The Never King (Vicious Lost Boys #1)(34)

I understand Winnie’s fear of going mad. I worry about it every single fucking day.

If I go mad, it will be karma driving it.

I finish cleaning the fish in silence and the Darling watches me intently.

“Is that for dinner?”

“No,” I answer. “It’s payment.”

“For what?”

I finally look up at her. Her hair is shiny and soft after her shower. It makes me want to rub blood through it, dirty her up.

The rain is pouring outside the windows now and everything feels farther away.

“For my sister.”

Tonight Tilly will come to see the Darling now that the moon is full.

It’s been decades since I saw her last.

I miss her more than I thought I could. More than I thought I would.

It was always Bash and me protecting her and now who does she have in that vast palace on the other side of the island? Our court had always been conniving and duplicitous.

I hate the thought of my little sister being there alone without champions.

We were supposed to be her knights, princes of the fae.

Instead, we are erased.





23





WINNIE


I don’t know what to expect with Bash and Kas’s sister. Will she have wings like her brothers did?

And if they’re princes, then what is she?

I’m beginning to learn that nothing is as it seems here.

After the fish cleaning, I spend the rest of the day exploring the loft. There’s the living room, the hallway to the bedrooms, with mine at the end and the twins’ across the hall.

There’s a second hall off the living room that leads to the other side of the house.

Here I find another bathroom, another spare bedroom, and a library. There is a giant circular window that overlooks the ocean and rain patters softly against the glass.

And sitting in a leather chair beneath it, boots propped up on a coffee table, is Vane.

I’m already over the threshold before I spot him, so I come to a halt, turn away, then decide, no, I’m not going to run away. Didn’t he tell me not to run away?

There’s a book in his hands with a black cloth cover and a title stamped in gold. I’m too far away to make out what it says.

When I come in, for a split second, his good eye zeroes in on me then narrows, before turning back to the page.

He resumes reading, pretending I’m not there at all.

“What are you reading?” I ask.

“None of your business,” he answers easily.

I come closer so I can read the title. “Frankenstein. How fitting.”

He lays the open book on his chest. “Did you want something?”

I shrug and clasp my hands behind my back suddenly feeling like a kid that’s been let out in a zoo. I want to press my face against the glass and peer in at all the wild beasts.

“Why are you such a jerk?” I ask and drop into the chair across from him.

“It comes naturally.” He smiles tightly at me with white teeth and sharp incisors.

It’s hard to look directly at him without immediately gaping at the scar and the black eye. It’s like a monster is trying to claw its way out of his face.

“Is it because you possess the shadow of death?”

He goes still, eyes glinting in the gloomy light.

“And what does the little girl know of the shadow of death?”

I get the first creeping sense of dread and try to act casual as I consider his question. “Not much. Just that it makes you a raving lunatic.”

He snaps the book shut and sets it on the table. “And what does that make you, entering a room alone with me? A glutton for punishment?”

Fuck. Just the mere suggestion that he might do something to me, bend me over his knee, fuck me against the wall, has me clenching. I squeeze my thighs together trying to ward off the tingle spreading between my legs.

Of course he notices me squirming. His tongue pokes at the inside of his cheek.

I am out of my depth here.

“Maybe it does,” I admit because I suspect I can’t keep anything from Vane. If only I could read him as easily as he can read me.

“You should get up out of that chair and walk right back out that door.”

“Why?”

He inhales, slow and deep.

Last night when he spit in my mouth, I wanted to tear him apart. Out of all the idiots I’ve slept with, none have ever treated me like a slut even though I sorta was. I’m not ashamed of my life choices. For the last decade, I was expecting my life to end on my 18th birthday. Maybe not literally, but figuratively. A slow descent into madness.

So I took what I wanted, how I wanted it, because none of it felt like it mattered anyway.

Even though my 18th birthday has come and gone, and now that I’m in Neverland and the myth of Peter Pan has proven itself to be real, I still can’t shake the feeling like I’m running on borrowed time.

And if I am, I want to continue to take.

I want to do whatever the fuck I want even if it kills me.

So I get up out of that chair, but instead of walking out the door, I cross the distance between me and Vane and climb on his lap.

He growls, but his hips shift, lining himself up at my center. I don’t know if it’s on purpose or base instinct.