The Never King (Vicious Lost Boys #1)(14)

The way Kas’s gaze lingered on me…

If any of them are a weak link, it’s him.

Can he take me home? Does he know how to leave the island? I’m sure I can get him on my side.

In the darkness of my room, an idea takes hold.

I sit up, clear my throat and call out for Kas. And within minutes, his footsteps sound outside my bedroom door and my heart leaps into my throat.

I’m going to fuck a Lost Boy.





9





KAS


If the Darling calls for me, I come.

Bash and I have been tasked as her keepers, as we always are.

For decades, we’ve looked after the Darlings.

Look, but don’t touch.

I find her sitting up in bed crying.

Immediately I want to make her feel better.

Pan always says I am the bleeding heart out of the four of us.

“What is it?” I sit on the edge of the bed beside her.

“I’m scared,” she says and collapses against me, her hand curled in my shirt. She sobs and I give in.

How can I not?

I pull her closer. Her body shakes.

I can just hear Bash in the back of my head—this is a very bad idea.

But I know what the fuck I’m doing.

I don’t lose control like Vane and I sure as hell don’t indiscriminately fuck around like Bash. I can handle a weeping Darling without trying to fuck her.

“Winnie,” I say, “it’ll be all right.”

“He’s going to break me.”

“No, he won’t.”

“Yes, he will. Just like he broke my mom.”

Her tears wet my shirt. I can hear the rapid beat of her heart, can sense the pulsing rush of her blood in her veins.

Bash and I are not the same as Pan and Vane, but we are monsters, nonetheless.

She puts her hand on my thigh and sinks closer.

My cock takes notice.

“Darling,” I say, my voice going husky and dark. “I should go.”

“No. Wait.” She tries to wrap her hand around my bicep, but she’s too small. “I don’t want to be alone.”

My chest tightens.

“Please stay.” Her voice is a whimper.

“For a minute,” I tell her.

“Thank you.”

We’re quiet for a beat and the quiet needles at the back of my neck. “Do you want to see something?” I ask her.

She’s suddenly on guard. “Like what?”

“Lie back.”

The chain rattles as she does. The bed squeaks.

The Darling is too trusting. And I am straddling the line.

I lie down beside her.

Moonlight pours into the window behind us and stretches along the walls.

My magic always stirs on a full moon. Just like the tides, it grows in the light.

I don’t even have to think about it as the illusion breaks open across the ceiling.

Beside me, the Darling gasps and I can’t help but smile.

“What is that?” she asks.

The night sky appears above us in shimmering shades of black and blue and violet and stars twinkle in the darkness.

Some Darlings like the magic. Some don’t.

Some think it’s just a trick of the eye.

But it’s all real.

Neverland is full of magic.

Or at least it was, once.

Now it’s dying.

Which is the whole reason the Darling is here.

Save the king, save the island.

It’s a ridiculous notion, all of these centuries later. Sometimes I forget that Pan is a king, that there’s anything left to rule.

It will never go back to what it was before he lost his shadow.

I don’t even know what we’re fighting to get back anymore.

The magic, I suppose.

The land.

But for Pan, sometimes I think it’s the power. He doesn’t give a fuck about the hibiscus or the lilies or the cloudberry bushes.

A king cannot become something else. He will always be a king. Without the throne, he is nothing.

The Darling turns to look at me. The starlight above us brightens and I can’t even hide that the illusion is tied to me.

The others hate when a Darling comes to Neverland. I’ve always enjoyed it.

It breaks up the monotony.

“What are you?” she asks.

I laugh, low and beneath my breath. “I am many things, Darling.”

“But this” —she lifts her hand, gestures to the ceiling— “what is that? How can you do that?”

Bash and I don’t talk about where we came from. Because we can never go home.

“In your world,” I tell her, “I believe you might have called us fairies.”

She laughs and the glimmering starlight plays across the line of her brow. “But I don’t believe in— I clamp my hand over her mouth and her startled breath rushes out around my fingers.

“Don’t say it.”

She frowns.

“Promise me you won’t.”

She gives me a quick nod, so I pull my hand away.

“Why not?” she asks. “You can’t say you don’t believe in—”

“Darling.” Her name is a growl and my heart is racing in my ears. “If you say it, I’m dead.”