Untamed

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.

  ISBN: 978-1-4197-1869-4

  eISBN: 978-1-61312-879-4

  Text copyright © 2015 A. G. Howard

  Jacket and title page illustrations copyright © 2015 Nathália Suellen

  Book design by Maria T. Middleton

  Published in 2015 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [email protected] or the address below.

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  To the fans of the Splintered Series:

  Your love for my stories inspired me to revisit the rabbit hole . . . to reimagine the end as the beginning. This book is for you, with a promise of more to come one day. Thank you for opening your hearts to my characters and worlds.

  CONTENTS

  The Boy in the Web

  The Moth in the Mirror

  Six Impossible Things

  LUNGE & PARRY

  “If we’re going to survive this, Alison, you have to go for the jugular. No. Mercy.”

  Thomas’s deep, commanding voice warms my ear as he helps me stand up, then molds my fingers around the sword’s metal handle that had slipped from my gloved hand. A mixture of his sweat and the citrusy scent of his bath soap lingers in the air, muted by the perfume of flowers and greenery surrounding us.

  I rub my hip where it still throbs from my fall, then resume my stance and stare across the bloodstained grass at our opponents: mine, with the beautiful, otherworldly glow to her skin . . . Thomas’s, with his muscled build and fearless green eyes. Their silver swords flash beneath the autumn sun and reflect light off of faces that give nothing away, until, in a sweep as slow as a storm cloud, curiosity crosses their features as they try to predict our strategy.

  My heart pounds out a steady pulse of anticipation. I wipe some sweat from my brow. They’re younger, faster—but Thomas and I have wisdom on our side, and an incomparable connection. We’ve been a team for twenty-two years. These amateurs have nothing on us.

  Ignoring how hot and itchy my skin is beneath the layers of clothes, I coax my body to relax, yet hold position, sword raised and ready, before snapping my mask over my face.

  My husband often offers cues, gestures that only I can decipher: a nod of the head for a parry, a squint of the eyes for a block. But I don’t need his instructions this time. I know my opponent. I’ve watched her long enough to learn her strengths and weaknesses. She’ll lunge at my left, and I’ll defend with a parry of six. Unless this time she decides to mix it up.

  As if thinking she’s figured me out, she glares with piercing blue eyes and then smiles, overly confident, before dropping her mask into place. Her stance tightens and mine does the same, inviting her to make the first move.

  With stealth and grace, she shifts her feet and thrusts, attacking on my right in a surprise tactic. I strike her blade with a beat to compromise her rhythm. She totters off balance and overcompensates, executing a messy parry. Her hasty reaction creates an opening at her chest.

  Growling, I aim my sword’s tip at her heart, feeling the burst as I puncture her white jacket. She drops her blade and grips her sternum. Her eyes grow round behind her mask. Blood spurts across the grass and spatters my white tennis shoes.

  “Mom?” she mutters in shock, then folds to the ground.

  I snap up my mask, shuck my gloves, and drop to my knees beside her, poking her ribs relentlessly. “Say it!” I shout. “Say I’m the queen!”

  Jebediah and Thomas laugh from the sidelines as Alyssa giggles hysterically, rocking on her back like a turtle turned over on its shell, trying to catch her breath and escape my tickle torture. Her mask pops off in her efforts, revealing flushed cheeks.

  “Say it!” I insist again.

  “Never!” she screeches and captures my hands, wrestling me to the ground beside her.

  Soon my own ribs ache from her relentless fingers and we’re hugging and laughing so much tears stream from our eyes.

  “All right.” Thomas regains enough composure to call a cease-fire. “The elders won, fair and square.”

  “Foiled again,” Alyssa quips, referencing our flexible practice swords. Her pun coaxes a deep chuckle out of Jebediah as he reaches down for her blood-smeared hand.

  Thomas helps me up and I pat the wet, red streaks on my fencing jacket and pants, the stickiness clumping between my fingers.

