6. Peter
Peter
Icouldn’t get out of that blasted room fast enough.
It’s like the foliage crawling up the wallpaper seeped into my pores and attempted to replace my veins.
I can’t remember how much I drank since I woke mid-afternoon, but it’s not enough.
A servant walks by with a bottle, and I snatch it from his golden tray, biting the cork off and taking a long chug.
I need to wash her out of my system, but the clear blue, the green swallowing her frame—resembling the roses blooming on the grounds, reaching up for the blue in the sky—spot the edges of my vision.
Roses have always been Father’s favorite flower, the petals coated in his signature green.
I’ve grown to hate them, the joy they bring him, but after tonight, after seeing her dripping in the shade—well, I can’t decide if it makes me loathe the flower even more or want to fuck the beauty out of them.
Sure, she’s appealing, but so are many maidens that scurry across the scorched earth of Neverhaven.
Perhaps it’s her crass words that interest me so.
No one’s ever spoken ill of my family or me in such a way while in our presence.
Of course, behind our backs, they rip us to shreds.
Most of our subjects fucking hate us, and no height of our gates nor alcohol flowing through my system can hide that truth.
“Peter!” Father yells from behind me. I want to pick up my step and run away into the night, but it’s not an option. It never has been.
I stuff the bottle into my waistband. It bulges at my side, but it’s no secret that I always have a beverage nearby. Sometimes I think Father prefers me when I’m drunk and docile. I turn to him, unable to muster even a morsel of intrigue at what he could want.
He doesn’t speak until he pinches my shirt and pulls me in, whispering. “I need you to take this seriously. You are destined for the throne.”
“Do you plan to give the same chat to Rourke?” My stepbrother hasn’t exited the feasting room yet. I presume he’s onto his next round of uncooked flesh. He’s always had an insatiable appetite that Father nourishes and praises.
He looks behind him before cupping my chin with a slap, something almost like endearment in his eyes. “Rourke isn’t fit to rule. He’d serve you well, but the people of Neverhaven need someone who can make decisions, not just a mercenary.”
I’ve never felt any sort of kinship to Rourke.
Father married his mother, the pirate queen, when I was a boy, and I was as distant to the strange animal as I am now.
Yet, a sort of sympathy kindles. Rourke has been nothing but my father’s loyal pet, even before his mother died.
It only seems fair that he reaps the benefits of his devotion.
Besides, I’d much prefer the weight of the crown off my shoulders.
I’ve always looked better when less encumbered with unnecessary finery.
I attempt to create some distance between us, but he barely budges.
Even with the height I hold over Father, he’s always yielded power in all senses of the word.
“Then why toy with us? If you want me as your heir, give me the crown and the pixie bride.” Of course, I know why, but I want to see how well he can still lie.
Surely I’m not drunk enough to question so reasonably. I ache to fix such an infliction.
He sighs, pity in his eyes. “Where Rourke lacks leadership, you lack everything else. You’ve never shown an interest in ruling, in anything besides fucking whores and drinking until you see stars.
This is to prove to me which one of you is capable of doing what is necessary to claim what is yours.
You are both equally my sons and both equally fuckups that need mending.
” There’s more to his reasoning than he’d admit out loud—even if he won’t come right out and say it—I can see through his game.
A retort rests on the tip of my tongue. I don’t want to rule, let alone a ruined kingdom on the brink of destruction, but speaking this truth would do me no good.
Father would just beat me senseless or concoct another way to torment me.
“I understand, Father,” I reply, hoping my lie masks well.
Perhaps it’s better I’m not sloshed yet.
“Good.” He pats my face again, stepping back. “I plan to head to our country estate for a few months. There are some matters I must attend to, and this will give you two time to battle for the pixies' claim without my influence or guidance.”
I’ve never heard sweeter words. Not of the chance of bedding the pixie, no, but months without my father’s looming shadow.
I nearly smile, something I haven’t done in his presence since before my mother was alive.
I catch the nasty curve, stuffing it away for later—when I tell the boys of all the fun we’ll have soon.
“Safe travels.” I back away with a two-finger salute, turning and walking briskly down the hallway.
“Don’t stay out too late tonight,” my father calls. “You know your brother. He’ll be ready to chomp at her bright and early—the moment I send the guards away from her chambers.”
I wave without turning, removing the bottle from my side and taking another long chug.
