Hours later, after they were finally too exhausted to move and sated with each other's bodies (for now), Douglas and Alice began to talk.
"So, when did you..." she trailed on, looking up at the ceiling, curling up closer in his arms that were currently wrapped around her shoulders and with his legs propped up, acting as an arm rest. She could feel a burst of air against her hair and guessed he was laughing quietly.
"A long time ago. So long ago that I don't remember the date anymore."
"Do you remember how?"
There was another hot puff of air. "Yes. I was in battle and had been fatally wounded. I was on the ground, staring up at the sky and waiting for death when a woman appeared over my body. She was dressed in rich reds and blacks, her cloak whipping in the wind as if she were Death himself. She offered me immortality because she said she admired my battle skills."
"So you accepted?"
He laughed. "Nay lass. I rejected her offer because it seemed too good to be true."
Point for the man that had some intelligence to recognize things can be too good to be true. Especially when skewered to the ground.
"But, how-"
"I told her that she needed me more than I needed her, so unless she had something to offer me that I could understand, she could leave me to my new grave and go on her merry way."
Alice paused in her questions, playing with his large callused hand. There were many battle scars she hadn't noticed until now on them - some were shallow cuts, others were deep slashes that were sloppily burned or stitched together. While his nails were decently managed, though not manicured expertly like some of her male co-workers, his hands told of rough beginning and his body, while hard, must have come at the price of war and constant training.
"So," she began, kissing a particularly large and brutal-looking scar. He shivered. "What did she offer you?"
He paused and moved his other hand to stroke her belly absentmindedly.
"A kingdom."
"A-what?" she dropped the hand in shock, to which it stealthily sneaked a grope of a warm breast with a pebbled nipple that had been peeking out from the sheets wrapped around her. A girl had to have some modesty.
"A kingdom."
"Y-you're royalty?" she sputtered, shocked.
He laughed. "Not just. I am king of these vampires in this section of the country. I think there's," Douglas paused and mentally counted silently, only mouthing the words for various names and countries. "another five kings and queens about the country and countless more in Europe, Asia and Africa."
"I-I'm sleeping with a king? How-why, why me-"
He tightened his arms around her possessively. "Because there was no other in that club for me, because you felt the same loneliness that I did and because we both want to bring a child into the world and could find no one worthy. Because I took one look into your eyes and found the one for me. I won't let you go Alice - I meant that."
She stiffened in his arms, then, as his words began to sink in, like a fine wine that burned a warmth through her throat, her belly and her veins, she slowly settled and relaxed.
Several minutes of silence passed and it was almost as if the air around them held its breath in waiting. It was actively waiting, wanting desperately and hoping for the proper response, the response that would make it smile, make it sigh with happiness and dreams, and still eagerly ask for more.
It waited impatiently until-
"I felt that too," she whispered softly.
He smiled against her hair and kissed it adoringly.
The air settled with a collective sigh of relief, but not before rousing again when he next spoke.
"Now that that is settled, I just need to convince you to become my lady of the night and queen."
She groaned, running a hand through her hair.
"I'm human Douglas. I was born human and I'll die human. I love the sunlight, garlic, singing Church hymns and taking long baths. I don't want to give that up."
She didn't see it, but he has the most confused expression on his face as he glanced down at her.
"Garlic? Baths? Where did you learn all this nonsense?"
She turned to look at him. "But the myths-"
"-Are bullshit," he finished flatly. "We started those rumors centuries ago to make sure that nosy humans," he took her nose with a soft smile and wiggled it for good measure. "Do not stumble or looking for things or people they should know not of. However," he pretended to look mournful and victimized as he continued to hold her nose, much to her irritation. "We seem to be unable to keep away from the humans we so desperately should be hiding from," He let go then and dropped an apologetic kiss on the tip. "But I find myself unable to regret my decision. You're so much more than I could ever hope for in a woman. You're brilliant, smart, have enough wit to disarm an army, beautiful and hopelessly fertile. You taste delicious beneath my tongue and your blood is intoxicating. I can't imagine myself with another woman, because your passion has ruined me for any other lover when I know that I could have you beneath me, on top of me, against the wall or in the bathroom-"
He grinned a cocky grin at the deep flush on her face when she coughed delicately.
"So, how about that queen thing? Yes?"
She raised a brow. As much as the whole speech definitely found places of her insides melting, she couldn't give up so much after so little time - she couldn't, wouldn't, should, but she was so tempted. . . Forever with this handsome romantic? Forever having amazing sex? However, she just didn't think she should base her status in mortality on a good couple earth-shattering orgasms. So...
"No."
Douglas gave a dramatic sigh before whispering wickedly in her ear. "I suppose I'm going to have to convince you to become my queen then by courting and wooing you. Do you prefer dark chocolate or milk chocolate with your roses before your ravishing?"
* * *
If anyone back in the real world missed Alice, she didn't know as she began her new life in the Otherworld. As consort to Douglas, since she rejected the offer of queen, she was draped in soft silks and satins and cooed and awed over for her confirmed pregnancy. She still giggled at the idea of a vampire doctor.
The place in which Douglas ruled was interesting, to say the least. Many creatures she thought were only fairy-tales were alive and well as they moved, rolled, inched and walked their way through the village. There were also many other creatures that she had never seen before that Douglas that night explained were probably from another section of the world, where they had their own fairy-tales and mythologies, since myths, deep down had a grain of truth in every tale. These were the ones that Alice liked to talk to the best, because they were just so interesting and different from her old bedtime stories. One couple, a fox as tall as a man and dressed like a human, and a monster with the body of a man, but the head of a lantern he always had to prop up with a stick in his right hand, were the most interesting and had fast become Alice's friends (in addition to Heather, who visited everyday after confessing her misdeeds, which were easily forgiven), despite their rather low status in the demon world. One conversation eventually lead to Alice's lack of martial status, despite her slow growing pregnancy.
"I tell you," the fox shook her head as she clattered down the brick street in a complex kimono. "You should just accept him and get it over with."
"Over with?" Alice raised a brow. "This is something you have to think about!"
Lantern-head and fox exchanged a look, which was almost comical with the way Lantern-head's bobbed up and down with the effort to keep it up.
"My dear," he began politely. "Destiny isn't something you think about."