  My husband offers towels for us to clean the mess. I use mine to blot my face and brow.

  “I still think the Halloween blood packets were overkill,” Jenara says from her place on the porch swing where she and Corbin are waiting to challenge the winning team. They’re sipping lemonade the same shade of pink as her hair. She wrinkles her nose. “That’s a pretty gruesome scene.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Alyssa says with an eager grin, appraising the thousands of red splotches across our clothes and the lilies, honeysuckle, and silver licorice plants in the garden. “It’s beautiful. Like any window dressing, it just needs to be shaped into something new.”

  The long, blond braid down her back swishes and sways as if coming alive. She uses her magic to lift the shiny droplets from the plants and flowers, then reanimates the spatters on our clothes to join them. The fake blood floats into the air in bead-size balls and hovers in place, melding together like raindrops on a windowpane until they’ve formed a virtual latticework—a shimmery red archway that looks like stained, spun glass. Alyssa grabs Jebediah’s hand and pulls him to her. He grins, taking the lead as they dance beneath her makeshift gazebo. Their movements are graceful and synchronized, their bodies never once disrupting Alyssa’s display.

  Thomas tilts his head in a scolding gesture, although the pride in his expression would be impossible to miss. If not for the nine-foottall wooden fence he recently installed to protect us from prying eyes, he probably wouldn’t be taking Alyssa’s showmanship so lightly.

  Then again, she’s always had him wrapped around her finger.

  Our daughter glances at him, beaming, more at peace and more comfortable in her own skin than I’ve ever seen her in all of her seventeen years.

  As a result of her magical training with Morpheus in her dreams, she’s becoming flawless in her execution—able to unleash her powers with just a thought. It’s moments like this when I see it: the netherling queen simmering below the surface. A predisposition toward blood and chaos. How she thrives in flames and ravaging storms. How her magic can both inspire and tame pandemonium. How she finds beauty in the morbid and bizarre.

  It’s ironic. I tried for so long to hone those same qualities in myself, but my humanity was too strong to be swayed. I was never meant to be queen. I had the desire, but I didn’t have the heart.

  The dance ends, and with a flick of Alyssa’s wrist, the droplets of blood fall in slow motion—like a macabre flutter of crimson snow—and nestle again on our clothes, the leaves, and the petals where they originated.

  Jenara slurps down the rest of her lemonade, the ice in he
r cup rattling. “That’s going to be one big mess to clean.”

  Alyssa shrugs and laughs. “Nothing that a bottle of bleach and a garden hose won’t fix.”

  “Nope. I won’t be using bleach on this masterpiece.” Jenara holds out her arms to showcase the hot-pink fencing jacket covering her petite frame. She dyed it a few weeks ago and added delicate lace trim to the sleeves and neckline. Setting her cup of ice on the ground next to Corbin’s foot, she slides off the swing. “If we’re going to insist on blood and gore, I’m changing into my black one.”

  Corbin grabs her around the waist and pulls her back into his lap. “Aw, come on, punk princess. We’ll take down the oldsters before you can even break a nail. Jeb and Al, they just don’t have the right moves.”

  Jenara smirks. “Good point.”

  “Oh, ha!” In one smooth motion, Alyssa taps her toe against her fallen sword so it rises perpendicular from the ground and slaps the handle into her waiting palm. “Come over here and say that to my face, Cor-bin-ara.”

  I exchange glances with my husband and laugh.

  “Nice maneuver, skater girl.” Jebediah grins, brandishing his foil. “Want to spar under the willow tree?” He lifts a brow.

  “You won’t last two seconds.” She flashes a smile, her engagement ring sparkling in the light as she tosses her sword from one hand to the other in a single, smooth stroke.

  “Oh, yeah?” he scoffs, then, without warning, scoops her up and tosses her over his shoulder. Her sword hits the ground with a clang and she giggles as he carries her to the tree and tumbles them both into the low-hanging leaves.

