Page 50 of Alec in Wonderland (Rainbow Tales #1)

“Kill them!” the Queen of Hearts shouted. “Kill them all!”

No one moved.

“I said, attack! Kill them all! We will raise this kingdom to the ground!”

The Jubjubs circled the hill above their commander, coming down to a landing. Bax stood up, helping Alec to his feet. Baxenvir's body felt different. His mind. Everything was clearer. Sharper. More in focus. He looked over the heads of the card soldiers and met his queen's stare. No, not his queen. She had cursed him.

Images returned to Bax. Still-shots of battle. He was above the soldiers but not in his armor. He flew on wings of leather and snatched soldiers from the ground with great claws. Blood coated his tongue. He knew only lust for it. More and more. Kill. Kill for her. His mistress. The Jabberwocky had loyalty for one woman. That was all. The woman who created it.

Bax took Alec's hand and started for the Queen. But one of his Jubjubs stepped into his path. He met the man's stare. It was Driss, his next in line. Then Driss bowed and pulled off the horned helm that Bax usually wore. Next came his armor. He cast aside his breastplate, gauntlets, and belt.

“Driss, get out of my way,” Bax said.

“I would never stand in your way, Commander.” Driss removed his tunic and handed it over. “I just don't want you facing that bitch naked.”

Bax looked down at himself, then chuckled. “I didn't even notice.” He took the tunic and pulled it on. “Thank you.”

“We are with you, Commander,” someone else said.

Then the Jubjubs took their marching formation behind Bax and Alec.

Bax looked at Alec.

“Nobody likes her, babe,” Alec said in that strange way of his. That human world way. “Only you.”

“Not me.” Bax headed down the hill with Alec. “Not anymore.”

The Card Army parted, the Queen going silent at last, and all watched as the Queen's Champion—both of them—strode across the battlefield and up to the Queen of Hearts' war carriage. She was in red leather, head to toe, with matching armor over her clothes. Atop her head was the Hearts Crown—a pointed band holding a crimson heart aloft at the center. She had added the other card symbols—two on one side and one on the other, leaving points for chess pieces. Bax would make sure that the crown never got completed.

“Baxenvir, my knave.” The Queen came down from her perch and strode up to Bax.

The ex-Knave of Hearts hauled back his fist and punched his old queen in the face.

Stumbling back, the Queen of Hearts gaped at her champion. “Bax, what are you doing?”

“You dare to ask that after Alec broke the curse you laid upon me?” Bax snarled and released Alec's hand. “Years! It's been years since I could think without your voice in my head. Years since I didn't lose myself on the battlefield and come back, wondering what had happened. I thought I was broken. I thought my actions were so horrendous that my mind couldn't accept them. That I just blocked it out. But that wasn't it at all. I remembered nothing because I did nothing. Nothing but become your monster!”

Bax grabbed the Queen by the throat and squeezed. She clawed at him, scoring his skin with her long nails until he bled, but he didn't care. He kept squeezing.

Darkness burst from the Queen of Hearts, exploding out from her in a cloud that sent Bax tumbling. Alec tried to catch him but ended up on the ground with him. People shouted. Jubjubs gave their battle cry and formed a line between Bax and the Queen. They held that line for two seconds. And then the darkness tossed them aside too.

Bax shot to his feet as the Queen of Hearts stalked over to him, every step incinerating the vibrant green grass beneath her. Black fog seeped from her fingers and trailed off her hair. Her skin, hair, and eyes went black, evil staining her to her core. She had become the darkness.

“Oh, fuck,” Alec said.

Bax glanced at the man who had betrayed him, then saved him. The love of his life. Alec had pulled Bax out of the pit the Queen had thrown him in, using love like a ladder. And that makes a bond that nothing can break. His loyalty wouldn't be divided. It was all Alec. From that day forward.

And there was no way that Bax would ever let evil touch his Alec.

With a roar, Bax ran for the Queen. She flicked her hand, and his feet left the ground. He floated upward, darkness twirling around him. And then the darkness constricted. Bax cried out, then wheezed, the air strangled from his lungs.

“Bax!” Alec ran forward. And then he was rising to join Bax.

Bax couldn't even protest. All he could do was reach for his lover—push a hand through the weave of evil to clasp Alec's. Alec reached back, and they gripped each other, their stares meeting through the fog.

