Wonderland Ch. 08B

I closed my eyes, nausea sending my stomach into sickening spirals. "The honey," I breathed in realization, opening my eyes slowly. "I thought it was honey," I chuckled humorlessly.

"Tempest, please."

I met his eyes. "Please," he whispered earnestly. "I was so scared, I just wanted to help."

Reading the look on his face, I knew he wasn't lying and after all we had been through, I knew it would be stupid to not trust him. Relaxing a little, I took one of his hands in mine. "That's all your blood does?" I asked questionably, wanting to confirm that at least.

Thatcher let out a choked laugh of relief, nodding slightly. "It does many things, but in this case, yes. I just wanted to make you better again."

I nodded slightly and dropped his gaze for a second. "So what are we going to do?" I asked him. "Do you have a plan?"

I met Thatcher's gaze and saw he was nodding. "We need to go to Queensland Mountains," he said firmly. "I have a feeling that Fuyher will act soon and if the war is to begin, we need everyone to be ready."

I gave him a look. "I thought there wasn't anyone left in the Eden?"

Thatcher smiled sadly. "There isn't. We need all the help we can get and with Tze'sic down...I'm not sure how long we will last. He needs our help, I'm sure of it. And we need him."

I nodded, waiting for that to sink in.

"So when do we leave?"

Thatcher held my gaze. "Tomorrow."

I heard the sounds of the front door opening and closing swiftly, seconds before my parents called out my name and Thatcher's in unison.

Thatcher went to the bedroom door and opened it wide before returning to me and sitting in my desk chair. I gave him a look.

"Your father said I couldn't be in your room unless the door was open," he answered, winking after.

Rolling my eyes, I slipped out from under my bed covers and walked towards the door. "Like I would be stupid enough to do anything like that in this house. It's got to be crawling with cameras."

"Only in the den, facing the computer," Thatcher prompted. I eyed him over my shoulder and he shook his head. "You don't want to know how I found that out."

I made a face as I walked down the stairs. No, I agreed to myself, I really didn't.

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The next morning, all the schools in the local area called for students to return to class for the first time in two weeks. For the second day in a row, Thatcher and I ate breakfast with my parents, an affair that bordered along awkward and bittersweet. It was hard to act normal around them – I wasn't sure when the next time I would see them would be.

Last night Thatcher and I had talked until early in the morning, trying to figure out what was best to do. Leaving with Thatcher without warning would definitely qualify as abduction or running away and leaving a note behind to explain things was kind of out of the question. Who would believe the truth anyway?

I had to leave my phone behind, although that didn't really bother me since I never got much use out of it anyway. Since I wasn't a fan of Wonderland High or basically anyone in it, I didn't care about leaving anyone there either, though my parents were a completely different story.

So the plan all boiled down to this; we would go to school as usual, then at lunch, when things were chaotic and the teachers didn't have as sharp of eyes out, we would take Thatcher's car and drive towards Queensland. He would park along one of the trails in the national forest and we would hike from there to the mountains were Bayothet and the others were hiding. He had the Final Eden's coordinates inputted into his handheld GPS but with his own built in compass, we shouldn't have any trouble finding place. From there, we would – hopefully – have someone to find and make plans for the upcoming war.

After saying goodbye to my parents, Thatcher and I loaded into his tinker toy car, silent the entire way to school. He parked his car in the student parking lot and cut the ignition before grabbing our school bags from the back. I eyed the heavy-duty packs stuffed full with our camping and hiking gear that Thatcher had hidden earlier this morning beneath the seats before our parents had gotten up for the day. Thatcher didn't want to risk coming back to the house in case my parents hadn't yet left.

I cringed away from that thought, not wanting to dwell on the hardest decision I had ever made in my life.

As I walked up the steps that led towards the school campus, I felt Thatcher's gloved hand take hold of mine. I bit down on my bottom lip when our fingers interlocked and tried to ignore the heat that flushed my face.

This was something else we had talked about last night, something that was a bit of a tender topic to the both of us. Thatcher considered me nothing short of a mate, but because of Talon's bond to me, nothing could be done. While Thatcher was fairly adamant that Talon had accidentally created the mating bond to me, I wasn't so sure. Thatcher had not seen Talon when he had been angry over Connor's scent on me. He had not seen the looks Talon had given me when we had kissed or the tenderness in his eyes as he cradled me to sleep. If Talon had just been using me, he wouldn't have acted like that at all.

But despite our inability to see eye-to-eye on Talon, we could both agree that we cared about one another – a lot. Thatcher was my best friend when he wasn't being a sarcastic butthead. And I couldn't say that I wasn't attracted to him, even if his nose was a little beaky for my tastes. But to consider him my mate? For life? That's where I balked.