  She could easily use her powers and break free. But that’s the point. She doesn’t want to break free of him. She never has. He’s her human match, in every way.

  She and I have discussed what her immortality means . . . how hard it’s going to be when he’s gone and she remains. She’s assured me she can survive—even though her eyes grow distant when she imagines it, and her face clouds with torment at the thought. But I believe her devotion to Wonderland and Morpheus is strong enough to help her overcome that loss. And I know that when the day comes, her forever will be dazzling. Morpheus will cherish her. He’ll treat her like royalty. He would even if she weren’t a queen because he admires her bravery.

  She’s a warrior, and I’m the coward. My fear of losing Thomas overpowers any loyalty I once had for the nether-realm. I can’t live without him for an eternity. For this reason, among many others, I’m glad my spirit doesn’t harbor crown magic and I’m mortal still. Even if I outlive my husband, it won’t be by very long. And I’m secure in that inevitability.

  Watching Jeb and Alyssa wrestling and laughing prompts a smile of my own. They’re so like Thomas and myself at that age—filled with hope. The difference is, they have a real chance at getting everything they’ve dreamed of, because there are no lies between them. Wonderland is an open book they’ve both read and lived. They’ve even brought Jenara and Corbin into the circle of trust.

  Thomas and I didn’t have the truth to bridge us, until recently. And I have my daughter to thank for giving us this second chance, and for giving me back my sanity. I close my eyes, listening. All I hear is the gurgling water in our fountain, and Jebediah and Alyssa’s horseplay. No bugs chatting. No flowers whispering.

  At my request, three months ago when Thomas, Alyssa, her fiancé, and I returned from our final sojourn to Wonderland, Alyssa used her royal powers to put a stop to the endless nattering in my ears, and she’s made sure that her descendants will hear only silence. She alone has a direct line to the insects and plants now. Just as she’s the only one who still makes regular visits to the nether-realm in her dreams.

  Although I still have my wing buds and eye markings, my netherling attributes will make an appearance only if I allow it. So for the first time since I was sixteen, I feel normal. And for the first time since I was twelve, I remember silence.

  I thought I might miss the tiny whispering voices that carried me through my adolescence, that became my confidants when no one else would listen, but I don’t need them as a crutch anymore. I have a family now, and a husband who knows and shares my Wonderland history.

  I’ll never be alone again.

  My eyes open as I feel Thomas’s strong fingers weave through mine as if he’s reading my thoughts. Nothing anchors me like the feel of his hand in mine.

  “You kids have fun,” he says. “We’re calling it a day.” He turns his coffee-rich brown eyes on me and kisses my knuckles, prompting a thrill that races all the way from my arm to my heart. “I promised my blushing bride I’d take her out for our twentieth anniversary. We’ll pick up again tomorrow.” He squints toward Corbin and Jenara. “Unless you two are ready to forfeit now. We all know how this is going to end. Age and wisdom always trump youth and recklessness.” His teasing Elvis sneer is met with guffaws and huffs by the younger set.

  “As if, Mr. G.” Jenara snorts. “Tomorrow . . . same time, same place. I’ll be the one in the black fencing gear. And remember: The loser has to wear a short, frilly dress in public. Prepare for the makeover of your life.”

  While Thomas showers, I study myself in the mirror over the bathroom sink. A mundane task to most people, but one I had avoided since the day I first met my husband.

  At last, after all these years, I don’t have to hide from mirrors anymore. I no longer have to worry about seeing Morpheus’s judgmental frown behind me in my reflection.

  My dress is simple and elegant: ivory lace with a low V-back and cap sleeves. A strip of contrasting lace—the color of a cappuccino—slims my waist and complements the sun-kissed glow of my freshly scrubbed skin. The bodice hugs my breasts and the skirt my hips—the hem swishing at midcalf. Alyssa and Jenara helped me pick it out at the thrift store, swearing it was sexy enough to make Thomas’s eyes bug out. I’m eager to test that theory.

