face, and the small round ears sticking up from his tousled brown hair. “I’ll give you my wages for the next ten years to take the privilege.”

  “You’re starting to annoy Dor,” March says, his voice crisp with a ‘British’ accent similar to North’s. But there’s something else to it, too, like maybe a bit of Irish? Fuck, this guy looks and sounds like Rob Evans! The sexual selection happening in Underland is seriously insane, like there are so many men they have to be hot as hell to have any chance of finding a mate. Makes sense from a scientific level, right? “And if you’re starting to annoy Dor, then you’re starting to annoy me, too.”

  “Five hundred thousand,” the Duke spits, his arms tightening around my waist. “You bloody twat. Crook. Fearmonger.”

  “Five hundred thousand, doubled by the King of Hearts,” the Mad Hatter continues, sipping his tea. “I like that. Oh, and also, I want to marry the Alice. Political power suits me, don’t you think? I’d make a fine husband.”

  “Marry you?!” I blurt and then let out the most caustic, scathing laugh imaginable. “I don’t think—”

  “Then you shouldn’t talk,” the Mad Hatter inserts, causing me to grit my teeth and clench my fists in anger.

  “If I get out of here, I’m going to make it my personal life mission to dump your body down a well,” I snap back at him and he grins, flashing me those vampire fangs of his.

  “A water-well or a treacle-well?” he purrs, and both men beside him let out these deep belly laughs, like that’s the greatest joke they’ve ever heard. Me, I don’t get it. I know treacle is like, syrup or molasses or something, but a well of it? I guess this world is weird enough for something like that. Still …

  “Where would they draw the treacle from?” I snap back at him, even though I know it’s totally stupid and a complete waste of my time. These idiots are obviously talking in riddles—like Tee and Dee—so why am I justifying their stupidity?

  “You can draw water out of a water-well,” says the piece of shit Hatter, “so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well—eh, stupid?”

  I surge forward, intending to tackle this back talking a-hole, but North holds me still, his muscular arms like bands of steel around my waist.

  “A million coins,” he grinds out, but the Mad Hatter and the March Hare just exchange a look across the lap of the Dormouse.

  “Five hundred thousand from you, and five hundred thousand from the king, and this girl’s hand in marriage,” Raiden continues, staring me straight in the face. “Or else we take you to the King of Clubs, as planned. He has already promised me a spot as one of your husbands, Alice.”

  “Allison,” I correct, but really, why bother? The people in this place are clearly deranged; they can barely seem to keep their heads on straight, so how on earth can I expect them to listen when I tell them my name. “So what you’re saying is, accept this offer and pretend I’m making my own choice about taking you as a husband or else you’ll sell me to the next highest bidder and then, what, rape me in our marital bed after the forced wedding?”

  “Whoever said I needed to have sex with you to gain the political prestige of being married to the Alice?” he asks with a tilt of his head, his top hat falling to one side but still managing to stay atop his head of dark, wavy hair. “Let’s make a deal: the promised coins, your hand in marriage, but I won’t fuck you until you beg.”

  “Oh, please,” I snort, with a sneer worthy of my little sister, Edy. “You’re fucking delusional.”

  “Delusions are just illusions without any truth behind them,” Raiden says, and it’s such a stupid, useless riddle that I just count my lucky stars that he really did follow along with the prophecy and use the raven/writing-desk one in our bargain. If not, who the fuck knows what would’ve happened to North?

  “Fine,” I say before the dragon … err, jabberwock … behind me can protest. “It’s a deal.”

  The Mad Hatter reaches out and grabs my hand in a tight shake before the Duke can stop us, squeezing my hand tight and then lifting his knuckles to my lips for a kiss that’s too hot, too intriguing for a villain.

  “Excellent,” he murmurs as March smirks at me and the Dormouse scowls. But the way he stretches out those three syllables … it feels like the mark of a dark promise.

  What the hell have I just gotten myself into?!

