Page 13 of The Never Queen

“Remember when you first came to me? Remember when you said, ‘We can do this the easy way or the hard way.’”

“Mmm. Yes.”

“There is no such thing as easy with you.”

He straightens and the hanging lantern above us, glowing in the descending night, limns him in gold and turns his bright blue eyes almost white.

Outside, the crickets are waking and the peepers are chirping and the ocean breeze is whooshing through the palms.

I love it here. I love Neverland, and I love these men, and I desperately want to stay here forever.

But I can’t shake the feeling that the wolves are circling.

Pan says nothing. Instead, he kisses me hungrily, his tongue tasting me. And then he’s pulling me off the counter. I yelp, tie my legs around his hips, and laugh as he carries me outside.

He is distracting me. And I let him.

“Okay,” I say and hook my arms around him. “I promise.”

“Good girl.”

I glow beneath his praise.

6

THE BODYGUARD

They are going to kill him.

He had one job, and he fucked it up. Royally.

It has been months since he’d been to Neverland and the second his boots hit Neverland soil, he sighs and turns his face to the starlit sky, breathing in the island air.

But it’s only a moment of elation until reality sets back in.

He doesn’t feel right. A dull ache is pounding behind his eyes. There is a throbbing pulse at the back of his neck. And despite being a semi-immortal fae who regularly works out in the makeshift gym he created, his joints are aching like he either has a fever or somehow aged a century overnight.

All of this, however, will be the least of his worries once he’s at the treehouse. Once he’s told the twins and Winnie and Pan and Vane just how badly he’s failed.

There’s a party pulsing in the night air. Ember and gold light flickers from behind the house. Voices filter out along with the snap and crackle of a bonfire.

In the distance, waves crash against the sandy shore and farther out, the howl of a wolf.

As he comes around the corner of the house, he scans the group, about thirty or forty people, and spots Pan first on the edge of the bonfire light, a drink in his hand. Vane is on his left leaning into him, whispering something that has Pan nodding. But the attention of both men is aimed across the bonfire.

It’s Winnie caught between the twins. Kas’s hair is wound up in a bun, several long strands hanging in his face. Bash is shirtless, his wings flexing along with the drumbeat of the music.

While the shadows still hold him, he stops and takes another deep, settling breath. There is no escaping the consequences, whatever they may be. So he might as well get it over with.

One more breath. Okay, maybe another. Just to settle the nerves.

Fuck.

Shaking his head, he steps out and into the ring of light.

Pan spots him first. It’s impossible to withstand the attention of the star god without feeling like your insides are being liquified, and an involuntary shudder runs through him.

Pan’s expression hardens.