The Truth About Alice Read online

  Once we were back in the hallway, I stumbled a little. The wine I had been drinking caused my mind to spin.

  “Where are we going?” I asked when Rabbit squeezed my hand and started pulling me down the hallway.

  “Somewhere quiet,” he said in a whisper, urging me to follow him.

  I followed with no resistance, and we lightly ran down the hallway. Almost everyone in the house was enjoying dinner in the dining hall, and they were all eating and talking, so no one would really notice our absence. In the dimly lit halls, we hurried. I slipped down the polished stone in my soft slippers, let out a curse, then covered my mouth with my hand. Rabbit shushed me with a soft smile on his lips. Then he pulled me down another hallway that was lit by torches and seemed a little more elegant than the rest of the building.

  “Where are we going?” I asked with a smile.

  Rabbit merely shook his head, then pulled me into a room. He drew the stone door back into place and leaned against it.

  “Where are we?” I asked quietly.

  The room we were standing in held a lavish bed with four posts, a canopy stretched over it. The walls were decorated with ornate artwork, and the floor was covered with a plush rug. The room’s lighting was provided by two torches.

  “This is my room,” Rabbit said, gesturing around it with a sweep of his arm. He removed his boots and sat down on the foot of his bed, inviting me to join him.

  With my heart rate spiking, and feeling a little dizzy from the wine, I sat down beside him. I almost moaned in delighted pleasure when he put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned slightly into him, feeling my face grow warm. I assumed this was what they would call a ‘cuddle’, something I had never done in my life, and I enjoyed the simple comfort of it.

  “Here, lie back with me,” he said softly, leaning back on his bed. He fell back against the pillows at the head of the bed and I joined him, leaning my head against his chest.

  Rabbit smelled like spice and wine, and I inhaled deeply. The wine I’d drunk caused my body to feel heavy, and my head even more so.

  “Thank you for coming tonight,” he murmured against the top of my head, his fingers gently running through my tresses. “I know this isn’t a setting you are used to, and I know I asked a lot of you to do this.”

  “I wore a dress for you,” I teased. “And I even bathed!”

  Rabbit laughed loudly. “Well, thank goodness for that!”

  “But all the servants, the big house, the extravagance… it just isn’t me. I grew up with all of that and hated it,” I admitted.

  “May I ask you something?”

  I simply nodded.

  “Why did you leave the Penna?”

  I froze.

  He must have felt my tension. “Why does my question bother you?”

  “The past is where I left it. I don’t want to revisit it.” I held my breath, hoping that my answer would be sufficient enough and he wouldn’t press any further.

  “But our past is what made us become who we are. I want to know what there is to know about you, Alice.”

  “You’ve told me nothing of your past,” I countered, hoping to divert the conversation.

  “What do you want to know? There’s nothing I won’t tell you,” he offered. He didn’t wait for me to ask but began on his own. “All my family is dead besides my cousin The Mad Hatter. He and I grew up together as children, and stayed together even after the raid. Penna soldiers came into my village when I was ten years old and killed everyone in sight. There was no mercy for anyone. Women were killed. Children. Everyone. The Mad Hatter was sixteen at the time, and managed to sneak us out safely as everything we knew and everyone we loved burned down to nothing but ash.” He paused and held my wrist, running a fingertip along my feathers. “We vowed that day to kill all who had feathers. All.” He took a deep breath. “And the day I saw you, I would have killed you like I did all the others, except something stopped me.”

  “What stopped you?”

  Rabbit shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, or allow anyone else to.” He ran his hand through his tousled hair while he stared up at the ceiling. “With a thirst for revenge, The Mad Hatter and I fought our way up the ranks of the Cyans, and eventually became the leaders. Years of war, and many deaths.”

  “Do you feel you got your revenge?” I asked softly.

  “No. I don’t think I ever will. No matter how many Penna I killed, the hole in my heart just grew bigger and bigger.” He took a deep breath and turned toward me. “So what about you? Are you seeking revenge? What makes you kill the way you do?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s all I have ever done. I’m different from you in that the Penna do not allow emotion to come into play. Revenge is most certainly an emotion, and a deadly one at that.”