"Stop scowling," Thatcher murmured softly, interrupting my thoughts. "It gives you a unibrow."

"Jerk," I hissed without venom, gently elbowing his ribs. To be honest, Thatcher could tease me all he wanted. In the weeks of his silence, I had somehow missed that.

We filtered into the warm and crowded school hallway. Quickly I grabbed my books and let him walk me to class, flushing when he dropped me off at my desk and kissed my cheek in goodbye. It drew the attention of a few of the immature boys who made kissing noises and feigned two people making out by putting their arms around their bodies and moaning. It didn't let up until Mr. Dean came into the room and after getting our stack of class and homework assignments, no one was able to focus on much else.

The rest of the morning was uneventful. Each class felt as though millenniums had passed and by the time the bell rang for lunch, I was at the end of my endurance. As I made my way down the hall towards where Thatcher had planned a "rendezvous", it was obvious that the weather had taken a turn for the worse yet again. Sleet made loud cracking noises as it hit the windows, the roof clicking and clacking under the ice so loud that it was almost impossible to hear the teachers lecture about not going outside.

I met up with Thatcher in the music hall and stood beside him to survey the crappy weather outside. We had agreed to meet here because it was closest to the student parking lot and had a number of exits to choose from to escape. "What are we going to do?" I whispered. "The teachers are blocking the doors everywh-"

In that moment, a loud wailing filled the air, the sirens cutting off conversation all across the school. I pressed my face to the fogged over glass, trying to see why the city sirens were going off, but found nothing, just a world of ice and snow.

"What's going on?" I whispered aloud.

That was when the glass began to vibrate. Thatcher quickly pulled me back from the windows and we watched the entire length of the pane shake and tremble, the rattling noise escalating steadily as to compete with the sirens wailing overhead.

"T-Thatcher..." I gasped when the vibrations began to shake the entire building, the lockers and closed classroom doors beginning to wobble in their places.

"LOOK OUT!" Thatcher called out in warning, pulling me back and covering me as the glass swiftly cracked from the bottom up.

Screams from the other students filled the air as ice, snow, and glass shattered, shooting out in all directions. A bitter cold wind began to sweep through the hallway, kicking up papers and other trash. Within seconds, doors flew open, knocked free of their hinges, and the lockers began to fall, crushing students under their weight.

"They're coming," Thatcher whispered into my ear. He pulled away slightly and cupped my face in his hands, checking me for injuries. "We need to get out of here."

I eyed the chaos around me. Teachers were shouting at students to get to the gym, coaches were blowing their whistles and directing traffic. Students with glass in their faces and hands moaned pitifully as teacher aides and other students led them to the nurses' station. Those pinned beneath the lockers were screaming for help, their hands outstretched to those racing by to catch their attention. All the while, the city sirens wailed in a constant loop, overpowering everything.

At least, until the world beyond the school exploded with noise.

Police sirens, fire truck horns, car honking, shouts and barking dogs began to filter through the city sirens. I watched over Thatcher's shoulder as the black top of the road leading to the school began to ripple and cave, as though something was tunneling its way through the street.

Realization hit me then.

The Raspans were doing this. Fuyher had made the command and now they were following his orders.

Suddenly, Thatcher's words made sense. I met his eyes and nodded shakily, allowing him to pull me down the halls before hurdling through what was once a window and into the school's back courtyard. The sirens were almost deafening but even through that I could hear the intelligible screams and shouts of people. I eyed Thatcher in horror and saw his face twist with both anger and pain.

"We have to do something!" I called to him when we got to the car. "Thatch, we can't just leave everyone to their deaths!"

Thatcher looked at me swiftly, breathing hard. "I have to keep you safe," he said firmly. "That's more important."

"More important than that?" I demanded, pointing towards the city where now gunshots and the distinct sharp cries of Raspan's were resonating from. "Humans are dying! We have to-"

Suddenly the ground was ripped out from beneath my feet as sharp claws dug into my calves and pulled me down. I screamed as the nails dug in further, and a furry face rimmed with dirt and broken bits of asphalt reached out to greet me, jaws opened wide to devour me whole with rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth.

I stared into the blank red eyes of the Raspan, too shocked to scream. Almost as quickly as the Raspan had pulled me under, it stopped. I gasped for air and fought to stay still as well. Every time I moved, bits of my jeans would catch in the jaws of the beast and through the shreds of my clothes I could feel his large black tongue writhing, tasting my skin. I watched as the crimson pupils of his eyes briefly expanded and collapsed, before the Raspan's jaw trembled, as though it was fighting with itself to keep his mouth open.

