Page 100 of Fated to the Wicked King

Enormous relief crashed onto his face. “Oh, my god.” He bent down to take my lips in his, fervent, fiery, making shivers and warmth rocket throughout me. Breaking off for a moment, he turned toward the machine. “Then what are you going to do with that?”

“Well, I wanted to make sure the destruction of the Hatter’s machine restored the ghosts back to their normal selves before I took it apart completely. It’s likely all fine, but just to double-check.” I shrugged to consider, “Then I suppose I’ll probably use the parts to create something new⁠—”

“But it’s such a waste of your brilliance, Doctor.”

Gasping, I whirled around. I already recognized the voice before the figure emerged from the shadows.

Somehow, the General had made it out of the collapsing forest. Somehow, he had found my clock tower and climbed all those steps to find my laboratory.

Even though the wild-eyed man standing before us looked far from the self-important, buttoned-up General we had encountered in the forest. His tailored uniform was disheveled, torn and bloody, his pants ratty, singed at the edges. Somehow, he bore surprisingly more wrinkles on his dirt-streaked face.

Rabb immediately stepped in front of me.

But the glint in the General’s eyes carried no remorse, no hesitation. Only iron-willed motivation. His gaze darted straight toward the machine.

“No—!” Before I could stop him, the General leapt toward the control panels to flick the switch on.

It must have been similar enough to the Hatter’s machine that he was at least familiar with how to activate it.

The machine burst a hiss of steam, a mechanical hum, with the same ethereal green lights shining up from underneath as it warmed up. But since the machine was incomplete, the same high-pitched abrasive screech began blaring out.

“Aah—” With a grunt, Rabb braced one hand against the wall at the otherworldly energies given off by the machine.

Gritting my own teeth from the sting, I caught his arm. “Rabb!”

The General smirked. “That should take care of your weak king.”

I shot the General a bewildered glare. “Are you crazy? Why would you activate a delicate machine like this on your own? It’s not fully operational. You have no idea the consequences⁠—”

His wild eyes glowed. “Well, I guess we’ll all find out together. There’s no time like the present.”

Dear lord… It seemed he had finally gone mad too.

I scoffed in derision. “What are you even doing here, General? Run out of committee members to kiss-ass to get to your position? If you’re wondering if I ever regretted working with you, I’m here to tell you I definitely do.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Oh, so you finally have your memories back, do you?” He clicked his tongue. “It doesn’t matter. After you destroyed all my hard work, do you think you can talk to me like that?” Sneering, he withdrew something from his belt.

It was a pistol.

My breath caught in my throat. Wünder didn’t have weapons like this. The General must have brought it with him from our world when we crossed over. Even after all this time, there was no way to tell how dangerous it was. For all we knew, it could still have been fully functional, absolutely deadly.

He trained the gun toward me, then at Rabb, then at me again. “You’ve foiled enough of my plans. I hoped to keep you, but I think instead, I will have to kill you. Then I’ll take your machine as compensation.” He walked around it, examining the many toggles and switches. “I figured you’d already built a maelstrom machine of your own. I just didn’t know where in this world you were hiding. Lo and behold, who would have known that the tree hollow at the Hatter’s leads me straight to you?” He wriggled his free fingers, even as he waved his pistol around. “Now, let’s see what this baby can do.”

“General, don’t.” I slowly inched forward in front of Rabb. “Haven’t you already learned the danger that this machine poses to this world? The whole land will be at risk.”

“Oh, Doctor. Haven’t you already learned that I don’t care about any of that? Much like you, the only thing that matters to me is power.” He flicked a few more toggles on.

The machine hummed louder, and the platform lights flicked back to blue before quickly turning into indigo. In an instant, a large spiral of bright, blinding light ignited before us with a pop and a crackle.

Holy cats…

I still couldn’t help my eyes widening in marvel. I hadn’t had an opportunity to test the machine at full tilt at all myself yet. The maelstrom was always captivating, always fascinating.

Shaking my head to clear it, I hissed under my breath. I had to get him to stop. Or, at least, I had to get that weapon away from him. “You’ve got it wrong, General. The only thing that matters to me is knowledge,” I corrected. “I did what I did to learn more about the world. All you want to do is conquer it. It’s never going to happen.”

“Never? Doctor, I’ve already won,” the General boasted. “Now I just need to configure this to boost the power and access all the known worlds…” he recited, almost to himself. “Then I should get right back on track⁠—”

A hiss of steam grabbed the General’s attention as the elevator in the corner began to move.