  Rabbit nodded. “That it is. But something must have made you fight. And you still haven’t told me why you decided to leave. What happened? Did they do something to you?”

  “No, they never did anything to me. I grew up seeing a side of the Penna that I hated, and…” I sighed, hating that I had opened up about my past as much as I had done. “I’m a soldier who left the Penna. Can’t we just leave it at that?”

  “Do you not trust me?” he asked, looking skeptical at my resistance. “Do you have something so awful to hide that you fear I will judge you?”

  I took a deep breath. “Another time. I have had a wonderful evening, and I just want to spend this time with you, and not allow any storm clouds of my past to take it all away. Can we have this conversation another time? Please?”

  There was a long moment of silence. I looked up at him, and before I knew it, Rabbit’s lips were pressed against mine, and I felt my body catch fire. I froze for a brief moment but let my hands wander up to caress his face. My hair fell down my back as soon as he unfastened the jeweled clip that had been placed there with care.

  I drank him in, inhaling his sweet scent and reveling in the taste of his lips. He tasted like wine, mint, and the food we had at dinner. I could not get enough of his essence.

  “I’ve missed you,” he whispered against my mouth. “I’ve been so busy since returning to Danis that I’ve neglected you. I’m sorry.”

  “You run an army. I completely understand. Besides,” I said as I kissed his lips again softly, “it has allowed me to train freely without you watching my every move.”

  He smiled against the kiss. “Do you feel I smothered you with my overprotectiveness?”

  “No, not smothered. Protected, cared for, yes. But not smothered. I hate to admit this,” I paused to come up with the right words, “but I enjoy it. And I have missed it.”

  “Ahhh,” he chuckled, “is that a hint of submission I see in my strong-willed soldier?”

  I giggled, the unfamiliar sound surprising me. It suddenly dawned on me that I had never giggled, or even laughed freely. A Penna soldier did not do such things. It felt nice. It felt really nice.

  “It’s all right to laugh. I like seeing this side of you,” he said as he swiped a wayward hair away from my eye. “You don’t have to be a soldier all the time. The softness in you is beautiful.”

  “You find me beautiful?” I had never been told such a thing.

  “Very much so. I have never seen a woman who has the power to take me down with a sword as well as with her looks.”

  The heat from my core rose to my face. I swallowed hard as I tried to comprehend the emotions rushing through me. What were they? What did I feel? Was this love? Was this what love felt like? Could a Penna truly feel love? Was that what the powerful feeling of warmth inside me was? Love?

  Rabbit pulled me closer and whispered, “God, I’ve missed seeing you daily. Your presence gives me hope. You make me happy, Alice. You give me light in a very dark time.”

  “You do the same for me,” I admitted openly.

  “I have not been able to free you from my thoughts since our last meeting.”

  I
blushed with the memory of his hand on my naked bottom. “Yes. The memory is seared in my mind.”

  He kissed me deeper, forcing his tongue in my mouth only to be met with my sensual response. He rolled me onto my back in one swift move, never breaking the kiss. He ran along the curve of my body with his hand, softness mixed with strength.

  “I find your archery commendable, but nothing compares to your womanly shape. I’ve never seen or touched a woman with muscles like yours, yet they are met with such soft and gentle curves. The combination…” He growled as he kissed me harder.

  As if we had done this dance a thousand times, Rabbit removed my clothing effortlessly, followed by his own. A single beat was never missed as he kissed with fervor like no other. In mere moments, we both lay nude, entwined in each other’s arms.

  He kissed my neck, gently nipping at my skin as his palm caressed my breast. The heat of his hand warmed my firm nipple and shot a bolt of desire to my core. My body melted against his weight. Kiss by kiss, he lowered himself down until his face was inches from my sex.

  “I would like to taste you. I want the taste of you on my tongue.” He didn’t wait for permission, but rather kissed my pussy, followed by licking my throbbing clit.

