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The island knows the shadow has returned.
“Can fae…I mean…don’t you heal?” “Yes, but blood loss…” He clenches his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut. “Too much is too much,” he says when he looks at me again.
Kas smacks him. “Fucker. I thought you were fucking dead!” He blinks again and touches the skin around his throat. The towel and t-shirt lay in a bloody pile beside him. “I thought I was too. But come on, brother. Dying would be an awfully big adventure.” “I hate you. You royal prick.”
Is it fucked up if tragedy makes me want to disappear into pleasure? If blood and carnage make me want to touch so I can stop thinking and feeling? Maybe it does. Maybe we’re all a little fucked up and vile. Maybe that’s why I feel like I might actually belong here.
“If I stay in here much longer, Darling, I’ll be bending you over the edge of the tub and fucking you until your ribs are bruised.” I straighten my shoulders. “Maybe I want that.” “I don’t,” he says. “When I finally get my cock in that tight pussy, it will not be out of desperation. Clean up and get some rest.” He stops outside of the bathroom and looks at me over his shoulder. His dark hair is still wound up in a bun, but several strands have fallen out and hang stringy and bloody along his face. He is a sight. A bold, bloody, gorgeous sight. “Be a good girl,” he tells me, “and do as I say.”
“She’ll checkmate your ass before you even know you’re sitting at the board.”
“They’re not allowed to touch me,” I say, “but you never mentioned me touching them. Based on that rule, I can touch all I want and I plan to. If you get to touch, I get to touch.” From the balcony, Kas and Bash snort their laughter.
“I am a straightforward man,” he says. “I don’t like to play games. If you have something to say to me, Darling, say it to my face.”
“We are four very hungry men. Do you really think you’re capable of keeping up with our appetites?” I don’t even have to think about it. “Yes.”
“I fucking needed that more than you’ll ever know.” “Maybe I needed it more than you did.”
“I might be fooling myself,” he says, his eyes hooded, his voice hoarse. “Perhaps with you, Darling, there is only desperation.” And then he drives his dick into my mouth.
He is an unholy sight. And I will never stop sinning for him. I move to stand to go to him but he tsk-tsks at me and shakes his head. “Did I tell you to get off your knees?” he says. “You’ll crawl to me.”
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.
The thought of anyone else laying a hand on her makes me want to break bones.
I like them all for different reasons, in different ways. And yes, even Vane. Even the Dark One with his brutality.
“I think Peter Pan found his shadow,” I say. Smee arches a brow. “And I think it’s here on my side of the island.”
“You want to know how to get to the Dark One? Stop trying.”
“Come to bed with me, my little Darling whore, so I can shove my cock in your wet cunt and make you beg for mercy.”
I don’t think I will ever be quenched of my thirst for Peter Pan.
Everything with Pan is always a dance between what I want and what he’ll give me. And I love every fucking part of it.
“My filthy little Darling whore,” he says, his voice hoarse as he catches his breath. “Just the way I like her.”
The hope is the buoy and I’ve been treading water for too long, the sea dragging me out.
An excellent craftsman, apparently, but shit at plotting revenge.
We were born to the throne. She was born to be married off.
“Mother was a cold-hearted bitch who betrayed him. Say what you will about Pan—he may be cruel and he may be vicious, but you will never wake up with his knife in your back.”
He reminds me of being on the beach on a cool, rainy summer night. The smell of the sand, the salty air, the headiness of the darkness and the crashing of waves. The salty spray hitting your skin.
I realize one terrifying truth—I will pick her over Tilly and the fae court. I will pick Darling over my own wings because with her I am already flying. She is mine and I am hers.
“Word of advice, Darling,” Pan says, “never let the twins tie you up.”
Earnest desire flashes in her eyes. I think Darling has been craving family for a very long time and now she has the chance to meet a blood relative she thought was dead.
She huffs and drops back against the couch, half on Kas’s arm. Kas shifts to meet her and I am immediately envious of him.
I think she senses the things I’ve left unsaid. If I push Hook too far, he’ll come for my Darling girl. Over my dead fucking body.
I hate Peter Pan. It is a hate that thuds in my chest like a bad dream. Sometimes I get caught in a fantasy of what it would feel like to shove my hook into his gut. I detest the sight of my own blood, but Peter Pan’s I’ll gladly watch gush out of him.
Fucking Crocodile. It’s been years since I faced him but I can conjure an image of him as if he were burned to my retinas. He is cut from granite. Hair dark like nightmares. Eyes green like a mamba snake. Just as quick to bite too.
Vane pretends he is unaffected but I think he might feel this pain more than any of the others would.
“I don’t hate you,” he admits and levels me with his violet eye. “I dislike the way you make me feel.” “Which is how?” His gaze drops to my lips as my tongue darts out. “Reckless.” He drags me closer and our legs tangle and a thrill slips down my spine. “Dangerous,” he adds and frowns at the bruises still marring my throat.
I look over my shoulder and find him just a few feet behind me. He’s gone to the dark shadow now. Or maybe there is no separation between them, only determination.
“Darling, who did that to you?”
When we reach the house, Pan is in the foyer. “There you are. Where the fuck have you two been?” “Fucking,” I say proudly. Vane groans.
It’s hard to believe that this is my new reality. That I have four insanely hot men all to myself. That they not only want to fuck me, but also seem to like me for exactly who I am. And who I’m not.
“Got it,” Kas says and holds up the reassembled wooden puzzle, looking pleased with himself. “Well done, brother,” Bash says as he hooks his arm around my thigh. “You solved a children’s toy.” “Oh, shut the fuck up,” Kas says.
She wants Vane and she won’t have him now. Not since he’s found a way to our Darling. Darling is stuck with him. When Vane decides he’ll have something, nothing will stop him from keeping it.
Tick-tock. Hook flinches. Tick-tock-tick-tock. Terror ebbs into his face. “No,” he says on a choked breath. “He’s here.” Tick-tock-tick… He stumbles away and clutches his hook to his chest. “No, no, no.”
God, I must be corrupt because hearing his praise after a murder makes me glow.
