I hurry to Darling’s side and brace her against my shoulder and nudge her calf. “Lift up,” I order her and she does as commanded.
There’s a nasty cut on the arch of her foot.
“Kas,” I say.
“I’m on it.” He disappears down the hall.
Bash opens one of the cupboards behind the bar and comes back with a towel and hands it to me.
“Hold on to me, Darling,” I tell her, and she winds her arm around my neck as I lift her easily. I carry her to the couch and set her down in the corner so I can position her bleeding foot on my lap. Wet crimson is already seeping into my pants.
Kas returns with a first aid kit, and a needle and thread.
“It’s not that bad!” Darling protests and tries to yank her foot back.
I hold her fast. “Do not fight me,” I tell her. “It’s a gaping wound. It’ll heal faster if we suture it.”
She falls back against the cushion. “Blades I can take. Needles…not so much.”
I look over at her and find the edge of terror in her pretty green eyes. She is stronger than we want to believe, I think, but we all must dread something.
Not that long ago, the thing I feared most was losing the island.
With Darling’s scent still on me and her blood soaking my clothing, that fear is changing shape right before my fucking eyes.
Seeing her bleeding, seeing the bruises starting to bloom around her throat from where Vane had her against the wall…
My gut twists and I don’t want to let her go.
I don’t want her to disappear like my shadow and slip off into the night and leave me alone, a hollowed man left with nothing but writhing darkness and a festering wound where my heart once was.
I am cold inside. I want to be warm.
I snap my fingers at the bottle of bourbon on the table and Kas fetches it for me so I can soak the rag. When I put it to Darling’s foot, she hisses in return and flails in my grip.
“Hold still.”
“It hurts.”
“You were going to let Vane do with you what he pleased and you’re complaining about a little bit of alcohol?”
She groans, knowing I’m right.
“We need to address the problem that is the Dark One,” Bash says as he runs the needle through the flame from a lighter.
“One problem at a time.”
Our new mantra, it would seem.
Once the blood is cleaned up, I can get a better look at the cut. It’s about three inches long and still seeping. In Darling’s world, they have anesthesia for this sort of thing. Here we have fae princes.
“Give her something for the pain,” I tell them as Bash hands over the threaded needle.
“Lie back, Darling,” Kas orders.
She gives us all a skeptical look.
“You’ll let us fuck you into oblivion but not care for you when you’re injured?” I say. I don’t like that she looks like a wounded forest creature, trembling and clammy. “Please, Darling,” I add. “Let me take care of you.”
Wetness springs to her eyes and I think she’s never had a gentle hand in her life. I can be brutal and fuck her and treat her like my whore, but I will care for her when she’s wounded and she will submit to it, and I will prove to her that she can have both from me.
I will not betray her when she needs me the most.
Finally, she repositions and settles back against the cushions. I give Kas a nod.
Within seconds, Darling sighs out in relief. I don’t have to see it to know that he’s given her an illusion. Fae magic can be just as much about feeling as it is about sight.
“Good?” I ask Kas.
He nods. “She should be good for a while.”
I set the needle to her flesh and start closing the wound. She barely notices.
“He nearly killed you,” Bash says as he sits on the edge of the low table in front of me and watches me work.
“Yes, but he didn’t.”
“Only because Darling distracted him.”
I have the wound half closed and growing smaller by the second. When you’re constantly under threat from pirates, you quickly become an expert at tending to wounds. “He just needs to find a balance,” I say, but even I know that’s bullshit. Vane has been on Neverland for years. He’s had the Death Shadow even longer. If he was going to find a balance, he would have by now.
“If you get your shadow back,” Kas starts, “you think you can control him?”
“Hard to say.”
Doubtful. Maybe.
Maybe I am a fool to even entertain the idea.
Once the wound is closed, I knot off the string and hand the needle to Kas. Bash is waiting with gauze and tape and the tin of fairy salve he makes regularly. With the lid already open, I scoop a finger in. The salve smells like Neverland earth.
I gently rub it into the wound before wrapping the gauze around it and taping it off.
“Keep the illusion going for a while,” I tell them. “Let her rest.”
Wherever she is, she’s far gone from us and the loft.
Which is just as well.
My cock thickens as my mind conjures images of the twins fucking her mouth.
God, I love watching her get used.
But only by those I trust most. I wouldn’t let those other fuckers get close enough to breathe the same air as her.
Vane was right about one thing—she knew how to play me.
The thought of anyone else laying a hand on her makes me want to break bones.
