Their Vicious Darling (Vicious Lost Boys #3)(49)

The man wearing the royal military uniform reaches us just as the fae soldiers circle us.

Vane sways on his feet.

Where is Peter Pan? Or the twins?

“Vane,” the man says. “It’s been a while.”

“Holt,” Vane says as he levels his shoulders. “I would prefer it had been longer.”

Holt takes a step closer and Vane backpedals, shielding me.

“She killed my sisters.” The man eyes me over Vane’s shoulder, his jaw flexing as he grits his teeth.

“They probably deserved it,” Vane answers.

“Giselle, maybe. But Amara wasn’t so bad. She didn’t deserve what she got.”

It kills me that this man is mourning the loss of his siblings, sharing their names with their killer—me—and I can barely recall what they looked like.

“I didn’t mean to,” I tell him.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

I catch movement behind me and spot two of the military men getting closer.

“What do you want, Holt?” Vane asks, his voice reedy.

“Besides justice for my family…I think you know.”

Vane nods. “The Darkland shadow.”

“It belongs on Darkland soil.”

“I’m not arguing that.”

“So?” Holt grabs a rock hanging from a chain around his neck and gives it a yank. The chain snaps. “Let’s not make this any harder than it needs to be.”

The fae soldier grabs my right arm and the guard the other.

“Hey!”

“Let her go,” Vane says. “I’ll give you the shadow if you let her go.”

“You’re in no shape for negotiations.” Holt wags a finger at the men who have me in hand and they drag me around to face him. Vane tries grabbing for me but stumbles and has to catch himself on an outcropping as his breathing grows more labored.

“On my island,” Holt says as he peers down at me, “a girl such as yourself, who committed a crime against the royal family, would first spend a year in the bowels of Pyke Prison and then when you could barely remember what it felt like to have sunlight on your skin, you’d be dragged into the city square, stripped naked, your body used for all to see.”

Behind me, Vane growls and gravel crunches beneath his boots as he comes toward us. But he’s caught by several of the royal guard.

Holt goes on. “Afterward, when you could take no more,” he reaches out and drags the back of his knuckles down my cheek, “your guts would be cut from your stomach and wrapped around your throat like a noose. And you’d hang there until eventually you died a very painful death.”

Nausea wells up my throat.

I thought Peter Pan and Vane and the twins were bad.

Nothing compares to this man.

I think I understand a little more why Vane did what he did and why he left his island.

I want this man to suffer even more than his sisters did at my hand.

I need you, I think to the shadow.

Please for the love of god, I need you.

“But we’re not on my island, of course,” Holt says, his lips spreading into a sinister grin. “I’m sure I can get creative nonetheless. But first…” He looks over at Vane. “First I will claim what’s mine. Get him up.”

The guards pull me back, one of them placing the curved tine of a blade at my throat. On my own, I’m no match for them. I feel like a bug caught in a spiderweb with no hope of getting out.

What the hell should I do?

Holt steps forward, the rock necklace still clutched in his hand.

He lifts it out before him and several tendrils of black mist trail away from Vane and toward the rock.

Vane grits his teeth together, sweat beading along his forehead.

How do I stop this?

How do I beat them?

If you were going to help us, now would be the time! I say to the shadow.

But it’s like it’s gone dormant.

Hello!

Holt takes another step and more of Vane’s dark shadow leaks out.

Don’t ignore me now!

My own shadow stirs and excitement surges up my throat.

Do something, I tell it.

Not my battle, it says.

You must be fucking joking.

Not my battle. Not my shadow. Better if it leaves.

I don’t care about the shadow. I need to save the man.

Vane’s knees buckle and he hangs between the two royal guards as more blood trickles out of his open wound.

Please, I beg.

But it’s too late.

Holt jams the rock into Vane’s chest and there is an explosion of dark, writhing shadow.

The ground trembles beneath us.

And when the darkness settles, Vane’s head is bent forward, his body limp in the soldiers’ grip.

And Holt’s rock pulses with the energy of the Darkland Death Shadow.





30





HOOK


I will admit that Peter Pan has never been my favorite foe.

He is no ordinary man. And an extraordinary man is extremely hard to fight.

Which is why we planned for the Crocodile to do his thing.

Except he’s taking a bloody long time to devour.

Peter Pan advances on us.

“Any minute now,” I say to the Crocodile out the corner of my mouth.