morpheus

What went on between you and my mom? Did you seduce all the Liddell women? Did you tell them the same pretty words you told me?_ I curl my legs beneath my dress, feeling small and vulnerable for even a

You have that boy on such a high pedestal. It__ far too slippery up there for one so unprincipled as a solitary fae. It__ not as if I haven__ tried to drag him down. I looked inside his soul. Hoped to find his weaknesses. Only to discover that even those could be considered strengths under the right circumstances.

I move from dreamer to dreamer, from dream to dream, hunting for what I need. Slipping and sliding and flickering through the dreams; and the dreamer will wake, and wonder why this dream seemed different, wonder how real their lives can truly be.

Shh." I squeeze his hand. His palm feels clammy. "We have to keep it down, okay? We don't want my dad coming in."He grits his teeth against more shivers. "Always knew I'd end up in your bed . . . and hear you say those words one day." He manages a smirk.Jeb snarls. "Unbelievable. Even when he's at death's door he's a tool." He arranges a pillow beneath Morpheus's neck. "Why don't you keep your mouth shut while we help you."Morpheus laughs weakly, his skin flashing with blue light. "What say Alyssa"--his breath rattles--"give my mouth something else to do?

He stretches languorously under me, and the silvery scar on his abdomen catches the light, that telltale mark from Sister Two when he fought her inside Butterfly Threads just weeks ago. When he almost died to help me and Jeb escape. But I didn__ let him die, because I couldn__ imagine a world without him.I can__ imagine a future without him, either. Not anymore.

He had you in his room?" A dark cloud crosses Jeb__ face. __o you swear he didn__ try anything?___cout__ honor.__e squeezes my waist, tickling me. __oo bad you were never a Scout.__ squirm and smile. __othing happened.__hat__ a lie. Morpheus got to me in a big way, showing me a side of myself I can hardly believe exists__ne I__ not sure Jeb will be able to accept.

You care about her," I say with unexpected twang of envy. In my long-lost memories of us as children, it was always just the two of us. We 'got' each other on every level. Morpheus made me feel adored, special, important. I never considered him doing the same for someone else as a man. "Morpheus, what is she to you?"He doesn't answer. Not aloud, anyway. His expression is hazy and troubled, and the jewels around his eyes twinkle from silver to black, like stars peering down on a storm-swept night. Alice's confession from the trial comes back to me: "Ivory was, in fact, very fond of Mr. Caterpillar." Judging by how Morpheus looked at the queen just now, by how she looked at him, he returned to her castle after his metamorphosis.I imagine his elegant fingers tracing her skin, his soft lips on hers. That stab of envy evolves to something much uglier__ covetous twist of emotion I can't even put a name to. What's wrong with me? Why should i care about Morpheus's love life, when I finally kissed Jeb after all these years?

I hold on to the nape of Morpheus__ neck, burying my face in his jacket. Nikki and Chessie burrow into my hair. I inhale Morpheus__ scent. It__ the only thing I recognize, the only thing that__ safe.He carries me back to the well-lit room and sets me gently on the table. I can__ stop trembling. My throat aches from holding back sobs.

Salty tears stream down my face__oating my lips as I mutter senseless apologies for so many things. So many irreversible things.Morpheus peels the vines off and lifts me, cradling me to his chest.

You crave chaos. You're happiest when the world is in an uproar. You thrive on madness. Even when your magic is at its best when it's the catalyst to confusion. You still can't admit this?

You understand the logic behind the illogical, Alyssa. It's in your nature to find tranquility amid the madness. And that's what we're doing here. We are giving our food a fighting chance.

Yes. But I let you leave again, last year after you were crowned. And all those nights I brought you to Wonderland in your dreams, even though it pained me for you to abandon our dreamscapes and return to the mortal realm, I let you go each morning to live your reality there. It may not seem much when compared to your mortal__ gallantry. But for me__elf-seeking, arrogant prig that I am__hat is the sincerest form of sacrifice. Letting you go. Do you not see that?

His soft lips glide across my jaw. I__ dazzled by his touch, drugged by his promises, falling deeper and deeper into him. Before he reaches my mouth, I catch his hands and roll him off until he__ the one on his back, his wings no longer a hiding place but silky black pools along the g

I curse him silently for moving my hands as he raises them to study the scars. He kisses them, his lips a fluid brush along sensitive flesh, then places them on his cheeks.Mouth inches from mine, he whispers, "Forgive me for bringing you into this. There was no other way." His skin is softer than clouds must feel, and the tears gathering around my fingertips are hot and tangible. But are they sincere?Our breaths swirl between us, and his black eyes swallow me whole. My heart knocks against the bottom of his rib cage. I know what's coming next. I fear it. But it's the surest way to distract him and get the wish. And if it has to happen, I'm going to be the instigator.Rising up on my toes, I press my mouth to his. He moans, frees my wrists, and sweep-s me into his arms__ealing the teddy bear between us.

I coax my palm into his lapel in search of my wish, returning his feverish kiss. "Checkmate, you son of a bug," I say against his mouth two seconds before my fingers find an empty pocket."Sleight of hand, blossom," he says right back. "'Tis in fact in my pants pocket, if you'd like to search there."I shove him off and drop to the floor, wiping my mouth. "It's mine!""And you'll receive it when the time is right." His lips, all I can look at, tilt into that smug smile that I've come to detest. He motions toward the chair. "Sit. You've just been soundly kissed. No doubt you're short of breath.""Don't flatter yourself." I huff in an effort to hide the gulp of air and hold the teddy bear against my chest. "That kiss meant nothing. It had underlying motivation.""Oh, to be sure. That kiss was nothing if not motivational.

We're both so into it, neither of us hears the footsteps until a snarl breaks us apart. We turn to find Morpheus standing there with enough rage in his black eyes to send the Devil packing for heaven.Jeb tugs his fingers from the rings in my belt but keeps a hand at my lower back. I touch my lips; they're throbbing and gluttonous, hungry for

Oh, but my netherling side did, and she casts my human armor aside.She guides my hands, knots my fingers through his hair, teases his tongue with hers. She won__ let me pull away, because she wants to be there again. In Wonderland, where his tobacco-flavored kisses always take us . . .Because the things I loathe are the things she adores: His snark, his infuriating condescension. His menacing mastery of half-truths and riddles. The way he shoves me into the face of danger, forces me to look beyond my fears and reach for my full potential.Most of all, because he encourages me to believe in the madness ...in her . . . the darker side of myself: the queen who was born to reign over the Red kingdom and to give Wonderland a legacy of dreams and imagination.His gloved palms seek the bend of my waist, the bow of my hips. He moves me on top of him, so close there__ not enough space for a blade of grass between us. His kisses grow insistent, desperate. His flavor winds through me, fruit and smoke and earth, and other things born of shadows and storms . . . things I can__ put a name to.

He spins us both, wrapping us in his wings until I__ dazed and gig