Chapter 29
KAS
We spot Doren from above as he leaves the woods that run behind Darling’s house and spill out into an open field.
Bash gestures to me, giving me an indication with this hand that he means to cut Doren off in the field.
I’ll land behind him, wedging him in.
I angle my wings, catching the air to slow my flight while Bash shoots forward.
We land at the same time and Doren spins, trying to find an escape path, his own wings coming into shimmering view from beneath his illusion.
He could go up, sure, but I’m confident my brother and I could catch him eventually and rip his wings one by one from his body.
“We just want to talk,” Bash says.
Doren sneers. “The time for talking is over. It was over a long time ago.”
“Are you truly alone?” I ask him, scanning the surrounding woods.
He doesn’t answer me. I think if he wasn’t, something about his ego would give him away. And I almost feel sorry for him, all alone in the mortal realm with no one to back him up.
What was he thinking? Was his ambition truly that blinding to put him at such a disadvantage?
Doren looks past me to the sky above and for a second, I think I’ve misjudged him. But it’s just Peter Pan and Vane joining us.
Now Doren is well and truly fucked.
“Where is she?” Pan asks.
Doren doesn’t know where to turn, who to be afraid of.
The answer is: all of us.
“You think they told me where they’re taking her?”
“Yes,” I answer.
He licks his lips, turns to face me. Panic is etching itself into the thin line of his mouth.
“I don’t know,” he says, but his objection is worthless.
Pan shoots forward, knocking Doren off his feet.
Doren spins to his knees, his wings opening with a WHOOSH.
But Vane is there, one boot on Doren’s back for leverage, as the Shadow spins around him, dark and ravenous.
With a tear of flesh and sinew, Vane rips the forewing from Doren’s body and he twists in agony, blood and gore spurting from the wound.
“I don’t know where she is!” Doren shouts.
Bash checks me and I give him a nod.
“They’re going to tear you apart, piece by piece,” Bash says in a chime of bells, in our fae language.
We can pretend to be on his side. The good guys to Pan and Vane’s bad guys.
“Your wings will never recover,” I tell him.
Heat spins in the air as Pan’s power lashes out, melting Doren’s forewing to his hindwing.
“Fuck! Stop!”
“Where?” Pan repeats.
“There’s a warehouse…” He sucks in a deep breath, rocking on his knees, his body trembling. “It’s about five miles to the north of here on Nettle River in that old industrial park. There’s a painted sign on the side that says Thomas & Sons.”
“Great.” Vane tosses the wing aside. “Was that so hard?”
Doren spits blood into the dry grass.
We have the information we need, but I think Bash and I both know it can’t end here, not like this. Doren not only tried to keep Darling from us and our court, but he went so far as to make a deal with the devil trying to get her killed.
He doesn’t deserve to walk away from this.
Bash pushes the hair from his eyes and says in fae, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Yes,” I answer back.
Doren looks at us over the trembling curve of his shoulder. “What are you thinking?”
There’s hope in his words. As if he thinks maybe we will take his side, as if him being fae and us being fae and Pan and Vane decidedly not, somehow puts us on the same side.
But it doesn’t.
We pledged our loyalty to Peter Pan a long time ago, and he’s never let us down.
Bash picks Doren up by the shoulders and spins him around. He can barely stand upright and blood has turned his white shirt dark.
“Please,” Doren says, low and beneath his breath.
But his pleas are wasted on me.
I am relenting and understanding and merciful when it’s warranted.
But if you endanger me or mine, I can be just as vicious as the rest of them.
I am a fae king, with the Neverland Shadow of Life, and sometimes that means taking one.
I grab Doren on either side of the head and yank.
His neck pops.
His heart thumps once, twice, then goes quiet.
His eyes, wide open, drain of all consciousness.
Bash lets him go and he crumples to the ground, dead.