average human’s Reviews > Into the Madness > Status Update

Lighton turns his ridiculous amusement on me, and when he smiles, it takes everything in me not to knock my fist into his messy mind. “Join us. But—enter at your own risk, she thinks nine inches is very average.”
Did I say she was impossible? I meant unbearable.
Brody and Lighton exchange a quiet laugh, and I’m still glaring down at the two of them. If she lingers for another twenty minutes in the Rosen, she’ll be as crazy as Lighton.
That’s it. I’m done. Play time is over.
I shove past Lighton, over Brody’s trailing fingertips. Warm water saturates my pants as I stomp into it. It sloshes over the edges in heaps. A creaking sound comes from the flooring, but I ignore it. My fingertips meet her slick curves, and for the second time tonight, I toss her over my shoulder. This time, it’s harder to find a platonic place to grip ahold of her. My palms slide against her thighs, and I’m all too aware of how close my hand is to her hot pussy. My boots skate against the bath as her screech echoes through the room.
“I knew you’d want her for yourself. You can’t be a hero with an erection, Kais.” Lighton’s fucking words trail after me as I carry her to the door, suddenly aware of just how hard my dick actually is.
When Lighton Farrow makes an accurate statement, it’s startling. Why can’t he be right about something else? Anything else.
Before I rush away from him, I grab a white towel and toss it over the distracting curve of her ass as I head out into the night air.
“Put me down.”
The moment she says it, I drop her to the ground.
“What the fuck?” She wraps the towel across her, draping it over her nudity and her perfect tits. Of course she has perfect tits. Not blonde hair and perfect tits. It’s a cruel distraction. That’s just not what we need from the One-est One. Her numbers turned red for fuck’s sake.
The King isn’t going to waste time. He’ll want her to be Alice.
Even if it’s glaringly obvious to anyone who speaks to her that she isn’t.
I kneel down, meeting her narrowed green eyes. I’ve waited almost two hundred years in a crumbling Kingdom for an Alice to show up. I have a choice to make: Tell the King that she’s not Alice.
Or…
Use her for a better cause.
She’s not going to like that. Know what women don’t like? Being used. It’s a hard suggestion to wrap your head around for anyone, really. There was a time when it was all I knew though. I was a tool for the military. I was being used in a way. I was something to be used for a greater good.
And now I’m being used once again.
For a rebellion.
If the Elders’ Kingdom, Wonderland, doesn’t accept us, we’ll take it. No one should live like this. But with Alice, there’s a better way. A peaceful way.
We just need an Alice.
“What do you have in your life up on the surface?” I study the emotions that sneak across her face. She’s good at hiding them. Now that the Rosen is in her system, she isn’t nearly as careful with them as she thinks.
A flash of angry sadness pulls at her mouth. My tongue glides across my lips the moment my gaze catches against her pouty mouth. I don’t know what causes that look. Nothing good.
Which, to be honest, is good. For us. Not for her.
“I’m getting a degree. I want to be a designer.”
“Clothes? You want to make clothes?” The harsh tone of my voice makes those pretty eyes glare hard at me. It should be strange how much I like the hateful way she looks at me. It’s the only time I see her real emotions though. I see a fight in her, and that’s strong and sexy. I like seeing that fight.
I lead a lot of people from the surface into Wanderlust. Of all the people I’ve brought, none of them have been as confusingly frustrating as Madison.
“Yes, I want to make clothes.”
“What about your family? Any kids? Husband?” My words are sharp and to the point and piss her sexy lips off even more.
Good.
“No,” she answers quietly. “It’s just me.” A small pause slips in, and then she shows me more of herself than she has the entire time she’s been here. “My mom died a few months ago. It’s just me.”
Those three sad words at the end repeat and repeat and repeat in my mind. It’s sick how happy they make me. There’s nothing better to fuel a rebellion like total fucking loneliness.
That’s really good for us.

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“Then, I guess I’m your Alice, Kais.”
The smallest of smiles pulls at one side of his full lips. He settles into the arm chair near the bed, our knees meeting, almost touching as he leans back in the seat. “Get some sleep then. We leave to meet with King Constantine in exactly four hours. We can’t be late.”
His head tips back against the gray chair. It’s cushioned, patched with black cloth in a few places with a high headrest, intricate wooden armrests that shine in the dim lighting. It’s nice, but it’s parlor furniture, really. It doesn’t look at all comfortable.
“Is that where you’re sleeping?” I shift uneasily on the small bed that I know is his.
“Well this Un-Alice dropped in a few hours ago, and as you and I both know, Alice is destined to be the Queen of Lust. Can’t have a Lusty Queen sleeping on the floor.”
My eyes close, and he’s terrible at teasing, but I do know teasing when I hear it.
Why did I call myself the Porno Queen of Lust out loud?
But I am a Queen.
“Queen Madison Torrent. I like it.” I shimmy up the bed and slip beneath the blanket as I watch him shake his head slowly at me.
“Queen Madison Torrent will never live in this world, Prospect.” His voice is low and regretful. It tingles across my skin until I shiver as my stomach twists tightly from the sound of his words. “You’re the future Queen of Wanderlust. A false queen but a queen all the same. Queen Alice Liddell.”
A soft pillow caresses my new healthy hair, and I think about his words for over an hour. I dwell on what I’ll have to do tomorrow for so long the morning sunlight starts to peek in through the white curtains. Tomorrow I’ll start my path as a traitor to the throne. If anyone finds out what Kais and I are plotting, I’ll be hung, cut into quarters, beheaded. Whatever it is royals like to do to traitors like me. Even with all that hanging in the balance, all I can think of is one thing:
I’m Madison Torrent, False Queen of Wanderlust.