The Fae Princes: Chapter 15

“Hello, baby brother,” a voice says, pulling my attention away from Peter Pan and Tink.

“Christ,” Vane says. “What are you still doing here?”

“Plotting,” the man says with a devastatingly bright smile.

I think my mouth drops open when I take in the sight of the newcomer. He’s just a few inches taller than Vane, but he’s got the same build, and the same stunning features.

Except where Vane has one black eye and one violet, this man has unnaturally green eyes that when they land on me, produce a full-body shiver.

The Crocodile.

“Your Darling is cold,” Roc says. “Let me give her my jacket.”

“I don’t need a jacket.”

“She doesn’t need your jacket,” Vane says.

“Very well.” Roc puts a cigarette between his lips and lights the end. I glance around to see if this is allowed, but no one stops him. Maybe no one cares about smoking in the islands, considering half of them seem to be immortal.

“Looks like your Never King is having a bad night.” Roc points toward the bar with the smoking end of his cigarette.

Vane’s eyes tighten.

Pan is paler than normal as Tinker Bell speaks to him.

“Should we go get him?” I ask Vane.

Roc takes a hit from his cigarette and then blows out the smoke. “Tick, tock, baby brother.”

“Shut up, asshole.”

There is an unsettled feeling in my gut. The dread again. But now I’m not so sure if it’s mine or Pan’s.

I’m having a hard time telling the difference between Vane’s shrouded emotions and Pan’s wild ones. They come and go like shooting stars. There one minute, gone the next.

“Stay with her,” Vane says to his brother. “And protect her as if she were Lainey.”

“I’m not a babysitter.”

“Say it, Roc.”

“Fine.” Roc flicks the lit cigarette onto the stone floor and crushes it with his boot. “I swear it.”

“Stay with him,” Vane says to me, his tone urgent. “He’s an asshole, but he can protect you if something goes wrong.”

“What will go wrong?” I ask sarcastically, but he’s already slipping through the crowd.

I have an urge to follow him, but I know he’s the only one keeping us together right now and I don’t want to be one more person he has to manage.

“Dance with me.”

I turn back to Roc and find him holding out his hand.

“In this dress?” I pull up on the long skirt. “Not a chance.”

Roc ducks down, brandishes a knife, and slices through the long train.

“What the hell?” I say as the fabric tears away in one fluid motion. “You just ruined my dress.”

“Did I?” He straightens, tosses the extra fabric aside like it’s trash, and holds out his hand again. His expression is unreadable, but his gaze is searching. “Bit of advice, Darling. Do not go into enemy territory wearing a dress you can’t run or dance in.”

He smiles again, flashing that row of bright white teeth, incisors sharp like fangs. God, he is devastatingly handsome. No wonder Wendy fell for him. Apparently us Darlings have a thing for morally grey assholes with rock-hard abs and cunning good looks.

“I don’t really know how to dance.”

The band is playing a tune with an upbeat tempo, so the dancers, while embraced, are swirling around the room like we’re all in some regency romance.

“I know how to dance for the both of us. Let me show you.” He steps into me and hooks his arm around my waist and draws me into him. He smells like rich tobacco and something else, like crushed velvet and gilded sin.

He takes my hand in his. “Just follow my lead and I’ll do the rest.”

He swirls us into the throng of dancers and the room spins into a kaleidoscope of glowing light and color.

Now I’m smiling.

It feels good to move.

Roc spins us again. I give into his momentum, trying not to let my feet get tangled with his.

All of us dancers are moving in some kind of predetermined choreography. Couples swirl in. They spin out. The music grows, filling the room all around us. A bright, warm sense of joy fills my chest and I finally give in, letting Roc carry us, letting the music keep me buoyant.

There is something about a collective act, when dozens of people are connected in one moment of shared joy that feels otherworldly.

Tears spring to my eyes. Because it feels good and innocent and I forgot what it was just to enjoy something for what it is.

We’ve all been caught up in saving the island with hardly any room for joy.

The music stops and the crowd comes to a stop with it, clapping for the musicians.

Roc is shoulder to shoulder with me as he shows his appreciation, several rings on his fingers flashing beneath the light. “Was that so bad?” he shouts to me over the noisiness of the crowd.

“I suppose not.”

“Then let’s do another.”

“What, really?”

“Do you have somewhere better to be, Darling girl?”

The band picks a slower tune this time, and the dancers switch their movements. It’s clear everyone knows the choreography that goes with every piece of music, and apparently, so does Roc.

Within seconds, we’re moving with the assembled like a tine on a cog, spinning around the room.

With the slower pace, we have more of an opportunity to talk and I can’t let this chance pass me by. There are so many things I want to know about Vane and his life before Neverland.

“Tell me about your sister,” I say.

Roc falters and I step on his boot.

“Sorry.”

“Never surprise a Crocodile,” he warns, but there’s a grin on his face.

