Chapter 9

Bubbles erupted and I kicked upwards. I broke the surface and sucked in a healthy dose of fresh Wonderland air. Panic hits me instantly, I had lost grip of Alyss' hand as the portal had dragged us home. I splash around urgently looking about me when I spot Bibwit Harte ashore, 'Is she here?' my voice catches.

Bibwit begins to answer when Alyss' limp and lifeless body floats to the surface. I grab her by the waist and struggle to pull her to shore. My heart is stabbing frantically. Alyss can't be dead, not now after all my hopes had returned, after my heart had been brought back to life.

Bibwit wades in and helps me drag her out, we lay her down. 'What's wrong with her?' I ask; my voice is strangely detached and calm. Perhaps I've spent too many years feeling vaguely removed from situations; that should not be seen as normal but has become just that.

'She's swallowed some water. I can hear it sloshing inside her.' Bibwit pulled out a strange instrument and I found my eyes couldn't focus. I tried to dispel the unshed tears that now blurred my vision. Maybe I could keep my voice from wavering, but something deeper inside me hurt at the thought that she was hurt. I blink heavily a few times and luckily my vision clears just as Alyss sucks in a great breath of fresh air.

I let out the breath I had unconsciously been holding. Relief floods through me as Alyss coughs violently for a minute or so. Finally she stops, and turns slowly to the man knelt beside her, 'Bibwit Harte,' she says and slowly her eyes move to me. 'Dodge Anders', she says quietly and I can see a ghost of a smile on her beautiful face. I feel my muscles tighten; she hadn't forgotten me after all. I cannot look away from her, and her returning gaze makes me ache with a forgotten longing to kiss her tender lips. As the feelings and urge to do just that starts to overwhelm me Alyss' eyebrows raise and she looks away with a curious expression on her face. She says something but my mind isn't focusing anymore.

I am furious with myself, absolutely fuming. I and Alyss had been in one another's vicinity for barely a few hours and I was turning into a quivering wreck. My mind constantly jarred with thoughts of her, and things that I should not be thinking, that I have no right to think. I have become a weak, weak man. I am not fit to kiss her lips, not fit to even protect her when I am as lust filled as this. But until I could reclaim my senses I would have to be enough to protect her.

I spring up, 'We have to hurry,' I urge and glance to the water, where the surface is already beginning to ripple.

I and Bibwit help Alyss onto the Spirit Dane, but she tumbles off, obviously still weak and confused, and then climbs back onto the beast, the wrong way around. I stood rather astounded for a moment, and actually felt my mouth fall open. I tell her to face the other way and the Bibwit steps forward to help her. Once she is facing the right way I quickly hop up and Bibwit does so too, onto the other Spirit Dane.

No doubt the instant that we begun our speedy get away that the others were in hot pursuit, right on our tails. I felt Alyss move behind me and fear boiled inside me and I quickly fought the urge not to snap at her to be careful, the last thing I needed was her to fall off now. But suddenly she gripped onto me more tightly. The clenching in my chest seemed to ease a little. So long as I was there to protect her she would come to no harm. I would protect her to death, and I wouldn't allow death to befall me, for I still had the Cat to kill.