The Fae Princes (Vicious Lost Boys Book 4)

Vane is brooding. He’s in one of the leather club chairs, elbow propped on the arm, a cigarette captured between his middle and index finger, the end burning, smoke curling into the air in thin ribbons.

I have the same ability he does to sense everything he feels, but he’s better at shielding from me than I am him, and so I’m left to guess.

“You’re mad at Pan,” I say, trying to keep the question from my voice. I always want to sound sure around Vane.

He brings the cigarette to his mouth and takes a pull. He speaks as he exhales and smoke clouds out. “He’s being reckless.”

“He’s afraid,” I admit, and I’m a little shocked to find it’s true.

“Yes,” Vane says. He closes his eyes and sighs. “For as long as I’ve known Peter Pan, he’s been on a restless, endless pursuit to reclaim his shadow and now that he has, I don’t think he knows how to breathe. He’s still restless.”

“Do you blame him?” I cross the room to Vane, but hover by the coffee table, arms crossed over my chest. “Tinker Bell coming back to life, that’s pretty big shit.”

Vane snorts and smoke comes out his nose. “Such a filthy mouth, Darling.”

“I don’t like it when you call me that.”

He looks up, his violet eye bright, rising to the challenge in my voice. “Why?”

“Because calling me Win is something the rest of them don’t.”

“You want us to be special, do you, Darling?”

Clearly I’ve made a calculated mistake. Because now he knows he can use it against me, to put me in my place.

Throwing all caution to the wind, I close the space between us and climb on his lap, straddling him. He exhales, his hand automatically going to the curve of my ass, even though he’s scowling like I’m inconveniencing him.

“Like it or not, we share the shadow, so yes, we are special.”

As far as anyone can tell, we’re the first to share a shadow. We’re on unprecedented ground.

I take the cigarette from his hand and reach over, stubbing it out in the closest ashtray. He lets me do it without complaint, both hands on my ass now. He’s putting a little pressure on me, driving me forward on his groin.

When I straighten again, I rock just slightly, letting him feel the full heat of my pussy. “Winnie is my name.”

“Yes,” he says.

“Darling is my name too, but it’s also a term of endearment. When I got to Neverland, it wasn’t that. I know Pan used it to put distance between us. ‘The Darling,’ he would say. No different than ‘the rug’ or ‘the door’ or ‘the ketchup bottle.’”

Vane snorts again so I rock my hips and he groans, his cock thickening beneath me. His fingers exert more pressure on my ass, keeping me in place now.

“You were the only one to ever use my name like you meant it.” I keep my gaze on his face, watching for any shift in his expression. I can’t feel that open thread between us now, and I think it’s because he’s trying very hard to shut it.

“You were so cruel to me when I first got here. You were the one trying harder than the others to put as much distance between us as you possibly could. But you were also the one who closed that distance by calling me by my name in a way that was more intimate than ever before.”

His expression softens. “Is that what you think, Darling?”

“It’s what I know.”

Suddenly he’s up, but his grip on me is strong and he gets beneath my ass, holding me upright as I wind my legs around his waist. He carries me down the hallway and into the library. He kicks the door shut with the toe of his boot.

I’m tiny in his grip, but I’ve never felt so damn safe. And a flame of grief catches me off guard as my brain goes to flight mode. It says, You can’t have anything good. And even if you do, it won’t last. This will end. He will see through you. They all will and you’ll wake up one day and realize you’re alone again.

“I got you, Win,” Vane says, and I know he’s tapped into that grief, can feel the gnarled hands of it.

“You don’t have to save me.”

I don’t want him to think me weak. I don’t want him or Pan or the twins to know that sometimes I’m afraid they’re just sand in my hands and that eventually the grains will sift through my fingers, no matter how hard I grip them.

Vane sets me on the edge of the nearest table. It’s dark in the room with the sun absent, but several glass sconces flicker with flame.

“Haven’t we already gone over this?” He leans into me, his arm tight around my waist as he nestles his body between my legs. “I don’t want to save you.”

“Then why do you keep reassuring me like I’m some weak little kitten?”

In one fluid motion, he rips off my shirt, wraps his hand around my throat, and drives me down on the table. “Go on, kitten. Save yourself then.”

Hah. Joke’s on him. Like I want to get out of this. He knows it and I know it and with the vein of shadow energy running between us now, I know he doesn’t want me to, either.

I reach down and unbutton my shorts. Vane keeps his hand around my throat, watching me with interest.

I shimmy out of my shorts and toss them aside, then I slip my finger into my panties and pull them up, forcing them to go tight against my pussy.

Vane’s gaze sinks between my legs as my clit throbs, fucking needy for his touch.

“You’re already soaked,” he says, eyeing the damp fabric.

“You’re no longer chasing me, and I’m no longer running.”

He growls deep in his throat and using his free hand, moves mine from my panties so he can take its place. With his knuckle against my skin, he follows the span of fabric between my legs, his knuckle grazing my wetness.

I jolt on the table from the pleasure that races through me, but Vane tightens his hold on my throat, forcing me in place.

He slips a finger inside of me, slow and deliberate, and my wetness makes a loud noise in the dim quiet.