"Set her on the ground."

The Raspan removed me from its throat and placed me beside Thatcher obediently. I stumbled slightly before looking up at Thatcher, wanting to know what in the fudge was going on. His eyes were red bled with gold, locked onto the Raspan unblinkingly. His magic made the air around us tense and crackle, the weight of it resting heavily on my chest and shoulders.

"Rise and face your new master."

The words in my head were English, but the sounds that came from Thatcher's throat were far from that. Clicks, gnarled consonants and hissing erupted from his mouth instead. It clicked with me then that Thatcher was speaking in the Raspan tongue and he was controlling the beast before him.

The Raspan followed Thatcher's commands slowly and somewhat stiffly, as though it was still trying to fight Thatcher's control and test the vestiges of this new master's strength.

I inhaled sharply when another head poked out from the large Raspan's tunnel before my eyes drifted across the courtyard where dozens of furry black heads were emerging from the ground. Soon, the entire courtyard became filled with Raspan's; each set of crimson eyes locked onto Thatcher, as though they were awaiting his next command.

On cue, Thatcher turned to them, his arms slightly extended and his palms facing out as he released more of his magic. The gold in his eyes flared to life as he began to speak, his voice amplifying loud and heavy in my head.

"I am Táxim, son of the Raspan King. As of now you are under my command and will obey me fully. My first orders as your new King is that any enemy of the Humans is now your enemy. You will fight against your brethren for the protection of those weaker than us. You will feast on the flesh of others no more. If you do not heed these commands, your life will be forfeit. If you feel that you can obey me, you shall be greatly rewarded. My father, Fuyher-se, asked you to kill. I ask you to protect. If you wish to join me and my army, all I ask is that you kneel to show your allegiance."

In that moment, the magic was released. I looked at Thatcher in horror, realizing instantly that he had released the Raspan's from his control. His jaw tightened as he looked out over the courtyard, somehow managing to look fearsome and brave despite the fact that he now had three hundred Raspan's recently freed from Fuyher's control standing before him. I held my breath as the Raspan's swung their large heads back and forth, conversing in their native tongue.

I then watched as one by one, the Raspan's changed to their human forms, the ground shaking as row by row fell to Thatcher's will on their own cognizance, a cacophony of voices exclaiming Táxim as their new leader and king. I released a slow exhale of relief before looking over at Thatcher.

He lowered his hands and let out a shaky breath as well, the red and gold in his eyes darkening to brown as he looked over the three hundred Raspan's of his new army.

Our eyes met and I gave him a slight smile, letting him know that I was proud of him. Thatcher's eyes flickered gold slightly, his lips parting as though he was about to speak again.

"What of the girl?"

Our connection was broken when the huge Raspan in front of me lowered his face so our eyes could connect. He had not changed into a human form, but he had kneeled. Now, towering over me with shining ruby eyes, I couldn't help but wonder if he had actually fallen under Thatcher's spell at all.

"She is Annis, my consort. You will obey her if I fall."

I started to look over at Thatcher to ask what in the hell he was thinking, but a small voice in my head told me not to look away, that this Raspan was testing me. I couldn't help but stare at the Raspan, perusing the enormous monster in front of me critically.

This Raspan was different from the others, not just by his enormous size, but by the way he carried himself. He was bulky but somehow graceful, his strength evident in the muscles that bunched under his fur. He had to be a warrior of some sort. He had to have been important to Fuyher, the old Raspan King.

"I would be honored, consort of my new King, if you would allow me to carry you to wherever Your King may lead us."

"Our King," I corrected automatically, watching as the Raspan bowed his head further in agreement. "Of whom you will serve faithfully and fully, as he commands," I pressed, placing a hand on his head and between the ears. I watched as the Raspan cowed in a sign of humility, lowering himself down to the asphalt until his belly scraped over the handicap parking sign.

I looked over at Thatcher, who gave me a nod and a smile, telling me I had done well, mimicking the act I had given him.

Swallowing an urge to throw up, I rested a hand on the Raspan's beefy shoulder, hesitating slightly. I had only ridden show ponies in my life and this Raspan was definitely larger than they were. Even on his belly, the Raspan's shoulder blades were at least four inches above my head. I could reach, but I couldn't swing myself up.

I swallowed hard when Thatcher came up behind me, his hands resting on my hips as he easily lifted me onto its back, following up soon after.

"To the Queensland Mountains," Thatcher commanded. The Raspan's rose, including our mount, and I inhaled sharply, catching the Raspan's thick fur in my hands as the Raspan turned under Thatcher's mental command and led the charge away from the city and to the forest and rocky hills beyond them.

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