Their Vicious Darling (Vicious Lost Boys #3)(42)

“No!” I scream and scramble to my feet. “Smee, no!”

Vane’s eyes are black, his hair white, but there is pain etched into his face as he wraps his hands around the blade, blood pouring from his palms and his chest.

“She’s someone’s sister,” Smee says and leans into the hilt, sinking the blade deeper.

In the dark, several etchings on the blade pulse with light.

“You knew better, Dark One,” Smee adds as he chokes on blood.

“Smee, please,” I grab for her arm. “Please don’t kill him.”

She looks over at me.

“Please.”

She yanks the blade out as the others appear at the top of the hill.

“Vane!” Winnie screams.

Smee ignores the blood dripping from her sword and rams it back into its sheath. “Go,” she tells me and shoves me down the road, keeping herself between me and the rest of them.

I start moving, but I can’t help but watch Vane over my shoulder as I stagger away.

The blood pouring out of him and the surprise on his face.

The Dark One thought he was invincible.

I think we all thought so too.

He drops to his knees, clutching at his chest and though he just tried to hunt me down like an animal, I can’t shake the fear that he might die and this is the way he will see me last—a terrified girl who betrayed him and then left him for dead.

I want to help him, but I think I’m the last person he wants at his side.

I can almost feel his repulsion.

“Go!” Smee yells again and shoves me.

This time, I run and don’t look back.





25





KAS


“Get him up!” Pan screams.

I hook one of Vane’s arms around my shoulder while Pan takes the other. Vane is practically dead weight and he can barely get his feet beneath him.

Blood is fucking everywhere.

“Vane!” Darling screams again and Bash hooks into her, yanking her back, trying to keep her from slowing us down.

The air smells of violence and regret.

We get him in the house and up the stairs to the loft and drop him on the sofa.

He’s listless and pale. His arm drops from his side as his eyes roll back in his head.

“Fix him,” Darling says. She has her tiny hands fisted in Bash’s shirt. “Fix him!”

“We’re trying, Darling,” my brother says. “Calm down.”

“Calm down? Calm down?!” She comes over to the sofa and hangs over the back. “Can’t he heal? Why is he so pale? Why isn’t he healing?”

Pan tears off Vane’s shirt to reveal a large, gaping wound just below his heart. “Rags,” he orders. “Wet ones. Now.”

I race to the kitchen, my hands on autopilot.

Why the fuck isn’t he healing?

Out of everyone on the island, I suppose Smee is the one who might know how to defeat the Dark One. But why the hell would she wait until now to do it?

We promised her we would bring Cherry back and we lied.

Oath breakers, the lot of us.

If Smee had been a few minutes later…

Or earlier for that matter.

Which begs the question why she was there at all.

When I come back out to the loft, Vane’s breathing is labored. Darling is sitting on the floor beside him, his hand in hers, her eyes glassy with unshed tears.

“Vane,” Pan says and smacks him. “Come on, wake up.”

I hand my brother one of the wet rags and we get to work cleaning the wound so we can see what we’re dealing with.

Nani taught us a lot about healing, but our medicinal work revolved around the fae. Salve was Nani’s favorite cure, but I’m not sure a bit of faerie goop will heal this wound.

Bash and I both look at one another when we see the state of things.

The wound is edged in black and there’s something dark leaking out of him, something other than blood.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was the Death Shadow. It’s airy like ocean spray but dark like shadow.

That can’t be good, Bash says.

I know.

“Hey,” Pan says and snaps his fingers at us. “You talk to me. You tell me what’s going on.”

“Honestly?” Bash sits back on his butt on the floor. “This is unprecedented, even for us.”

“You’ve got the shadow,” Darling says to Pan. “Can’t you heal him?”

“It doesn’t work like that.” He looks down at Vane sprawled on the couch. “Besides, I can feel his shadow pushing me away.”

Darling brings Vane’s hand to her mouth and presses a gentle kiss to his bloody knuckles as the tears finally spill over her lids. “Then what do we do?”

My twin meets my gaze behind Pan’s back. Can The Dark One die?

Anything can die. Even Peter Pan.

Pan and Darling aren’t going to let him go so easily, Bash says.

And neither are we.

Behind us, Balder trots into the room. He comes up behind Darling and curls into her, resting his chin on her shoulder. A soft whine sounds in the back of his throat and Darling cries harder.

“We’re going to fix him, Darling,” Pan says as he wipes away one of her tears. “You hear me?”