I can sense the wolf’s destination immediately.
At my side, Bash says, “Maybe we should—”
But I’m not listening and I’m sure as fuck not waiting.
I bend my knees and push off Neverland earth with all the urgency of a mortal jet plane.
I take to the air in less than a second and I’m breaking the sound barrier not long after that.
The trees rattle beneath the force of my flight.
There’s no time to revel in being midair again.
Panic has my heart thudding in my ears and the blood rushing through my veins.
The wolf is after the house.
I am after the wolf.
When I land outside the treehouse, I find the front door shredded, nothing but splinters, and bile races up my throat.
“Darling!”
I shove what remains of the front door in and it bangs against the wall.
Wet paw prints cross the foyer and disappear up the stairs.
“Darling!”
Some of the Lost Boys shuffle from their rooms scrubbing at their eyes.
‘Pan, what is it?’ one of them asks.
“Darling!” I shout again and don’t bother with the stairs.
I hear a yelp from the loft, then a growl, and the parakeets take flight from the tree in a rolling wave.
When I land outside Darling’s bedroom, I smell the muskiness of the wolf’s pelt.
A female voice is quivering with fear from the inside.
I slam the door in and find Cherry cowering in the corner of the room and the wolf standing on the end of Darling’s bed snarling at me.
Darling is tucked on her side beneath the thin sheet, fast asleep.
I edge closer. The wolf lets out a warning growl.
I may not speak the same language—yet—but I know he can sense intention, especially mine. If it comes down to the wolf or Darling, I know what my choice will be.
He needs to know it too.
A warning is a warning.
“Out,” I tell him.
But he gives me one more snarl and then turns a circle on the bed and curls into Darling’s side, his eyes open and trained on me, daring me to come nearer.
What the fuck is going on?
“Cherry,” I say.
She lets out a strangled little cry. She’s shaking like a leaf.
“Cherry, are you all right?”
She gulps down a breath and then wipes at her nose. “I’m fine. I’m okay. I’m—” But her eyes are bloodshot, and it gives me reason to wonder if she’s been crying much longer than the last few minutes.
Everything is wrong.
Nothing feels right.
But I can’t be sure it isn’t the shadow realigning itself and muddying my intuition.
“Is Darling okay?” I ask next.
Cherry audibly swallows and uses the wall to bring herself upright. “She’s…I…”
Vane barrels into the room behind me and rushes to the bed, but the wolf issues another rumble from his chest and Vane comes to a stop.
“What the fuck is going on?” he asks. “Why is the wolf in Winnie’s bed?”
“I don’t know,” I answer. “You have as much information as I do.”
He gives me a look like I’m being an asshole. “Okay, then why is she sleeping in her bed? I specifically told her to go to your tomb. Cherry, why the fuck is she sleeping in her bed?”
Cherry’s eyes glaze over again and she shakes her head, lower lip trembling.
“Cherry!” Vane shouts.
“I don’t know!” she yells back and then closes her eyes, purging more tears.
“Hey,” I tell him. “Go have a drink.”
He scowls at me and his eyes go black again. “Something is wrong.”
His shadow’s voice vibrates in his throat and the wolf lifts his head in interest.
I grab Vane by the shoulder. He will no longer be a match for me so I have no fear of his retaliation. And what a fucking liberation.
“Go have a drink. Now.”
He gives me one more icy look, black eyes glinting, before shoving through the twins who are hovering by the door.
“Well this is unexpected.” Bash edges around me. The wolf rests his head on his massive front paws.
“Careful, brother,” Kas says.
“I know what I’m doing,” Bash argues.
“You say that now but must I remind you—”
“No you must not,” Bash says.
“—of the time you tried wrestling with a wolf and the wolf tried eating your stupid fucking face?”
“It’s okay, boy.” Bash takes another step. I’m having a hard time deciding who should get my attention—Winnie or the wolf.
How the hell is she still sleeping with all this commotion?
Bash gets a foot away from the bed and holds out his hand so the wolf can smell him. “See?” Bash says. “I’m one of the good ones.”
Kas snorts.
When the wolf seems satisfied with the prince, Bash pats the wolf’s head and then gives him a scratch behind the ear.
“Friends?” Bash brings his other hand around to scrub at the wolf’s ruff.
Cherry tries to use our distraction with the animal as a means to duck out of the room, but I snatch her by the wrist and wrench her back.
“Ahhhhhhh,” she breathes out as my grip tightens around her arm.
“Why is Winnie in her bed and not in my tomb?” I ask her.
She swallows. Licks her lips, flutters her eyelashes. She’s having a hard time catching her breath. “Maybe because she was tired.”
I narrow my eyes and feel a swell of something old and familiar.
It’s that same knowing feeling gnawing in the back of my head.
Cherry is lying.
But why would she lie about something like this?
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.
