10. Peter #2
Rourke and the pirate queen had just moved into the estate. I’d been eager for a mother, even if she could never replace my own, but she only scowled at me through dark, painted eyes as she entered the manor, followed by trunks of her riches and her son, caged and foaming at the mouth.
We were the same age, yet completely different. His scales, hook, and golden eye were recently added, pus and redness lining the places where skin met. The smell of death followed him like a ghost.
Father heard of the boy, attacked by a beast and sewn together with its remains and corrupt magic.
Rumor has it he even got the crocodile's heart. Coupled with the hook, and he was a walking weapon. Except he was barely walking. Father told the pirate queen that if she married him, he’d save the boy, have the palace Alchemists fix him.
On the night of his arrival, my curiosity overtook my fear.
Besides, I had nothing but time and dreams to flee from.
I searched for the rotting boy and found him in the dungeons, no longer in a cage, but chained to a table.
Amber tubes pierced through his skin and vined down his arms. Coveted pixie blood.
Obviously diluted and mixed with other ingredients.
It was too scarce, and Father couldn’t have him completely healed, of course.
Rourke’s reptilian eye found mine, and his lips parted as if to ask me a question. I ventured closer, leaning down so my ear met his lips. His voice cracked, but there was no mistaking his words. “Please…kill me.”
I ran away. And that was the last time he ever spoke to me.
Yes, Rourke could talk. But this story isn’t fit for these men. Boys still, really.
Colly laughs, perhaps noticing the stiffening of my spine at the mention of my stepbrother. “Who cares about Rourke? Peter, you must claim the throne. Think of all the fun we could have with you in power!”
“Wait,” Ronald interrupts. “How will your father know who claims the pixie first?”
“Yeah, can’t one of us do it for you since you seem so uninterested in wetting your dick?” Trago laughs. I shoot him daggers, minutes away from sending the Shadows for real ones.
Instead of violence, I answer the question, my buzz almost completely gone at this point.
“There’s Shadows everywhere. They’ll report to Father who’s first, and I promise, you don’t want him discovering it’s one of you, cocksuckers.
” I smile at the group, but send Trago a pointed stare.
“Plus, the old Alchemist will be able to tell the sire of her offspring from the moment of conception.”
“Peter,” Colly says, almost a whine. “You’ve got to try to win. Will you really let Rourke take your rightful place?”
“I wonder what she looks like,” Ronald says to Deadrick over the table.
“Aren’t you supposed to, you know, see that already?” he asks, his rootlike eyebrow raising.
Ronald waves the question away. “I bet she’s comely. Pixies always were. Ensured they bred easily.”
Colly snaps. “You must bring her out for the Starburn!”
“Absolutely not,” I say, my voice low, almost a growl.
Colly’s ears wilt, and he folds inward.
Her existence may not require secrecy, but I doubt Father would be pleased to hear I paraded around his pixie prize during a festival of debauchery before she had an heir growing in her womb.
More than that, the thought sparks another emotion ticking in my chest. I can’t name it entirely, or perhaps I don’t want to.
“We always knew Lord Pan wouldn’t make it easy for you, but this seems perfect. All you must do is fuck a pixie bitch.” Trago says with a chuckle, taking a deep sip of his drink. “I can help you if you’d like, hold her down.”
I rise to my feet, slamming my empty glass against the table, red clouding my vision.
“Enough! Do any of you know that people are starving? Crops are dying. Birth rates are down. The magic is gone. Do you think I want to be at the head of that chaos? That I would want more blood on my hands?” My voice shakes, a sob at the back of my throat.
The room rematerializes before me, four pairs of wide eyes glued to me.
The air is thick, suffocating. This is all wrong, all too much.
I do the one thing I know best to change it all back, to bring back the joy and camaraderie.
I snap my fingers and hold up my glass. A servant fills it to the brim, and I down half before presenting it to the group.
“Besides, I can’t be encumbered with a crown.
It will mess up my beautiful hair. Now, boys, let’s not speak of politics when the hen is away.
Let us play!” I throw my head back and force a laugh from my throat.
The room is alive again. “Ah! There’s the real reason. Vanity!” Colly shouts with a smile.
“It is a head of beauty, there’s no mistaking that.” Deadrick pulls me in and kisses my cheek.
Trago eyes me skeptically, holding his cup up in a cheer before taking a slow sip.
I take my seat. “Alright, boys, no more stalling. Time for me to clear the table.”
“You wish!” Ronald shouts, pushing a pile of blues and greens toward the center.
Everything is back to the way it should be. Mindless conversation, blurred by the sweet nectar from the gods. I don’t want to discuss the ugly truth—the real reason for Father's game—the reason I refuse to play.
Father doesn’t intend for Rourke to win.
My disinterest in the throne is no secret, no matter how much we both pretend otherwise.
He only tasked us both because he thought I’d feel pity for the pixie, take her to ensure Rourke didn’t rip her to shreds.
He still views me as soft and pathetic, as when I was a boy, crying through my nightmares, begging for my mother.
He didn’t say it out loud, but I know it as surely as I know I’ll wake every morning with my rose-embossed ring on my left hand.
What Father doesn’t know is that I’m one step ahead of him.
I’m not playing his games. I can be cruel.
Damn the blue. Damn that green that fits her like moss on a river rock.
Damn her fire that makes me feel something—rage and intrigue combined—sending a spark to not only my cock, but an empty crater in my chest.
I can stand by while Rourke claims the pixie and spills her blood on Hollowbrook’s grounds in the process. Yes, the magic will be replenished for a short while—the sickly, suffocating power that keeps us all trapped here. Darling or not.