The Fae Princes (Vicious Lost Boys #4)(41)

“Of course,” Tink’s voice rings out loudly. “There is one other way to fly.”

The twins turn back to me. Grief is an emotion that is not so easily hid and I can see all of the layers of it on the twins’ faces. Their wings are gone. They’re never getting them back.

I know what it is to pine for something so badly it aches.

“We’re not taking Pan’s shadow,” Bash tells Tink. “So you can fuck right off.”

“We’ll never do it,” Kas adds and he’s looking right at me, speaking directly to me across the room as Vane breathes heavily in my grip.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Tilly slip away through the kitchen, tears streaming down her face.

“Then I suppose you’ll never get your Darling girl back.”

The grief and the defiance on the twins’ faces is immediately replaced with anger and fear.

This is Tink’s final card. The trump card.

Even if it’s power she wants for the twins, the Darlings were always a thorn in her side that she wanted to dislodge.

“Where is she?” Kas asks.

Tink’s wings flutter leaving a swirl of fairy dust on the air. “Indisposed, I’m afraid.”

“Where the fuck did you take her?” Bash lunges at his mother, but he’s quickly swarmed by Lost Boys and fae, blades poised to cut.

“I can feel her panic now,” Vane says.

“What?”

“Darling. I can feel her now.” He shudders in my grip. “She’s panicking and…scared.”

“Where is she?” I whisper to him.

Blood trickles down the corner of his mouth. “I don’t know. I can’t tell. It’s like she’s underground or something.”

Buried in the dark. All alone.

Just like I did to Tink when I killed her and dumped her in the lagoon.

You don’t deserve the shadow.

Just a boy abandoned by his mother.

Just a boy.

“Tell us where she is!” Kas yells and punches a Lost Boy, only for another to take his place.

“I swear to fucking god—” Bash swats at one of the smaller fae and the man spills over a barstool.

“Stop,” I yell.

Everyone goes quiet.

“You can take it.” I lick my lips.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Vane asks, but I ignore him.

“I will give my shadow freely.”

“Don’t be…stupid,” Vane says.

“Pan.” Bash shakes his head at me, but it’s too late. I’ve made my decision. What is power if you’re constantly fighting to keep it? What is power if you have no one to share it with?

“I give you my shadow,” I tell Tink. “You give them Darling.” I nod at the twins and Vane. “She remains unharmed.”

Bash, his face sharp with unease, says, “We don’t want the shadow.”

“Which is exactly why you’re the perfect ones for it. Just like Darling and Vane, neither of them wanted it. I spent the better part of my life searching for the shadow, destroying everything I could to possess it.” I glance at Tink. I don’t know if there’s any of the fairy girl I knew all those years ago, but if there is, I need her to hear this.

“I’m sorry, Tinker Bell. I’m sorry we loved each other so much we destroyed one another.”

She falters. For one brief moment, I see the old Tink. My best friend. The first person I got to share Neverland with in any sort of meaningful way.

I loved her back then because I was desperate not to be alone. But it was misplaced. I clung to her because I had no one else. And maybe in a way, we both abused that love because of the things we needed and had no language of how to ask for it.

And then I became the Never King, the wicked, ruthless Never King.

Drenched in darkness.

And I don’t want to be that man anymore.

Not for Darling. Not for Vane. Not even for the twins.

I want to be someone else, even if I don’t know who that is.

I help Vane to the couch, then go to the twins and Tink.

I’m so very tired.

I drop to my knees in front of the fae princes. “Take it.”

“Pan,” Kas starts.

“Take it.”

Bash grits his teeth. “We’re not going to—”

If they are meant to have the shadow, the shadow will go to them. The last test, the last bit of proof I need to know that it was never supposed to be me.

The shadow writhes to the surface. I sense its shape, its weight, the great heaving wave of it as it surges from the throbbing wound in my chest. I purge it like an infection, eyes bulging, watering, body shaking.

It leaves me behind and surges towards the twins, enveloping them in bright, searing light.

The twins drop to all fours.

I can hear the distant chiming of bells as the floorboards rattle against the nails that hold them.

And then…

The darkness subsides and the twins stand up.

And behind them, dark, shimmering wings unfurl.





23





KAS


When I lost my wings, it felt like losing a limb. I had lived my entire life half on the ground and half in the sky, and when I no longer had the ability to meet the clouds, it felt like a giant hole had been carved in the center of me.