I look over at her splayed out on the couch, her legs still draped over my lap. Her skin is warm and soft beneath my hands. I wish I could curl into her side. I wish I could hold her to me.
The urge for both is foreign and ill-fitting.
I’m not usually territorial. I don’t usually care enough to bother. But every inch of her pale skin is territory I want to conquer and make mine.
I need to get the fuck out of here before I fuck her again, before I use her more than I should.
Gently, I slide out from beneath her legs and then pull one of the throw blankets from the back of the couch and drape it over her tiny body. She curls into the warmth and moans when I push aside an errant lock of hair.
My gut clenches again but for a very different reason.
“I’ll be back,” I tell the twins. “Watch over her. Please.”
“Of course,” Kas says.
“She’s as much ours as she is yours,” Bash answers. “You don’t have to tell us to watch over her.”
The fae princes are pushing more than they used to.
One problem at a time.
I give them a quick nod before I go off in search of the Dark One.
I find Vane walking along the shore of the lagoon toward Marooner’s Rock.
The spirits of the turquoise water crest the surface, hands and faces and flapping tails. They’re trying to get closer to him. His shadow may not be from Neverland, but magic likes magic, regardless of its origins.
“Don’t start with me,” he calls even though I’m behind him and have not made a sound.
“I haven’t said anything.”
“I can hear you thinking.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Then I can feel you thinking.”
Smoke curls over his shoulder as he takes a hit from a cigarette.
I pick up the pace so I can catch up to him. The sand of the lagoon squeaks beneath my bare feet. I’ve always felt better touching the earth of Neverland. It knows me and I know it.
Magic likes magic.
If only I had all of mine.
None of this has gone the way it was supposed to.
“It’s getting worse,” Vane admits as I fall into step beside him.
“So what is the solution?” I ask because it’s always better to focus on the action than it is the emotion.
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head, takes another pull from the cigarette, then blows out the smoke. “It was a means to an end, me claiming the shadow. I never had a plan beyond my revenge.” He glances over at me with his good eye. “It wants to return to its land. I can feel it.”
I don’t like where this conversation is going. “So will you give it what it wants?”
“I don’t want to go back to that place.”
I’m relieved.
Tinkerbell was once my best friend. Murdering her left a void. Vane filled it, but there was always a glare of impermanence to it. I’ve always known he’ll likely need to leave. A shadow belongs to a land, not the man who possesses it.
I just hoped that when he left, it would be later. Much, much later.
“You could give it back,” I tell him. “Give it to someone from your island.”
He glances at me again. “I won’t claim the Neverland Death Shadow, if that’s what you’re hinting at.”
I scoff. “Don’t speak in such absolutes.”
“You fucker. I knew that’s what you were thinking.”
“Vane—”
“No. If I get rid of this shadow, I will have unburdened myself of a disease that destroys and consumes.” He points at his black eye. “Right now I can feel it swimming under the surface like the spirits of the lagoon. But unlike them, mine wants to watch pretty little girls cry while it buries its cock in their wet cunts.”
He shudders at his words.
He’s not just talking about any girl.
When the cigarette is spent, he flicks it into the lagoon and the embers fizzle out. The magic makes it disappear entirely. Gone like it never was.
“Fine, then,” I say. “Get rid of the shadow and be as you were. You must have power beyond it, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to claim it.”
He frowns at me. This is a subject we’ve never broached, but one I’ve always wondered about. An ordinary man cannot claim a shadow.
He shakes his head, setting his boundaries. I didn’t think it would be that easy to pry out his secrets, but it was certainly worth a shot.
“How long do you think you have?” I ask instead.
“Long enough to get through this shit show, I suppose.”
“All right. Then I need a few favors.”
He eyes me warily. “Why do I get the distinct sense I will hate these favors?”
I ignore him. “The first favor is I need you to go to Hook and ask for his permission to enter his land.”
“And what will I tell him is the reason?”
“Tell him I seem to have misplaced a Lost Boy. That’ll buy us some time.”
“And the second?”
I hesitate because I know he will not like this one and I’m not entirely sure I like it. But what was it Vane said? It is a means to an end.
“How would you feel about calling your brother here?” I ask.
“The fuck for? You really want me to kick that hornet’s nest?”
“Oh, come on, Vane. You know your brother favors no one except for you.”
He snorts. “I haven’t spoken to him in years. Not since he helped us last.”
“Which is why I need him again. Think of him like an insurance policy. A plan B.”
“You don’t call in my brother as a Plan B. And besides, last time the price was right. What the fuck would you offer him now?”