Outside the library, the snow turns to ice and plinks against the glass. The wind hollows. I wrap my hand around Vane’s wrist, desperate to touch him as he touches me.

The shadow likes the connection, and an electric jolt runs through my veins. I’ve never been high before, but this must be close, like I’ve left my body behind and I’m nothing but raw pleasure and hot heat.

My breathing quickens. “Fuck me, Vane. Hard.”

“It’s cute that you think you can tell me what to do.” He fingers me again, but lets his thumb trail up my wetness, caressing my clit with a featherlight touch. I wiggle my hips on the table, trying to follow the pressure of his hand, but he’s too quick and far too clever.

He’s purposefully driving me mad just to prove a point.

“Vane,” I moan.

He lets me go, tears off my panties, and spreads me open for him. He plants a gentle kiss just above my knee, on my inner thigh. “You have the most beautiful pussy I’ve ever seen, Win.” He leaves a trail of kisses, down, down, until he’s so close to my center, I can feel the tickle of his breath.

I’m alive with heat and need, but he shifts to my other leg, kissing down my thigh again, letting his fingers get dangerously close to my pussy.

“Vane,” I say again, breathless.

And then he licks up my pussy, causing me to jolt.

He’s gone again.

“Stop torturing me.”

Hand at my pubic bone, he applies pressure, and a flush of heat runs through me.

“I like hearing you beg.”

Eyes half-lidded, I gaze up at him. His violet eye is still violet, watching me intently. With the Neverland Death Shadow, he has much better control of it. There’s no need for violence or blood.

Just raw need.

“Please,” I moan.

“Louder.”

“Please.”

A ghost of a touch on my clit makes my back arch on the table, every nerve and bone trying to meet him closer and closer, more and more.

His fingers follow the inner crease of my thigh, then slip over my wetness, and I shiver, my clit throbbing.

“Vane, I can’t—”

He sinks his mouth to my center.

As soon as his tongue is sliding over me, I can no longer lie still. I wiggle on the table, but he hooks his hands around my thighs, baring me to him. He flicks his tongue against my clit, then flattens it, licking slowly.

“Oh my god,” I breathe out and claw my hand into his hair, guiding him over me.

It hurts how badly I love him, and tears are suddenly burning in my eyes as he brings me closer and closer to the edge.

“You taste so fucking good,” he says against me and kisses slowly and deliberately, his tongue flicking over me.

“I want to come with you.” I pull at his hair, as if I can bring him under my control.

He looks up at me from between the V of my thighs, his hair rumpled and messy from my frenzy for him.

“I don’t need to come,” he says.

“The fuck you don’t.” I sit upright, the shadow swimming just below the surface.

There is a thick ridge where Vane’s cock is still trapped behind his pants. I unbutton him. “You’re fucking me,” I tell him. “Right here and right now and I want you to come with me.”

I slip my hand in beneath the waistline of his underwear, and he exhales in a rush as I grip him in my fist. The tip of his cock is already wet when I drag the pad of my thumb over it.

“Don’t deny me.”

He pushes a length of hair off my shoulder, his hand going to the back of my neck. “There was a time I wanted you to run faster, so you could escape me.”

I stroke him. He growls.

“But I don’t think there was any stretch of land vast enough that would have stopped me.” He kisses me, his tongue meeting mine, sharing my taste.

We start gentle, and slow, and then we’re ravenous, the kiss deepening, frenzied. I yank down his pants and his cock bobs free. He kisses at my jawline, bites at my neck. I wiggle to the edge of the table and hook my legs around him, lining him up as our lips crash together again.

“Fuck me,” I beg against him and nip at his bottom lip. “Now,” I add, more commanding.

He wraps his arm around my waist, lifting me up, yanking me closer, as if there is no such thing as close enough, even when he’s finally sunk inside of me.

I moan loudly. He growls at my ear as his cock throbs against my clenched inner walls, as he pounds into me, the table scraping over the floor.

We are fire and debris from lives lived broken and terrified. We fuck like love is a salve we are terrified of using up.

We fuck like there is only now.

Now.

Now.

Now.

Vane slams into me, and the friction between us lights up my insides, the orgasm crashing through me with the power of a tidal wave.

I cry out, hooking my ankles behind him, driving him deeper.

He thrusts in, spilling inside of me, grunting at the shell of my ear.

I shake in his grip, the pleasure scoring through me like water through rock.

I am forever changed by him.

I love him.

I love him so much it burns, and yet I shiver in his grip, my body trembling as if it doesn’t know what to do with all of this joy and pleasure.

Vane pulls out slowly, then pushes in again, the muscles in his back flexing as he holds me close. “I can feel it,” he says, a soft utterance, a quiet secret.

“Feel what?”

“Your love,” he says. “In my chest.” He kisses my cheek, lingering close. “I can feel your love like a million golden stars in the endless abyss that is me.”

His words hit me in the gut and wings fill my insides.

I clench my teeth, trying not to cry, but it’s too late.

Vane looks down at me, swiping the tear away, and I lean into his hand as the trembling subsides.

“Promise me you will always be there.”

He tilts me up to him and kisses me gently.

“I promise, Win.”