  I tensed at the invasion. Part of me wanted to stop, and the other part wanted the feeling to never end. He swirled his tongue in circles, lapping up every sign of my arousal. I moaned with complete abandon. My body seemed possessed by Satan himself. I had absolutely no power against him. Lick after lick, Rabbit brought my body to another level. Just when I believed I could take no more, he thrust his finger past the lips of my pussy. In and out he plunged, pulling gasps and moans from me.

  “Rabbit! Oh, Rabbit.” For the first time in my life, I had lost control, and I didn’t care anymore.

  He thrust his finger while sucking on me at the same time. When he pressed his finger as deep as I thought possible, an explosion of lights went off in my body. Uncontrollable waves of ecstasy rocked my trembling frame. My pussy pulsated around his finger, covering it in my completion.

  Before the last wave washed over me, he flipped me around so I was lying on my stomach. He pulled out his wet finger and rubbed it on my anus.

  I tensed and bucked upward. He pressed me back down and whispered, “Allow me.”

  His command was followed by him pulling my juices from my pleasured sex and spreading it around my rosebud once more. Before I could comprehend the invasive nature of the act, he pressed his dripping finger past my puckered hole. I screamed out in a mixture of shock, pain, and animalistic desire.

  “Relax, Alice. This is where you learn to submit to me.”

  I tossed my head from side to side as he pressed his finger even deeper into my ass. “I don’t think I can. I—”

  Pressing his finger even further, he then pulled it out halfway. He pumped it in and out in a slow, sensual motion. “Feel your body become mine. Feel how your body wants nothing more than to succumb to my touch.” Thrusting his finger in a few more times, he asked, “Who do you belong to, Alice? Who?”

  There was no hesitation. No question in my mind. “You! I will always belong to you!”

  “Will you submit to me?”

  I paused. The hesitation caused a searing slap to my ass, and then another.

  “Say you will submit to me.”

  I remained silent as he continued to press his finger in and out of my tight channel. My silence brought on several more swats. He continued to spank me as he fucked my ass with his finger, over and over again as I moaned his name.

  “You will end this night in complete surrender to me,” he growled as he continued to spank and punish my bottom hole.

  With every spank, I couldn’t help but tense around his finger. The stretch brought on sensations that clouded my mind. I wanted Rabbit to completely take me. I wanted to feel his cock pressed deep within me more than I had ever wanted anything before. With each spank, I longed for more. My ass blazed as the spanking continued. Swats echoed off the stone walls, mixed with my gasps and whimpers.

  As his palm connected with my sensitive sit-spot, I cried out, “Rabbit! It stings!”

  He responded by spanking me several more times in the exact same spot. He pressed his finger deeper into my bottom hole, causing my ass to buck against his hand. Juices soaked my pussy and coated my inner thigh. An inferno of hunger consumed me. My body felt starved for his touch even though my mind questioned the taboo of such an act.

  “Please! I beg you!” What I was begging for, I wasn’t quite sure.

  Pure submission lurked beneath the shadows of my soul. I wanted to allow it, and yet I fought it desperately from emerging.

  He spanked me harder than he had ever done before. “Submit!” The final command was all it took.

  I grabbed the sheets of his bed in my fists and screamed between my teeth, “Yes! Yes, I will submit to you.”

  He removed his finger and flipped me onto my back. I felt the mattress compress as he kneeled before my face and placed his hard cock to my lips. I looked up and into his eyes. No words needed to be said. I opened up my mouth and allowed his cock to lie against my tongue. My natural instinct was to pleasure him. Nothing got in the way of how badly I wanted to make him scream out my name. Watching bliss blanket his face filled me with a purpose I had not known existed. As I sucked up and down his ready dick, I fully submitted to Rabbit. Up and down I moved my mouth, until I was rewarded by my name escaping his lips in the most passionate of ways. My name never sounded as good as it did the moment it slipped from his lips.

