Hey again, you guys know the drill; just read and review please! Enjoy!

-Spazzy

Riley studied the enormous gate curiously. She was unsure of the etiquette in this place and didn't know what would happen if she just walked in. The gate was black metal with patterns of diamonds, spades, clovers, and hearts. It was like a deck of cards.

"Do you have business with the boss?" a childish voice asked her.

Riley spun, shocked to see to children behind her. They were twins, wearing identical outfits in blue and red. They had black hair and their eyes were the same color as their outfits. They were also pointing large axes at her.

"U-um…" she stuttered, too surprised and scared to think of a snarky comment.

"We don't really care." Blue said while Red finished with, "We're supposed to kill all intruders." Riley paled as they swung their axes back and prepared to swing.

"Hey!" a new voice called across the clearing and while Riley was relieved that he'd stopped the twins, she was still extremely wary of him after what had just happened. "What do you two think you're doing?"

"Shut up Newbie Hare!" Red yelled while Blue finished with, "Mind your own business stupid hare!"

The hare had orange hair and equally orange ears, rabbit ears. No wonder they called him hare she thought, although this whole situation rang familiar for some reason.

"Do you have business with the mafia?" The hare asked her, but continued before she could reply, "I don't really care, I just want to test my new gun." Before the words were even out of his mouth she found a gun pointed at her head and at that moment she decided she really didn't like it there.

"Elliot." A smooth voice said from behind Riley, making her stiffen in surprise, "Are you harassing the young lady." The owner didn't give the hare, Elliot apparently, a chance to respond and turned to her instead. "My name is Blood-"

"Dupre." Riley finished, her eyes wide. Riley studied him carefully; the longish black hair, the self-satisfied smirk, the top hat, the cobalt eyes, the exact image she'd had described to her so many times.

He raised and eyebrow at her, vaguely shocked that she had known that. She glanced around in shock, her mind cataloguing everything she saw and comparing it to what she could remember. "I'm in Wonderland. That's not possible. It doesn't exist!"

"And how do you know about Wonderland young lady?" Blood asked in that smooth voice, but she could hear the edge under it. She remembered the stories she'd been told as she grew up and figured it best to tell him the truth, he had no qualms about causing pain to get what he wanted.

"I knew someone who had been here before. Alice, Alice Liddell."

"You know Onee-san!" the twins yelled as one, tackling Riley into a hug.

She grunted, "Uh yeah. She's my friend Michael's grandmother. I'm one of the few people who listen to her stories anymore; everyone else just thinks she's crazy…" I did too… She thought sadly.

Blood studied her in silence and she met his eyes warily. He smirked, "Well, I have a feeling it will be getting dark soon, you should stay the night with us Miss…"

"Riley." She supplied.

"Riley." He repeated in a seductive voice, his smooth voice wrapping around the word and sending a tingle down her spine.

She knew that he was purposely trying to mess with her; Alice's stories about him had never been very pleasant. Strangling, threatening, mocking, flat-out insulting, and always seductive, that was Blood Dupre and Riley was determined not to fall for it. Unfortunately, Riley knew that the time in Wonderland was unpredictable and that she would need a place to stay…

She gave her own smile in return, much less seductive, and said, "That would be great, thank you." The sky had changed just as she finished that sentence and she flinched a bit at the sudden dark although she didn't freak too much, she'd been warned.

"Excellent." Blood said with that same self-satisfied smirk on his lips.

"Yay!" the Twins yelled, still clinging to her, "Onee-san's staying with us!"

"Hey slackers, get back to work!" Elliot barked, offering her a small smile as a sort of apology for trying to kill her. She smiled back, remembering what Alice had told her.

'I always avoided Hatter mansion, you know my issues with Blood and the twins are much too violent, honestly Elliot was the only even vaguely normal one there…'

Riley would need some normal if she was going to be staying here so being on good terms with the march hare seemed like a good idea. Blood motioned for her to follow him.

As she followed the Hatter into the large mansion he began speaking to her, "Tell me Riley, do you like books?"