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

“You won’t be. Calm down. You want someone who knows their place. Rotter knows. Rotter will not get in your way, Sister.”
The two voices mingle together, and I don’t hear a single word from Kais, but the man isn’t exactly the talkative type in front of his King.
Smart for a guy playing both sides.
My head tilts closer to the door, and just as I’m listening intently, a big palm slams firmly next to my face. I blink at the sudden rattling of the door, casting my gaze to the man crowding my space.
“It isn’t polite to eavesdrop, my Alice.” His gloved hand stays there, right in my line of sight while his chest nearly brushes mine.
Peculiar black wings shadow the sharp angles of his face, nearly hiding the scar that runs up to meet the corner of his left eye. The wings are bat-like. They’re not pretty, but they match his hair and make his eyes seem brighter.
Alixx is…strangely beautiful in a flawed way.
He’s so damn cocky though. He must really believe he’s the only person to come into this world with a sickness. Maybe he is. Until me that is.
And I know his secret: he isn’t diseased at all. Sure, he was. At one time, he obviously was. And maybe he truly believes that he still is.
But Wanderlust cured me, so I know it cured him as well.
I didn’t have friends in school. I had books and I had my homework, and I threw my lack of a social life into my grades. A simple glance at a history book will tell you that plagues don’t kill at a slow impossible pace. He’d never make it over a century with just a jagged blemish on the back of his hand. Whatever disease he had in the surface world isn’t in him now.
I lean into him, cutting his breath off immediately with the nearness of my mouth to his. He’s tall, a few inches taller than myself, making me tilt my chin up to breath my words against his lips.
“I already have one bossy male in my life. I don’t need another.”
His breathing increases visibly just from how close I’m standing to him. It feels oddly good to give him a dose of his own medicine. How does he like being the one played with?
Dark eyebrows lift as he stares stunned at me, his green eyes becoming wide but lust-filled as he glances down at the nearness of our mouths.
“Madison, don’t touch him,” Lighton whispers from somewhere behind me.
I keep my attention held on Alixx and the devilish gleam in his gaze.
“What game are you playing, Alice?”
He is good at his infuriating games though. Because I can’t fucking stand him and I just met him.
My lips thin, and I know he’s doing the Alice name to piss me off. Neither of us moves. We keep the challenging space between us, letting a fire blaze between the small spaces that separate our bodies. It really is a game in this moment. A game that neither of us knows the rules to and neither of us is willing to lose.
“I don’t know what you mean, Alixx.” The use of his name seems to have the opposite effect from when he uses Alice on me.
The darkness of his pupils dilates, and he looks at me with so much heat in his emerald eyes that my breath catches, making me forget that I really am playing a game with this strange, beautiful man. I wanted to piss him off and make him crazy, but it’s a dangerous game it seems.
I’m only making myself crazy. Making the both of us crazy.
“Listen to your rabbit friend, sweet Alice. Don’t touch me.” A splatter of red along his white collar pulls at my attention, but what’s more demanding is the way he glances down to my lips once more as if he’s memorizing the way my mouth looks so close to his, fantasizing about how it’d feel if my lips pressed to his, my body wrapping around his…
It’s a dangerous, dangerous game I’m getting lost in.
“Let’s get one thing straight. Your fearmongering doesn’t work on me. Don’t feed me your lies, Alixx. Don’t mess with me the way you mess with everyone else, and you and I will be just fine.”
I should step back. I should back down, and I should show some sort of formal distance between myself and the man who will someday be my brother-in-law.
But I don’t. Just like The Rotter, I’m sheltered. I haven’t really felt the heat of a man’s body…ever. Not one I was attracted to. Not one with such defined shoulders and beautiful eyes and taunting lips.
“I can’t make any promises, Alice. But believe me when I say, I’m not lying. And on the off chance that I’m telling you the truth: Do. Not. Touch. Me.” The sad but angry way he says that is what makes me snap.
Like I said, I make bad decisions.
And I’m about to make one more.
I just can’t take the empty sadness in Alixx Stone’s green eyes. He can mask it with indifference and pettiness all he wants, but it’s there. He’s being eaten alive with sadness.
And he doesn’t even know it.
My gaze locks with his, and with slow intent, I lean forward, pressing my hands to his black vest, to the hard planes of his chest as I shift up on the toes of my high heels. Every muscle in his body stiffens. He doesn’t move an inch. All that cocky masculinity is gone the very moment my hands land on his body. And then I brush my lips faintly against his.
I tear the façade of The Rotter away just like that. It’s empowering, in a way, to see how easily his charade of a personality can be torn away. Whatever wall this man built around his little black heart just came crashing down all because a virgin woman had the balls to kiss him chastely on his ever-taunting lips.
The gentleness of his hands against my hips makes my fingers fist harder into his shirt, pressing my lips more firmly against his until everything I feel and everything I breathe is Alixx Stone.
“Shit,” Lighton whispers so quietly it barely registers in my mind.
That single word pulls him away from me. Alixx steps back so suddenly I stagger from the amount of faith I had apparently put in his body supporting mine. He turns away from me, giving me the span of his inky wings while running his hand over his face slowly.
All I see is his confused but blatant frustration.
Then he vanishes right before my very eyes.
I blink and he’s gone. The long gold and cream-colored hall looks wider without him in front of me.
“What—” What the fuck?
Lighton pulls at my shoulder, forcing me to look up into his amber eyes. He searches my face, his gaze analyzing every single detail while he holds me at arm’s length.
“Where did he go?” I peer past him, but the quiet corridor is empty aside from us.
“Why did you do that? Are you out of your mind?” Lighton pulls me a little closer, leaving a meager amount of space between our bodies.
“Where did he go? He just…disappeared?”
“He’s been here a long time. Second to Kais. His magic is more advanced.” Lighton keeps his hands firmly on my shoulders while he looks at every inch of me carefully.
The door creaks open, and I jump from the sound of it. Lighton slowly releases his hold on me when we’re met with stern eyes. How can the most beautiful blue eyes be so…angry? All of the time.
Kais looks from Lighton to me. He carefully dissects the two of us, our closeness and everything in between, as if he can decide if Lighton’s deflowered me right here against the King’s door without anyone ever noticing.
“This is taking longer than expected. I’ll meet you two back at my house.” Kais cuts his attention up to Lighton before adding, “No house guests tonight.”
Lighton makes a face as if he wouldn’t dream of it. But the way Kais stares him down tells us that they both know Lighton would in fact dream of it.
“I don’t like this. Honestly, how do you even know her number won’t turn black soon? She hasn’t even been here a day, Constantine,” the voice shrills loudly, and Kais pulls the door shut in an instant without so much as a goodbye slipping through.
Lighton shifts on his heels, turning to me with a smile pulling at his lips. “I need a drink. What about you?”
I came to Wanderlust and was told I’d marry a king. Instead I’m setting out to get drunk with a rabbit…
It’s odd how much more appealing that sounds. I don’t look back at the King’s door as I walk down the quiet hall with the rambling rabbit.