I wanted him there . . . yet I wanted him to keep far away.
My eyes closed as I waited for him to speak. It was several seconds before he said huskily, “To be a champion, my little Dolly, you must learn how to defeat the bad men.” He paused. “You must learn how to kill, darlin’. Kill and kill and kill.” I inhaled quickly through my nose at his words. “Blood, you see?” he carried on. His hand ghosted along my arm but remained always an inch away. As though he was practicing touching me, but not allowing himself to actually do it. “Blood . . . it is a fascinating thing. The way it smells when it’s fresh from the vein. How it spurts when you slice a spot of flesh just right.” He hissed through his teeth, his breath kicking up my hair. My eyes closed and my legs clenched together as a strange feeling settled within my stomach and the apex of my thighs. “It’s a sight like no other.” A step closer. His breath reaching my scalp. “To feel someone’s life drain from their body by your hands . . . bad, bad people who need to be plucked from this earth like the fleas they are . . . It is . . . a taste of the divine.”
My breathing was heavy; my chest was heaving. His words stirred a want . . . a need I’d never felt before within me. “You were born for this, little Dolly.” I sucked in a sharp breath as Rabbit pushed a blond curl off my shoulder. His body was so close I could hear his heart. It was racing. “You were born to stand by my side in Wonderland.” The force of his breath increased until I knew his mouth was a mere inch from my ear. “Born to kill, by my side.” He took two more deep breaths. “Come.” Rabbit walked around me and headed to the right.
I followed. His voice my master.
When I rounded the corner, I found him at a long table filled with . . . “Weapons,” he said when I stopped and stared. “Come,” he ordered again.
I followed once more.
I walked up to the table and saw knives and blades and guns. Rabbit leaned on his cane and picked up a large knife with his free hand. The blade was decorated with filigree patterns. My eyes widened at its beauty. “I had some things designed for you,” he said. “This is the first.” Rabbit held out the ivory handle of the knife, and I took it in my palm.
“It’s beautiful!” I felt a smile pull on my lips. I twisted the blade in the air and thought of Ellis. Thought of the bad men drawn on those cards in Rabbit’s pocket. Thought of what the bad men had done to my friend. What she had told me they had done to her every night since she had been a little girl. My stomach tightened as I thought of each man on the cards . . . as I envisioned blood falling down their faces, their chests, to pool on the floor.
It is a taste of the divine . . .
“I want this,” I whispered and glanced up at Rabbit. He ran his hand through his black hair and nodded slowly. I could see the triumph in his silver gaze.
You were born to kill at my side . . .
Rabbit reached for something else, something out of my line of sight. When he turned, in his hand I saw a flash of blue . . . the same shade of blue as my dress.
“Rabbit?” I stepped forward, placing my blade on the table, to better see what he was holding out. “Rabbit . . .” I said softly as I absorbed the sight of the gun in his hand. A blue gun, with writing on the side. I tried to read it. But I could only make out some of the letters and only one word. I ran the tip of my finger along the engraved words. “What does it say?”
“I had it made just for you.” Rabbit stepped closer. His voice had softened at my question. I wasn’t able to read or write much. Never had been.
I inhaled his scent and momentarily lost my breath. I looked up at Rabbit hovering over me. He was so tall. I stared into his silver eyes, swallowing when the strange feeling from before set in my stomach and thighs once more.
“It matches the blue of your dress,” he said in a low voice. I nodded in agreement. His fingers almost touched mine on the side of the gun, but when they were just a hairsbreadth away, he moved.
He couldn’t be touched either.
Just like me.
“It says ‘Time For Tea.’”