Their Vicious Darling (Vicious Lost Boys #3)(7)

I look past the twins to Darling again, her chest rising and falling with even breaths.

Something is different about the energy in the room and I can’t tell if it’s the wolf, my shadow, or the twins gleeful excitement.

“Is Darling okay?” I ask again and then soften my voice. “Tell me, Cherry.”

Her shoulders rock with a shiver.

She and I look down at her arms at the same time and I notice she’s peppered in bruises and scrapes.

“Where did these come from?”

“A parakeet got trapped in my room.”

Another lie.

“Cherry—”

“Pan,” Bash says.

“What?” I snap.

When I turn to him, I find Darling curling an arm around the wolf’s neck. She nuzzles into him and breathes in deep. “I’m okay,” she answers, but her voice is faraway and sleepy.

Some of my panic ebbs out.

To Cherry, I say, “Stay in the house until I need you. Understood?”

“Of course,” she answers and when I drop her arm, she is gone in an instant.

The twins step back so I can go to the bedside. The wolf seems fine with me approaching now. “Are you awake, Darling?” I ask.

She looks the same. The same coarse, dark hair. The same swell of red lips, the same fan of dark lashes over pale skin.

She looks the same but she does not feel the same but the wolf is making it hard to figure out why.

His energy is everywhere, his wildness permeating the air.

“Darling?” I try again when she doesn’t answer.

“Hmmm?”

“You promise you’re all right?”

She breathes in the wolf’s smell and seems completely unaware that she’s snuggled into his side.

“I promise.”

I want to rouse her. I want to hold her. I want to tell her I got my shadow back and see the excitement play across her face.

But she is so content.

For now, that must be enough.

“Come find me when you wake,” I tell her.

“Okay.”

She settles back into sleep.

I look over at the wolf, his head turned toward me, blue eyes on me. “She’s mine. Do you understand me, wolf? Mine.”

He growls in this throat, but lets it fade out before settling his head again.

Beyond Darling’s room, the sky is turning pale blue with the rising sun.

“Stay by her side,” I tell the twins. “Call for me if anything changes and I will be here.”

The twins give me a nod before Bash settles into the wingback and Kas pulls himself up onto the windowsill.

Satisfied that Darling has a new protector, it would seem, and two fae princes to look over her, I leave her bedroom and head out into the wet morning air.





3





KAS


When my brother and I were young, our father captured a wolf cub and gave it to us as a solstice gift. We named the wolf Balder after one of our fae gods.

The wolf cub grew up to be a ferocious beast who would terrorize the court any chance he got. Eventually Father made us keep him kenneled in the stables. But Balder had slept with us every night from the moment he came home and so all alone in the stables, he would howl long into the night.

“Can someone shut up that dog?” Mother had said. “I told your father it was a horrible idea to bring that beast home.”

Mother hated anything she couldn’t boss around.

To keep Balder quiet, Bash and I would sleep with him in the stables, nestled amongst the dry sweet grass that lined the dirt floor.

Bash and I didn’t mind it so much. No one bothered us in the stables. No one watched us and judged us and told us what we were doing wrong or what we weren’t doing that we should be doing right.

And then one night, we woke up and found Balder gone and Mother standing over us. It was the middle of the night so all we could see was the golden glow of her wings and the dark silhouette of the rest of her.

“Enough of this playing in the dirt,” she’d said. “You are princes and you should act the part.”

“Where’s our wolf?” Bash had asked.

“He ran away,” Mother said and then started for the open stable doors. “I’ll expect you dressed and at the gathering hall by sunup.”

Except Bash and I ignored the order and scoured the woods calling Balder’s name.

We eventually found ourselves at the edge of the woods where the sandy beach of the lagoon took over.

Peter Pan was at the shore staring out at the swirl of light.

He had already lost his shadow by that point, but Mother had still given us the warnings about him.

In fact, being in his territory was already a bad idea, let alone crossing paths with him.

“You can come out,” he’d called, his back still to us. “I can hear you breathing.”

Bash and I shared a look. Did we dare?

We had always been fascinated by Peter Pan. He was older than anyone could remember. More myth and god than man. Even Father was afraid of him and Father feared no one.

Bash was the first to step from the cover of the trees. “We’re looking for our wolf,” he’d said. “Have you seen him?”

“How is your mother?” Pan had asked instead.