Their Vicious Darling (Vicious Lost Boys #3)(50)

“It doesn’t work like that, Captain. And I’m missing my watch. I don’t know how much time is left.”

I gape at him.

Pan gets closer, but he’s taking his fucking time, probably enjoying stalking us like prey.

“Well what do you suppose we do until then?” I bark.

“We could dance, Captain.” The Crocodile flashes his teeth at me.

“The bloody hell do you mean?”

Roc pulls a dagger and darts into Pan’s guard.

Pan spins, but when he comes back around, Roc lands a solid fist in his gut.

Peter Pan staggers back.

I pull out my sword with my right hand and hold out my hook on my other as several of my men create a circle around us on the beach.

Down on the other end, the sand is writhing like there are beasts living beneath and the twins are having a hard time staying on their feet.

They’re fighting their own battle with their sister and several of her fae guard.

One of my pirates jabs at Pan and Pan catches the blade with his bare hand. Within seconds, the blade is flying off into the moonlight, transformed into a hundred moths.

Peter Pan with his shadow is an even worse foe.

Two of my men charge him. One shoots with his pistol but the bullet hits Pan and plinks to the sand, leaving no wound. The other man swings with his sword, misses, and then Pan grabs him by the throat and squeezes.

The pirate turns bright red as he fights for air, his feet leaving the sand and pedaling uselessly at the air.

Beside me, the Crocodile doubles over.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him.

His spine juts out from his back as he hunches forward. I grab him by the shoulder to pull him upright and immediately regret it.

His eyes are glowing yellow and his incisors have elongated to sharp points.

The sharp slant of his nose, the rise of his cheekbones, his entire face blurs along the edges like he is a man with no features.

I blink several times as if it’s my eyesight that’s the problem.

He’s more ghost than man, with no defined silhouette. Nothing but sharp, snapping teeth and bright, glowing eyes.

He snarls at me and I stumble away.

Then he darts at Peter Pan and when the two connect, Pan goes sailing backward, flying over the lagoon and landing in the center.

Water splashes up around him and then he’s gone, disappearing beneath the surface.

Now it’s just me and the Crocodile, the Devourer of Men.

He turns on me.

“We’re on the same side, remember?” I tell him, but even I know that’s shaky at best.

He stalks toward me.

“Bloody hell, will you get a grip?”

Then a fae soldier rams into me from behind and the Crocodile leaps over me, grabs the fae, opens his mouth wider than seems possible, and devours the fae in one gulp.

There one minute, gone the next, with no evidence of him ever having been.

I’m suddenly numb.

I stare at the aftermath with wide, unseeing eyes.

Have I lost my bloody mind?

The Crocodile turns his head toward the twilight sky and lets out a satisfying sigh.

Then he turns to the rest of the beach and all of the men and women left to devour.

And he gets to work.





31





KAS


I know what Tilly is doing.

I know illusion magic. How it feels. How it looks. But that doesn’t mean I can just as easily break out of it.

The sand is writhing beneath me and I can’t keep my balance on it, even though I know none of it is real.

Bash leaps forward and grabs a low hanging branch from an oak tree, then waggles his fingers at me, gesturing for me to follow.

I take the offering and we both leverage ourselves into the tree.

Our sister takes flight and rises before us.

“Well done, sister,” I say. “You’ve cornered us in a tree. Now what?”

“Stay out of this and walk away from it,” she says.

Bash and I look at one another. He snorts his derision. “How many times are you going to stage a coup, only to lose?”

“Does it look like we’re losing?”

“I don’t understand this.” I shimmy down the length of the branch to get closer to her. “Why go to all this trouble when you clearly don’t want the throne.”

She’s shocked by this insinuation, as if the thought had never crossed her mind.

“Of course I want the throne. I will do what needs to be done to protect it and to protect Neverland. I will never stop.”

Bash walks himself upright using one of the thicker branches in an elbow in the tree. “If you wanted the throne, your soldiers would not be so weak. You would be training them, day in and day out. You would be prepared for a takeover. Not saddling yourself with weaker men.”

The expression on her face softens. I’ve hit a sore spot, but even worse, one very close to the truth.

“Why do you continue to fight?” Bash asks.

“It’s what Father wanted. It’s what Mother would have wanted, too. She hated Peter Pan and he’s still running Neverland like some god.”

“Tinker Bell hated that Peter Pan didn’t want her,” I remind her. “There’s a difference.”

I notice my brother’s stance, the ease in his knees, the tension coiling in his back.