The Never King (Vicious Lost Boys #1)(30)

My cock twitches just thinking about Winnie and her pretty little mouth wrapped around me.

Fuck if she isn’t better than anyone I’ve had. Maybe it’s because she was forbidden until tonight. Maybe it’s something else entirely.

“We should have been watching her tonight.”

“If we had, dear brother, Pan wouldn’t have lost his shit, and if he didn’t lose his shit, he wouldn’t have fucked her trying to teach her a lesson, and if he didn’t fuck her—”

“Fine. Christ. I get it.”

A new knot appears in his hands. “I want to tie her up and do naughty things to her.”

Bash is better with ropes than I am, but I enjoy a girl in knots just as much as he does.

“Not tonight,” I tell him.

“No, I suppose she’s had enough for tonight.”

The shower shuts off. I can hear Winnie toweling off, can smell the heady scent of lavender in the soap Cherry bought for her.

We used her tonight. We are no strangers to using pussy for our own pleasure.

But this is different.

Winnie is different and I don’t know why.

With a snap of my fingers, fae magic fills the air and the hardwood floor is suddenly covered with plush forest moss and bioluminescent flowers. The light is fake but it still fills the room with a hazy pink glow.

Bash sits up. “You’re spoiling her now.”

“I want her to think we can be soft.”

“Why? She’ll only be disappointed when she realizes we aren’t.”





19





PETER PAN


There is a writhing energy in my body that I cannot contain.

Everything is at stake and the Darling wants to play fucking games.

I catch up to Vane out in front of the house. “I’m going to murder something. Care to join me?”

“Obviously.”

We head toward town by foot. Vane can fly, I cannot.

It’s been so fucking long, I can’t even remember what it felt like to take to the air.

Like the sun on my skin.

I am as cold as ice and tethered to the earth and I fucking hate all of it.

I’m so fucking angry all of the time.

“Where are we going?” Vane asks.

“Let’s go kill some pirates.”

“Twist my arm.”

We follow the road from the house as it winds through the forest, then crosses Mysterious River, then finally spills into Darlington Port.

Darlington is my city, founded on my blood and magic.

It sits on the southeast edge of the island on the coast.

“Where to?” Vane asks.

“Pirates are always hanging around the Black Dove.”

We pass the harbors where ships come in and out from the other islands. There are a few bars along the docks, but pirates like the inland bar, closer to the borderline of my territory so they can duck out quickly if they have to.

This part of town is low on streetlamps so the darkness is longer, the shadows thicker. Mist hangs in the air, the cooler ocean air hitting the heat of the inner city.

Vane lights a cigarette and takes a long drag. “Fucking Darlings now, are we?”

I knew this was coming. I snap my fingers at him and he hands me the cigarette. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“No. Of course not. Just break all the rules then, I guess, huh?”

I look over at him. I can only see his black eye and the jagged scar that stretches across it. He never told me how he got the wound and I never asked, but the fact that his shadow has hold of that eye tells me all I need to know.

I take another hit and hand the cigarette back.

“I don’t know, Vane. If I’m to die soon, why not give in to it all? Huh?”

“You’re not going to die.”

A group of drunks passes us on the cobblestones and jeers at us until they catch sight of Vane first.

“Apologies, Dark One.” They bow, backtracking. “Apologies to our king,” they add when they spot me next.

Dark One. Such a ridiculous name. I don’t know who started it but it’s impossible to undo.

I’ve found that on every island in the chain, the one that’s claimed the Death Shadow is always called the Dark One.

And on almost all of the islands, it’s the one with the Life Shadow that has the title of king.

But all these years later, it feels foreign, that word. Like a language I can no longer speak.

I never quite fit the embodiment of it, anyway. I am more death than life.

Perhaps that’s why I lost it in the first place, because it was never really mine.

And if it’s no longer mine, then what the fuck am I doing?

What happens to the island if I can’t reclaim my shadow?

I suppose the fae could sustain it if given the chance. Even more so if Tilly took her brothers back into the fold.

The fae palace is weak without its princes, but she’s too stubborn to admit that.

As the road curves toward the fae territory, Black Dove comes into view. The windows are glowing and revelry spills out into the night.

Vane and I stand in the darkness to scan the bar’s interior.

“Two of Hook’s men in the back,” Vane says and inhales the rest of the cigarette before crushing the ember beneath his boot on the cobblestone.