  A few hours later, after dozing in the protective circle of North’s arms, the carriage stops.

  The sudden lack of movement churns my stomach, and I realize as I crack open my eyes how goddamn hungry I really am. There’s a brief moment there where I don’t want to wake up, where I want to sit with my nose pressed to North’s bare skin, breathing in that sweet, musky masculine scent of his.

  But then I realize that the back door of the carriage is open and there’s sunlight streaming through. Outside, I see puddles reflecting back a blue sky dotted with shrunken gray clouds, like the rain’s reminding us it’s still there, that it’s only taking a quick break to recharge.

  With a groan, I sit up and stretch my arms above my head, wishing I could’ve been kidnapped in something besides a purple silk nightgown with lace accents. Leather boots, breeches, a jacket, now that is proper kidnapping material. At least the Duke is shirtless and in blood-soaked pj pants, so I’m not the only person here who looks a hot mess.

  “You weren’t kidding about the Hatter, were you?” I whisper to North as I sit up, adjusting myself so that I’m straddling his lap. He meets my eyes with his gold ones, dark horns curving out of his blonde hair. “He’s fucking insane.”

  “Yes, well,” the Duke breathes with a sigh, “I can only offer my sincerest apologies, Miss Liddell, and admit my surprise at being attacked in my own home.” His voice drops down to an animalistic growl that rumbles us both. “But I can’t say I’m not at all shocked at this turn of events. As soon as the Hatter found out the Alice was in Underland, he was bound to seek your company—whatever the price.”

  “Can’t you just go jabberwock on his ass?” I ask as North scoots me off his lap and sits up, getting onto all fours and stretching like a cat, bowing the front part of his body low and lifting his tight, hard butt up into the air for me to stare at, his tail twitching all the while.

  “There’s no guarantee that I’d win a fight with Raiden Walker,” the Duke says, scooting over to the edge of the carriage and dropping into a puddle, sunlit gold water splashing as he lands. He turns and lifts his chin, ever the picture of royalty, sophistication, and bestial beauty all wrapped in one. North offers me his hand and I take it, hopping down beside him and wondering what the fuck this Raiden guy m
ust really be like if he has a goddamn dragon nervous to face-off against him.

  “Good morning,” March says, leaning against a tree and carving an apple with a knife. He braces his muscular shoulder against the rough bark, his fingers handling the blade with a precision that makes me wonder what else those hands can do. I mean, not to me, I’m not interested. I just mean in general. His brown eyes are flecked through with red and orange, like an autumn skyline, and his mouth is full and luscious, even as he wears it in a stupid, little smirk. The red apple peel comes off in one, perfect strip and then falls to the ground near his feet. In an instant, there are a half-dozen little flies dropping down to feast on it, their wings a shimmering iridescent turquoise, their bodies … in the shape of wooden rocking horses.

  Fucking rocking-horse flies.

  Fantastic.

  I blink a few times and shake my head to clear it, putting my fingers to my temples.

  “Good morning,” North replies with a civil coolness, his tail splashing through puddles as he swishes it in frustration. “Shall we get on then? What’s the delay?”

  “No delay,” the Mad Hatter says, appearing out of the trees with the Dormouse on his heels. They’re carrying large chunks of soft, spongy flesh—mushroom flesh. That reminds me … I have a bit of the mushroom meat tucked in my sheath along with the Vorpal Blade! Well, fudge on a fucking stick. If I’d just remembered that a few hours ago, maybe I could’ve gone house-sized and kicked this son of a bitch’s ass?! “I’ll call Twinkle, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “Twinkle?” I ask as Raiden adjusts his top hat, decorated with a little white slip under the orange-red ribbon that reads In This Style 10/6. He catches me looking at it and points up at his head. “Are you interested in this, darling? Because for my future bride, no price is too high for a hat.” He pulls it off his head and underneath, there’s another friggin’ top hat, this one white with a black ribbon. Raiden moves over to me and reaches out to put the first hat on my head, but I slap his hand away.