Ten

Malice stood at the head of her army, mad eyes staring into the distance. HE was here. Finally. The other had arrived, the one who would stand by her side and … and … and her face twitched. HE was the destroyer and the maker, HE was … hers?

"Straker. The Straker. My Straker. Dark in the light, light in the dark." She looked down the slight incline of the land to where a huddle of blanket lay covering the Hatter. She stalked to the mound and squatted down beside it, reaching out a thin pale hand to yank back the covering. Hightopp lay there, terrified, his eyes wide and dark, only a rim of green around the dilated pupils. His red, red hair lay splayed out around his head like a halo. Malice stared into his eyes and smiled. Too many teeth, there were just too many teeth in her mouth.

"Hightopp," she crooned, sliding on hand slowly down from shoulder to hip. "Hightopp. I have a job for you."

"M..m..mm.. majesty," he whispered.

"Bring me Straker. Bring me my King." She waved her hand and the paralysis that had held him dissipated.

Hightopp sprang to his feet, moving swiftly away from Malice. "Your … what is a Straker? What makes him your king?" His mouth stretched in a travesty of a smile as he continued to back away from her.

How she managed, he never knew, but she was there, pressed against him, pinning him to the rough bole of the tree behind him. He could feel her breath on his neck, warming and chilling him, racing feelings through his worn body that he should never, ever have felt. Malice pressed against him, hip to hip, chest to … er … chest, mouth hovering a fraction of an inch away from his own. "My King," she whispered, her moist breath coating his parched lips. "My King," she mouthed again, staring into his eyes, holding him still. "You are my Hatter. He is … My King."

She was gone before he could get his wandering, tormented mind to find another question. Malice stared at him from across a deep orange lawn."Get Him!" she screamed.

Out in the wasteland the Red Queen and Stayne flinched at the sound.

Eleven

The Red Queen rubbed the temples of her bulbous head and met the fulminating stare of the Knave of Hearts she had once fancied as her lover. Or was that her consort? Having disposed of the Red King some time ago, she was really free to do what she liked.

Stayne scowled at her. What had he ever done to deserve being shackled to this … this … this misshapen headed woman? He neatly overlooked all the skullduggery and evil of his own actions while currying favor with the woman before him. Mind you, pop a bag over her head and the body was … He sat on his libido for a few moments while trying yet again to release the chains that bound them.

"You really didn't love me, did you," she finally broke the silence between them, sounding sorrowful. "You just wanted power. You thought that common girl was more beautiful than I."

"You have a freakishly large head. Of course, I thought the girl was pretty. But I was by far more interested in her usefulness than her beauty." That was the truth. He'd slept with this gargoyle beside him for power. How could Alice not have appealed to him? She was relatively innocent, pretty, wholly appealing to his lower needs and probably would not have wanted to… he quelled the line of thought he was having as he took what was probably the first real look at his ex-Queen he'd ever taken.

Oddly enough, without the stylized make-up and with her red hair tumbled half-way down her back, she wasn't as disproportionate looking as she'd seemed before. Her eyes were somber, her face relaxed from the petulant look of her years on the throne. Pale, soft skin showed through rents in her gown, the curve of her small breasts enticing above the sharp line of her corset front… he really needed to reel that line of thought in.

She looked up at him with a sigh of resignation and was very surprised to find his arms around her, pulling her to him, his mouth finding hers in a most unrestrained manner. All logical and petulant thought fled as their lips and tongues explored as they had never done before. Her last coherent thought was not nearly as complete as she thought it was.