  We were apart, needlessly, for too long. Maybe that’s why he makes me feel like a young girl in love, because each moment spent together is like learning everything—his sweet words, his kisses, his laughter, and his goodness—anew.

  With a sweep of rouge at my cheeks and a blot of burgundy on my lips, I’m ready. Energy and vitality pulse through me and trigger little sparks of magic beneath my skin. My shoulder-length platinum hair twines seductively around my face, so I begin the task of pinning it up in ringlets at the base of my neck with glittery, jeweled clips to imprison it.

  A woman about to go on a date with her husband of twenty years . . . this is what I see. But there was a time when it wasn’t just me looking back, when any reflective surface would conjure the doorway to a mad and chaotic Wonderland that I once craved to rule. I saved the boy in the web from that world, then did my best to turn my back on it by breaking every mirror in sight.

  It was wrong to abandon it all without an explanation. I can see that now.

  I reneged on my responsibility, on a deal with the devil himself. So Morpheus found another way to make me pay by crashing into my daughter’s dreams—using me as an unwitting conduit. He spent time with her every night for the first five years of her life, making himself young—to the point he became a child in both form and mind—so he could be her playmate and win her trust and affection. When I found out, I tried to counter his mental attack with a physical parry, to protect her by doing the only thing I could: leave.

  I blink, and for an instant, my lacy dress in the mirror transforms into the straitjacket that became my weapon of choice.

  How could I have thought there wouldn’t be consequences for hiding away in the asylum? I had hoped he’d find another sparring partner . . . another Liddell to exploit, one who would save his spirit from his curse of spending eternity trapped in Sister Two’s lair. To escape his fate, he had to fulfill Red’s Deathspeak by crowning a queen of her lineage with the ruby tiara while Red possessed her body. I mistakenly assumed, when I failed him, he would move on and find another victim in a distant relative, out of respect for my c
hoice.

  But there was a chink in my armor, and my adversary broke through. I should’ve seen it coming. For as long as I’ve known Morpheus, he has never moved on. Not when his goal is in sight. He’s the most brilliant and patient strategist I’ve ever encountered.

  The steam from Thomas’s shower blurs my reflection, and behind the fog I see myself as I was when I first discovered Morpheus’s plans for Alyssa: that naive young mother, terrified for her toddler’s future. Guilt-stricken for putting her child in danger in the first place. My little girl was never meant to be my substitute, but through my betrayal, that’s exactly what she became.

  I chose not to tell Alyssa about my choices, about the repercussions, because I thought I had managed to spare her. But all that time in the asylum away from my husband and child didn’t matter. Neither did the vow Morpheus made not to contact Alyssa again. Because he’d already planted memories of their moments together in her mind, counting on her inherited Liddell curiosity to lure her into seeking him out. At the age of sixteen, she found the rabbit hole on her own, just as he planned.

  My hand jerks involuntarily at the memory, and I pull a strand of hair too tight. It pinches my scalp, causing me to wince. Repositioning the curl, I pin it in place.

  Morpheus tricked my daughter into winning the crown I once craved and had come to despise. He saved himself in the process. It was a responsibility Alyssa hadn’t asked for, although she came to accept and even embrace it. But still . . . he’d lured her into becoming queen without offering her all the facts.

  The one thing that gives me satisfaction is that he didn’t go unscathed. He paid a price. One he never anticipated.

  While “growing up” with Alyssa in her childhood dreams, while watching her meet every challenge he laid at her feet as a young woman in Wonderland, Morpheus—the solitary and selfish fae once incapable of love—fell head over heels for her. I wouldn’t have believed it, had I not seen it myself. He proved the depth of his devotion when he gave up his chance to have her at his side in the nether-realm. When he opted instead to wait, so the human half of her heart could heal until she’d be strong enough to reign over the Red kingdom eternally.