The Fae Princes (Vicious Lost Boys #4)(46)

Tink lowers herself to the ground. “I’m not leaving my children just when they’ve been restored to power. You’ll need me. Boys always need their mothers.”

“The fuck we do,” Bash says.

“We never needed you,” Kas says. “You needed us because we were the only thread you had to the fae throne and the power it wielded.”

She hangs her head back and laughs and when she finally sobers, she says, “It was the throne that brought me back, and it’s the throne’s power that will crush you now. Ironic, isn’t it? You’ll come to your senses. I promise you that.”

She lifts her hands and gives a flick of her wrists, and the wave of fae and Lost Boys comes charging toward us.

The twins race ahead to meet them, slicing through the opponents with barely any effort at all. They are in their element, their wings carrying them up, then down. I wish I could watch them from the sidelines. It’s like a dance.

Vane makes me stick close to his side, but it gives us a chance to finally put the Neverland Death Shadow to work.

The shadow is excited for mayhem, and its excitement floods my system with adrenaline.

I was made for this.

Several Lost Boys charge toward us brandishing daggers. They slice. Our shadow blooms around us, a thing felt, not seen other than the heat of it ribboning the air.

A blond Lost Boy lets out a battle cry, barreling toward me, knife like a hacking tool in his hand. But he never makes it. He comes to a halt, eyes wide, then collapses to his knees, trapped somewhere between suffocating and terror.

Well done, I tell the shadow.

It barely gives me notice, pulsing between Vane and me as we take out a fae, then a Lost Boy, then another. I pluck a fallen blade from the snowy ground and stab up, taking out a woman with bright purple hair. Her blood gushes down my arms, soaking my coat.

Up ahead, Kas and Bash are closing in on Tink.

“Hurry, Vane!” I yell at him just as a fae with pointy horns jabs with his blade. Vane snatches his wrist and gives a sharp downward blow, breaking bone. The fae howls. Vane tosses his blade into the air, catches it by the hilt, and sinks it into the fae’s neck.

Blood paints his face in spurts.

He looks over at me as the last breath gurgles out of the fae and Vane drops him to the ground.

We cut through the rest of the attacking foes and make our way to Tink and the twins in the center of the battle.

Kas lunges at her. Bash takes to the air, stopping her escape. Their shadow and their wings keep her down as she laughs at their efforts.

“Is that truly all you’ve got?” she says.

Tilly comes sailing out of the air, black dagger in hand. Without hesitation, she sinks the blade into her mother’s heart.

Dark, black blood seeps out of the wound like oil sludge.

The twins step back. Tilly watches, stunned by what she’s done.

Tink’s golden light fades as she sinks into the snow and the mud, the air gasping out of her.

Could it really be that easy?

We glance at one another, on edge, waiting.

A Lost Boy charges at me and Vane steps between us, roping his arm around the boy’s neck, spinning him around and yanking back.

The loud sound of his neck cracking echoes through the clearing.

If Tink was dead, shouldn’t the Lost Boys and fae no longer be under her control?

And then Tink’s eyes pop open and she laughs again, a shrill sound that makes my ears ache.

She climbs to her feet, yanks the blade from her chest and tosses it aside.

“As if that would stop me.”





27





ROC


My favorite part of fighting is watching.

I watch from the treehouse balcony as Peter Pan loses his shadow and the princes regain their wings and then everyone loses their mind over the missing Darling and Tinker Bell loses her shit over not getting her way.

This is the only time I wish I had popcorn instead of peanuts.

Vane, bleeding, but breathing, goes one way, following the trail of his Darling. The twins and Pan go another way and eventually get separated.

I find Peter Pan at the lagoon, collapsed in the sand.

I crack a peanut and he winces, lifting his head just enough to see it’s me before dropping back into the sand.

“Are you moping?” I ask him and pop the peanut into my mouth.

“I’m in no mood, Roc.”

“Are you crying?” I ask instead.

He sighs and puts his hands over his eyes, not to hide his tears, but to breathe through the annoyance of me.

“Do not pretend like a man has no right to his tears,” he says around his hand.

I sit down beside him, one knee up so I can prop my arm on it as I continue with my nuts. “I suppose that’s fair. I’ve shed a tear or two in my day.”

Taking his hand away, he looks over at me, then drags himself into a sitting position. “What were the reasons?”

“Are we sharing vulnerabilities, Peter Pan?”

He fishes out a cigarette and lights it, then brings up his knees, arms draped over them. His exhale is a jet stream of smoke. He looks tired. Defeated. I don’t blame him. He just sacrificed his shadow for fae shits and his Darling pussy.

Not sure I’d make the same decision.

“Very well,” I tell him. “Tears shed. I will tell you of three times. First, I broke my arm when I was a boy. Fell out of a dragon’s claw willow. Broke it in two places. Hurt like hell. Second time, it was when I ate a girl I shouldn’t have.”