“I didn’t mean…”

He spins us through two couples. “It’s all right. She was a lot like you. Brave and bold and irritatingly curious. She wanted to study magic history at the University of the Dark. Probably she would have made it in. We were nepo babies, if I’m honest.”

“What?”

“Nepotism? The practice among those in power to give advantages and favor to their blood.”

“Oh. Right.”

That means Vane’s family was, what, noble? Aristocratic?

“Noble born,” Roc fills in, as if he can read the questions on my face.

He spins us and I melt into his movements.

“Our family founded a society known as the Bone Society. Keepers of Time. Creators of Time. It was necessary, considering what we are. But beyond the beasts, we were the elite.” He laughs and the sound rumbles deeply through his chest. “Vane and I grew up in manor houses and castles, every whim catered to.”

I can’t imagine Vane being one of those wealthy spoiled assholes I came to know so well in my world. The kind of men who believed everything belonged to them, and if it didn’t, they would take it.

“Our father was vicious and greedy. He tried to overthrow the monarchy, the Lorne family, the ones in power in Darkland back then.”

We waltz around the edge of the dance floor. The music fades from my ears as I focus only on Roc.

“Our father was discovered, of course. He had a surplus of ambition and a deficit in warfare, even the quiet kind. He was arrested. Much of our wealth stripped away. Vane and I, along with Lainey, moved to the Umbrage. An ashy, filthy, pit of despair. I loved it.”

He smiles down at me, his green eyes catching the glowing light of a pixie bug lantern and goosebumps pop on my arms.

“We might have been spoiled assholes, but we were cunning, we were hungry, and most of all, we were powerful. So the right men took us under their wings and in return, we devoured for them. We let our monsters out and we consumed until nothing was left.

“And then one day, we found ourselves in charge.” He laughs to himself and spins me through the crowd, back into the center of the room.

“We entertained a lot of the Darkland elite. They would frequent the Umbrage to engage with their darkest desires, and we would cater to them. So even though we had fallen from grace, somehow we found ourselves among our people.

“And everything probably would have been fine had I not accidentally devoured a Lorne princess.”

My mouth pops open in surprise. That’s not how I thought this story would go.

“The Lornes wanted revenge, of course, and who could blame them? Except they didn’t kill me. They raped our sister and then killed her in front of us.”

The music stops and we come to a halt. I’m jarred by the story and by the absence of the music and I sway on my feet as Roc steps back and claps again for the band, like he didn’t just tell me a story that would break any heart.

I am not clapping.

A tear runs down my face before I realize I’m crying. I know cruelty exists in the world. But it pisses me off that it does.

Roc reaches over and swipes away the tear with the pad of his thumb. “Don’t cry, little girl,” he says. “It was a long time ago.”

“Yes, but time means nothing to heartbreak.”

And my heart is breaking for Vane all over again.

I catch the sinking line of Roc’s Adam’s apple as he swallows. “I suppose you’re right.”

A new song begins and dancers fill the space around us.

“Looks like your men are tamed,” Roc says and nods in their direction over my shoulder. When I follow his line of sight, I spot Vane with Pan now, Tink long gone. They’re arguing, I can tell, and Pan is downing fairy wine like his sanity depends on it.

With the shadow, I can hear and see much farther than I ever could before, but there are so many people here, so many voices rising and falling and filling in every pocket of space in the room that I can’t zero in on what they’re talking about. I’m sure it has to do with Tink.

“You look like her.”

I turn back to Roc. “Who?”

“Wendy.”

His levity is gone, his expression unreadable. “She was softer than you in the face, but you have the same eyes, the same cunning mouth.”

It’s odd to imagine my ancestor connected to Vane’s brother. Time is meaningless here.

“Did you love her?” I ask.

“Bold question, Darling girl.”

“Did you?”

He sighs and looks away. “I loved how she made me feel.”

“And how is that?”

“Let me rephrase that.” He meets my gaze again. “I loved that for a moment, with her, I could pretend I could feel.”

There is sorrow on his face now, a wrinkle between his dark brows.

A dancer bumps into me from behind. I lurch forward. Roc catches me, then lunges around me, grabbing the man around the throat with a sure grip. “Watch where you step.”

The man turns blue, choking for air. “Sorry.” He can barely get the word out. Each syllable sounds like salt dragged over stone.

“Roc. It’s okay.”

He tosses the man back and the man staggers, caught by his friend, a fairy.

“Move along,” Roc says and the friends dart away.

Roc lights another cigarette.

I search the room for Pan and Vane again, desperate to keep my eye on them now.

Pan is still slinging back glasses of wine. Vane is scowling at him.

The dread intensifies until it sours in my stomach.

Suddenly Pan and Vane both turn to me and they catch my gaze. Then Pan spots Roc beside me and his expression turns stony. He lurches away from the bar. Vane is yelling at him.

“Time for me to go, little girl,” Roc whispers in my ear. He brings with him the scent of smoke and burning tobacco. “I enjoyed our dance and I hope it won’t be our last.”

I turn, unsure of how to respond, but having the overwhelming feeling I should say something. But Roc is already gone.