The Fae Princes (Vicious Lost Boys Book 4)

When I come out of my tomb, I hear their voices carrying down the hall. Darling’s soft moan. The rumble of Vane’s growl. It takes everything in me not to push into the library, first to watch, then to join.

The door is shut.

Vane and I have shared women before, but he also likes his solitude and his privacy.

If the door is shut, he meant for it to be shut.

So he can keep Darling all to himself for this brief moment.

I lean against the wall and light a cigarette. Across the hall, snow dances past the windows. It plinks loudly against the glass, turning to ice.

For decades, I was trapped in the dark with only the starlight above me. I thought of it as my gilded prison, but now that the stars are gone, hidden behind the clouds, it’s left me feeling untethered and disconnected.

Nothing is as it should be.

I am trying very hard to keep the panic at bay.

You don’t deserve the shadow.

The words are whispering through my head. Over and over again. Neverland should be lush and verdant, the sky blue, the wind soft and the ocean calm.

We have both shadows now. And clearly the dark shadow has found itself a home it likes.

But mine?

I take a pull on the cigarette and expand my lungs with the smoke.

My shadow is silent, but restless. Is it me? Or is it the shadow? I never had to think about the line between us before.

You don’t deserve the shadow.

I try to shake the words from my head.

Winnie gasps. The table judders against the floor.

I sigh and hang my head back.

The wind picks up.

I don’t want to hear them come together, so I push away and return to the loft and drop into my chair. The leather groans. Elbow on the chair’s arm, I bring the cigarette back to my mouth and stare at the Never Tree through a band of smoke.

The pixie bugs are still glowing amongst its branches, but the parakeets are gone and I can’t help but take it as one more sign that everything is not as it should be.

Even the Lost Boys seem to have vanished. I haven’t seen a single one since I woke.

The cigarette burns and burns.

I want another. I light another.

I sit forward, elbows on knees.

The panic is closer, clawing up my throat.

What was it the spirits of the lagoon said the night they dragged me down into their depths? What were the exact words? Was I too focused on getting back to the surface and Darling and Vane and the twins to listen?

What if I missed something?

There was something about darkness…and light…

Never King.

Never King.

Given light, trapped in the dark.

What the fuck did they mean?

The library door opens. Darling laughs. Vane whispers to her. When they come out of the hallway, they are facing each other, Darling’s back to me as Vane grips her around the hips.

It’s Vane that spots me first and he sobers, shaking off the effects of being in love.

They cross the room.

“Pan,” Vane starts, but I cut him off.

“Darling, get me a drink.”

She grits her teeth. I can feel her eyes on me for a beat before she goes to the bar behind me. The cork pops out of a bottle, a glass thunks on the bar. I can hear the glug-glug of liquor. Vane stares at me.

I know I turn into an asshole when I am afraid.

I can’t breathe.

Fill my lungs with more smoke. Burn and burn and burn.

Darling comes around the chair and holds out the glass. “For the Never King.” Her tone is snide.

I snatch the glass from her and drink it back. “Another.”

“What, am I your maid now?”

I sit upright. “Get. Me. Another.”

The air shifts. It turns into needles on my skin, a sharp prick of air. Darling’s eyes bleed to black. “How dare you—”

Vane steps between us, but he faces Darling. “Eyes on me,” he says. She turns her chin, gazing up at him. The air undulates around her like heat from oil. “Sit down.”

When Vane gives her an order, she sits. She drops onto the couch with a huff and crosses her arms over her chest. Her eyes return to their bright, fiery green and she pierces me with them.

Vane sits on the low table between us. “What’s wrong?” he asks me.

“Nothing is wrong,” I tell him.

Lies.

He frowns, putting his arms to his thighs, hands in front of him.

“What is wrong, Pan? Talk to me.”

Never King.

Never King.

You cannot have light…

I cannot fucking have peace either.

“What’s wrong?” I growl back at him. “What’s fucking wrong, Vane? Tinker Bell is back. Neverland is snowing. The lagoon is fucking with me. The twins will leave and I don’t—” I cut myself off with a grit of teeth.

“You don’t what?” he coaxes.

I don’t deserve the shadow.

I killed Tink the coward’s way and when faced with her a second time, I chose the same path.

If the lagoon was trying to teach me a lesson, I’ve missed it. Or willfully ignored it.

I close my eyes and rub at them with thumb and forefinger. “It’s nothing.” Everything hurts. I want to crawl out of my skin. I stub out the cigarette in the nearest ashtray and stand. “Don’t leave her side,” I tell Vane.

“I won’t,” he promises.

Darling has softened, but her arms are still crossed.

I want to go to her. I want to feel the warmth of her skin and hear her soft little moans as I fill her up. I want to lose myself in her.

Instead, I turn and walk away.