I try to keep my face impassive, but Vane knows me better than most. He meets my eyes, narrows his gaze. “Oh, I see, you asshole. You have a secret. Out with it.”
I have been sitting on something for a very long time. It wasn’t something that had any use to me, but now I think it might have doubled in value if it gets me what I want.
“Wendy Darling never went home.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
I say nothing. He takes several steps back to me. “Where did she go?”
“I meant to take her back. The journey didn’t go as planned. And somewhere along the way I took a wrong turn.”
Vane cocks his head. “And?”
“And, we ended up in Everland.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“And you left her?”
“More like she was liberated from my possession.”
“Fucking hell.” He turns a circle and scrubs at his face. “Why would you do that?”
“She was of no use to me.”
“Pan!”
“Don’t try to wring guilt from me. You will be left wanting. The fact remains—I know where she is and I suspect once your brother finds out she’s in the realms and not bones in mortal soil, he’ll want to know where, too.”
“He’ll fucking kill you. You know that, right?”
I snort and light my own cigarette, letting the smoke burn in my lungs before I exhale it. “I’m not worried about your brother.”
“Always a cocky motherfucker, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” I smile at him.
He shakes his head and starts walking again. “And what is the reason I’d tell my brother to return to Neverland?”
“Tell him we need help with Captain Hook.”
“Dangling two carrots in front of him, are we?”
“A king should always have carrots well stocked.”
“I think it’s a bad idea.”
“Most good ideas start as bad ones.”
He keeps walking. “I caution you against this one. Wait. Sit on it. I’m sure I can find him quickly if the need arises.”
“Vane—”
“Wait,” he says again and comes to a stop. “I beg of you.”
There are very few people who I won’t push to get what I want. Vane is one of them.
“Fine.”
Satisfied with this, Vane trudges off again and we soon reach the base of Marooner’s Rock. Vane looks up at the cliff highlighted in the glow of the moonlight. When I chased after him, I knew where he was going. When he’s on edge, he loves two things to help him settle—flying and swimming in the lagoon.
He’s deep in thought now, but I can tell he wants to say something. I’m not a patient man, but I let him have his minute.
“You wanted to break her,” I guess. “But you didn’t.”
He sighs. “I will, though. If she lets me.”
“No, you won’t. But you will give in to her.”
He scowls at me. “Is that an order?”
“It’s a prediction.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. You’ll give in to her because there is no other choice and because you want to.”
He shakes his head and starts up the flat side of Marooner’s Rock. “She annoys me and I hate her.”
I follow after him. “Wanting her annoys you. And hate is just an inch away from like. The line is incredibly thin.”
He trudges up as the hill grows steeper. “I don’t know what the fuck she wants from me.”
“Then ask her.”
“Like you’ve ever asked her what she wants.”
“I am a king. I don’t ask, I tell. And that is what she needs from me, so that is what I give her. What she needs from you will be different and you need to figure that out before you take something she can’t give.”
He says nothing, which tells me he’s accepted that I’m right. Because, of course, I’m right. I always am.
“And the twins?” he says over his shoulder. “What does she get from them?
“Fuck if I know what she gets from those fuckers.”
He stops halfway up as the wind cuts in and dishevels his hair. “I know what it is.”
“Then tell me.”
“The twins take care of her in a way no one ever has.”
I nod and look out over the lagoon down below. From this vantage point, the water is like a bright jewel inset in the dark, twining forest. I thought by now I would have my shadow so I could once again feel the spirits in the lagoon and the wolves in the woods and the energy in the air and the ground pulsing with life.
There is still a void and I feel empty.
A seed of doubt takes root, but I quickly banish it.
“That’s another problem we need to deal with,” Vane says. “The twins.”
“I know.”
“They’re meant to be kings.”
“Yes, I know that too.”
“And right now there are two shadows loose on the island.”
Do I trust the fae princes? They’ve always listened to me, even before they were banished. I was an ally of the fae court once upon a time. We were a united front against the pirates who arrived on our shores looking to steal what we had already earned.
But then Tink turned on me and the fae king followed her lead. Tilly has always pretended to be an ally and sometimes I even believed her. Clearly, I’d been a fool.
The princes hunger for home and they are desperate for their wings.
Desperate enough to turn on me?
I don’t think they are disloyal, but I’ve been tricked before. Tricked by their own mother, who I loved like a sister, whom I gave everything I had to give. Which, it turns out, was not enough.
One problem at a time.
If only I had fewer problems.