  I added my hand and began to pump his cock while licking all around it. His body shook and tensed, and with a large groan, Rabbit spent his satisfaction into the back of my throat. I swallowed his seed with the gratification of the most submissive of women.

  What seemed like hours later, I stirred and my eyes fluttered open. Plush velvet was wrapped around my body, and I saw Rabbit asleep on the bed beside me. Bolting up, I glanced around the room, briefly forgetting where I was.

  Rabbit stirred, but didn’t wake. He merely rolled onto his side, his dark hair falling in his face.

  I carefully stood up from the bed, careful to not wake him, and glanced in one of the mirrors hanging on the wall. I ran my fingers through my hair to brush out all the knots.

  “Alice?”

  I whipped around to see Rabbit sitting up in bed, rubbing his forehead with his hand. He blinked sleepily and looked at me with a small smile playing at his lips.

  “What time is it?” I asked as I turned away from the mirror to sit down on the edge of the bed. “What will people say if they find me in your room?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What we do is our own concern.” He smiled. “Warriors bed often, and since you are a warrior, you should not worry about your reputation,” he teased.

  “Yes, but I am soon to be a bride to Commander Rabbit. Wouldn’t reputation matter then?” I countered, matching his playful smile.

  “Your virtue is still intact.”

  I blushed at the memory of how close we had gotten. “Yes, but how would anyone know that?”

  He stood up, stretching slowly. “Very well, let’s join the party again.” Rabbit slipped on his clothes and then helped me dress. He ran his hand through his hair once more and looked at me with soft eyes.

  I nodded and followed him out of his room, keeping close behind him. Without saying anything, he took my hand and gripped it tightly. I did not say anything else.

  When we turned into the main hallway, I expected there to be guests gathering about. But when Rabbit and I peeked through the door, I saw the entire crowd still in the dining hall.

  “I guess it is not too late,” Rabbit whispered to me. “We must have only been alone for a few hours.” He squeezed my hand reassuringly. “The Mad Hatter enjoys long parties that go late into the night.”

  I nodded and pulled my brown hair to one side, running my fingers through it. He turned back to me with a warm smile.

/>   “I would like to see you again soon, Alice. Besides just in battle,” Rabbit told me, taking both of my hands.

  I stared at him. “I’m a soldier. We train on a daily basis, and I live in the quartering area which is far from your home. And you’re busy rebuilding your army. It’s going to be hard to see each other. That is, until we do go to battle.”

  Rabbit stared at me for a long moment, until I started to get uncomfortable.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked quietly.

  “I would like you to live in the house with me.” Before I could argue, he said, “You would live in your own room if you want. That way, we won’t be far from each other. I feel it is safer for you to be here, anyway. You are the only woman among many… lonely… men.”

  “But how would I train?” I demanded. “I’m sure that your cousin, of all people, would want to keep me in his army. After all, I was just given honors for helping to lead his army to victory.”

  Rabbit nodded. “You could train in the courtyard, as will I. You would still be a loyal part of this army.”

  I paused long enough to consider the proposal. “I’m not sure your cousin would agree to it. He might reject this idea. It will look like you are playing favorites.”

  “I am. You are my favorite.” He smiled a toothy grin, which made me smile in return.

  “Rabbit.” I shoved his shoulder playfully. “I’m serious.”

  “He will see it my way, I’m sure. You are our prized soldier, after all,” he said with a devilish wink that made butterflies erupt in my stomach.

  I nodded a little and glanced down at my shoes. “Will you allow me to think this over? I fear the other men would not like the special treatment. I don’t want to seem like I’m weaker.”

  “It is for your safety.”

  I nodded. “Yes.” I looked deep into his eyes, and raised my eyebrows in question. “And for no other reason?”

  Rabbit used his finger to lift up my chin. He pressed a short kiss to my lips, pulling away with both of us smiling. “For your safety, my dark feather. Allow me to protect the army’s prized possession. My prized possession.” He kissed me again before adding, “But that’s not really the whole truth.”