Father doesn’t seem in poor health. Hopefully, looks are deceiving.
He must have found the pixie and decided to implement his master plan now.
I had hoped that I would have more time to be left to my own devices.
No bother. This won’t last long. Perhaps Rourke might impregnate the pixie, but she won’t survive under his attention until full-term, and perhaps that will be the end of his games, and I’ll spend the rest of my days in the arms of beautiful maidens, never feeling the sickening taste of thirst, nor the crippling responsibility of ruling a kingdom destined for ruination. A boy can dream.
There’s a part of me—a small part—that twitches at the thought of competition with my estranged brother, even if that’s what Father desires.
Perhaps it stems from early childhood when I mourned the loss of my mother, and instead of a comforting female being brought into my life to replace her, all I received was the pirate queen, even more cruel and ruthless than my father, and her mangled son that she cut up and turned into her own raging weapon.
Father was drawn to the boy, and when the pirate queen died suddenly, Father cared for him even more.
I was never jealous of my father’s attention and even then knew the only reason Rourke interested him was to fuel his own power, but a part of me wished things were different—wished I was different.
Someone a little less conscious, a little more venomous.
Maybe then I might stuff the hollow hole of loneliness in my chest. Those feelings grew out of me.
It wasn’t difficult to replace the pain, especially in a place as grand and lifeless as Hollowbrook.
The cool night air greets me, buzzing bugs assaulting my ears in song, igniting my restlessness even more. “There he is!” Ronald calls from behind the cast-iron fence separating Hollowbrook from the long, canopied entryway leading to the city center.
“We started to think you’d abandon us!” Colly shouts next to him, jumping up on Deadrick's shoulder. Deadrick grows taller, his roots digging into the ground below him and vines slithering from his frame around the posts of the fence.
I sprint the rest of the way, jumping onto the gates as they swing open, the magic buried deep in the earth of Hollowbrook allowing me my exit.
Much blood watered these grounds to produce even this simple display of power.
“Ah, my dear lost boys. You must never worry about my arrival. I may be tardy, but I’ll never pass up a night out with you fine fellows.
” I jump to the ground, hands raised high as the crew crowds around me, patting my back.
“My, what fine spirits we find our darling Peter,” Trago remarks, scratching the dark stubble on his chin. “To what do we owe such merriment?”
Colly grabs the half-drunk bottle from my waistband.
“Ah, perhaps it’s because you started without us.
” He chugs the rest, his fox ears twitching as the liquid runs down his gullet.
He throws the empty bottle to the ground as the four of us stumble down the paved path, the music and shouting from Neverhaven calling us forward.
It’s clear from our swagger that all of us are already greeting the night with wet gullets.
I sling an arm over Ronald’s broad shoulder, rustling his sunshine hair. “I’ve just received word that Hollowbrook will be under my rule for the next few months while Lord Pan travels to our country estate.”
The boys cheer. It’s been like this since we were children, when I collected my devoted lost boys.
Each born into nobility, forgotten by parents riddled with frivolity.
Whereas I received plenty of attention from my father—cruelty that sharpened me into a leader, if only to boys who looked for direction to fill a void, similar yet not as jagged as my own.
“Ah, I was wondering what good news you’d bring us tonight. I had a vision of something joyous.” Ronald loves nothing more than pointing out when his visions prove accurate. The bragging only comes after the revelation, though. If I didn’t know of his family’s lineage, I’d think he’s full of shite.
I roll my eyes and pat his cheek. “By the Second Star, what would we do without your magical abilities?”
“And why is the Lord leaving you the keys to the castle?” Deadrick questions, his white smile glowing against his rough, bark-like skin, his vines trailing behind us.
I wave the question away, not wanting the damned pixie and Rourke to cloud my newly joyous mood. “Why question my father’s favorable decision when instead we could celebrate?”
The group of men hoot at my words, picking up their steps and dragging me forward into the night.
The world shifts—the strums of instruments and the laughter from pubs growing louder.
The lights transform from the clear burn of the lampposts to the periodic flicker of lanterns, illuminating the dusty, crowded streets.
I’m eager for more spirits to make this evening even grander.
Perhaps I’ll even find the company of a petite blonde, eyes as blue as the endless sky.
Hopefully, she’s quiet as I fuck her. Instead of her words of pleasure, I could imagine words of rebuttal, of rage that make me feel something that ignites the dusty corners of my hollow soul.