The Queen laughed. “How sweet. Yes, die together. Two traitors. You deserve each other. I will laugh as—”

Bax shifted his stare back to the Queen. She wasn't there. He looked left, then right, and found her under a roaring pile of card soldiers. Spears lifted and descended. Sword struck. Daggers dug into flesh. More soldiers piled on as those beneath rolled away.

Bax gasped as he fell to the ground, still holding Alec's hand. Alec crawled to him, and they clutched each other as they watched the darkness try to devour those who attacked the Queen.

But there were too many. Soldiers went flying back only to be replaced by more. Even Bax's Jubjubs got their strikes in, flying in to stab at the Queen from above. Battle cries rose, but not for Hearts. The soldiers cried out his name.

“Baxenvir!” they shouted. “For Baxenvir!”

Bax got to his feet, helping Alec up and then tucking him in against his side. He lifted his chin and refused to look away, even when tears streamed down his cheeks. This was justice. And justice is best witnessed by those who were wronged.

“Baxenvir!” another soldier shouted and brought down his sword.

“Baxenvir!”

On and on it went. Impossibly long. So long that the darkness had to concede. The trailing snakes of black mist shriveled and then vanished altogether. Only then was the Queen's body revealed, the pile of soldiers folding back like pages in a book. But the strikes didn't cease. The soldiers kept coming, stabbing and slicing at the Queen with nothing hindering them. Alec flinched to see the bloody mess of the body they hacked at. But Bax only focused harder. He burned the image of the dead queen into his mind, hoping that it would balance all the bad he'd done. Fill in the gaps. Ease his conscience.

At last, when every soldier in the Card Army had taken a turn, the attack stopped. The body lay in a black ring of burned grass, the soil turned to mud by blood. The Queen stared sightlessly up at the sky, arms out to the sides, hands open. She had a look of surprise on her face, as if she couldn't believe that anyone could hate her this much. The darkness still stained her, but that was beneath a layer of blood. She was dead. The Queen of Hearts was dead.

Alec handed Bax the Vorpal Sword.

Bax lifted a brow at Alec as he took it.

“Monsters never die easily,” Alec said. “Off with her head!”

“Off with her head!” a soldier repeated the cry.

And then everyone chanted it, “Off with her head! Off with her head!”

Bax strode barefoot over to the dead queen, his toes squishing in her blood, and stood at her side. He looked down at her, pitying her for just a moment. What a terrible end she had come to. So much animosity aimed at her. At least she was coated in her favorite color. Bax lifted the Vorpal Sword.

Everyone went quiet. The chanting stopped.

The blade vibrated. “Snick-snack,” it said. “Snickity-snack. Give me the head of the woman in black.”

Alec gasped. He could hear the voice too! Bax looked at his great love and remembered the blade's song. It had sung these words earlier, and Alec thought the sword hungered for Bax. He had tossed it aside in denial. But it wasn't Bax who the blade wanted. The reason the Queen of Hearts had guarded the sword so diligently was because she knew. She knew it hungered for her. For the darkness inside her.

“Snick-snack.” The blade was impatient. “Snick-a-snack. Give her a whack. Take the dark and send it back!”

Bax brought the sword down.

The silver blade sliced through flesh and bone with ease, but that wasn't its purpose. While in her throat, the blade glowed. That glow dulled a little as darkness seeped from the Queen's corpse and into the sword. But as the evil entered that shining silver, the blade vibrated and gulped. The jewel in its hilt came to life, glowing like a miniature sun. Snick-snack sounds came again, and Bax realized it was a mimicry of eating. The Vorpal consumed the darkness.

Bax let go of the sword and stepped back. The hilt fell, but the blade remained embedded in the Queen. Sucking, eating, devouring. He pressed his lips together and pushed down the sourness in his stomach. Bax was the wielder and witness—he wouldn't look away. He had a feeling that he'd need these memories. Especially late at night, when the wind howled, and the darkness threatened to come alive. He'd need to remember that the Queen of Hearts was dead.

Alec took Bax's hand.

Bax finally looked away from the Queen. And when he met Alec's stare, he knew he'd never look back. It was forward from this moment on. Monsters and madness lay behind him. Love and light called him forward. He turned away from the past with Alec, and they walked away from the dead queen to the living one. The White Chess Queen waited for them, a serene smile on her face despite the blood that stained her white dress.