The Fae Princes: Chapter 21

I wake parched and with my bladder screaming. All of the boys are tangled around me, sleeping soundly, but somehow, I manage to slip from beneath them and from the bed without waking them. Following the stairs, the rope bridge, crossing the platforms, I make my way down to the floor and then down from the tower.

Yawning, eyes still a little sleepy, I shuffle to my bathroom. When I’m done, I pull on a pair of pants and fix my hair. I look like I got fucked by four men, that’s for sure.

“Now, water,” I mutter to myself and scrub some of the sleep from my eyes when I enter the kitchen. I come to an abrupt stop.

Tinker Bell is in the kitchen, the dark sky behind her framed by the balcony doors.

“Hello, Winnie,” she says.

The shadow writhes at my center and I know my eyes turn black.

“There’s no need for that,” Tink says. “I just wanted to talk.”

“I don’t believe that and I’m kinda insulted you’d think I would.”

She laughs, and it’s hard not to be lulled to a sense of safety, hearing the calming chime of it. She looks innocent, she sounds innocent, but she isn’t any of those things.

Even before she was resurrected from the bottom of a powerful, sometimes fickle lagoon, she was devious. She killed my ancestor, and that one decision propelled us all on this journey, right now to this very moment.

“What do you want?” I ask her.

“I want to return to a sense of normalcy.”

“You can’t have Peter Pan back.” God, I sound like a possessive bitch, but I’m not taking it back.

Tink walks around the kitchen island and I follow her movement, keeping the island between us.

“You know what I find a little sad,” she says.

I don’t want to take her bait, so I say nothing.

“Everyone thinks I want Peter Pan.” She lifts her hand and snaps her fingers, and fairy dust swirls around her hand. “It’s like a magic trick,” she goes on. “Do you know how easy it is to deceive an audience when they think they know the trick?”

I don’t like where this is going.

I’m at one end of the island now and she’s at the other, hand still raised and glowing with fairy dust in the murky light of the kitchen.

“I’ll let you in on a secret. A little behind-the-scenes, if you will.”

Her wings flutter, lifting her from the ground. The island between us means nothing now.

“I never wanted Peter Pan back. What I want is his shadow.”

“He’s never going to give it to you.”

“I know.”

The look in her eye says she’s thought this through already. I’d bet there are a dozen things she could do to Pan to get him to cooperate. Threatening me being one of them. And now I’m standing alone with her in the dark kitchen while the boys sleep.

If I scream, how quickly could they get down here?

And do I want to put them in danger too?

“If it’s power you want, why not just take my shadow? You have me alone. Vulnerable.”

“I wish it was that easy.” She nods to my shoulder where my shirt has slipped low. “Those runes on your back? The lagoon saw them when you went swimming with that tasty snack of a Dark One. I think the runes were carved into your back to protect you, correct?”

“Maybe.”

“Except they’re just a little off. A mortal error, no doubt. Instead, they’re a binding spell. That shadow you hold? It’s never coming out. The lagoon said as much. You would be the easy target, yes, if not for that.”

Is she lying?

the shadow says.

, it answers.

“Why? Why any of this?” I ask her, trying to keep her talking. “Is this just for power? Seems pointless when you think about it.”

She shrugs. “Lying dead at the bottom of a lagoon for so long, you start to see where you went wrong. You start to regret the choices you made and the choices you didn’t. I may have been queen of the fae when I was alive, but I was never in power. They never wanted to accept me, just a common house fairy. But my boys…” She looks away, her gaze going distant. “My boys will be accepted. The fae have grown weak. They need ruthless men to lead them.”

“You want the twins to have the shadow,” I say.

She nods. “You and the Dark One have split a shadow. It can be done again.”

“Kas and Bash won’t do your bidding either. Clearly you don’t know them very well.”

“Oh, silly, stupid girl. To rule anyone, you just have to give them incentive.”

“Winnie!”

The voice cuts through the quiet and I spin around, confused to be hearing it here. “Mom?”

“Winnie! Help!”

It’s coming from outside. What the fuck?

I yank on the door handle and burst outside. Down below, Mom is trapped in the grip of two fae. They have their arms linked through hers and they’re dragging her from the backyard into the woods.

“Mom!”

“Help, Winnie!”

I’m still not very good at flying, but I climb up on the balcony’s railing and leap off, hoping for a goddamn miracle.

I hit the ground then take to the air again. I fly off course, hit a tree branch, stumble on the ground, then hit the dirt and the snow. The cold bites into my body, soaking through my thin t-shirt.

“Mom!”

I run instead, because I know I can count on my legs to carry me.

I run and run. Mom struggles, leaving a long trail of flailing footsteps in the snow.

I gain on them.

The shadow is vibrating inside of me.

, it says.

But if Mom is here on the island, she needs my help. She must be scared. She must—

The ground gives away beneath me and I fall into darkness, landing with a heavy umph on what feels like rough wood.

I spin around just in time to see a Lost Boy slam a lid overtop of me.

Hammers bang nails into the wood. I bang on the top. “What the fuck are you doing? Stop! Let me out!”

“Bury her deep,” Tink’s voice says.

There’s a soft plodding overtop of me. Then another.

Earth being dropped from shovels.

“Stop!” I bang harder and reach for the shadow, until the darkness completely evaporates.

I’m on my feet by the lagoon and Peter Pan is there, and Vane and Bash and Kas.

What the hell is going on?

“Darling?” Pan says. “Are you all right?”

“I was just…” I turn a circle. The snow is gone and the sun is shining, but I’m still freezing cold.

Bash wraps me in his arms and some of his heat seeps into my bones. “You have a bad dream?”

“I guess? Your mom was there…”

He laughs. “That sounds like the start to a bad joke.”

“Everything’s going to be all right.” Kas comes up beside me. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”