This scene takes place during The Never King. It’s the infamous “spitting scene” but from Vane’s POV! Just what did he think about this Darling??

**

VANE 

There is something about this Darling that I don’t like.

The cigarette is burning hot between my knuckles. I bring it to my mouth and pull in a drag, watching the Darling across the yard where she’s at a table with Cherry and some of the Lost Boys playing a game of Gable.

She’s drunk. Her gait has become increasingly unsteady as the sun has sunk toward the horizon. Her body is loose, her laughter loud.

I don’t like it.

I take another hit and blow out a quick breath of smoke.

From my vantage point on the edge of the party, just at the mouth of the path that leads to the ocean, I can keep watch without getting swept into the chaos.

It isn’t my fucking job to keep watch.

Where are the twins? They brought down food an hour ago and seem to have disappeared after.

They’re supposed to be watching the girl.

A shadow stretches across the root-bound path as Zia leans a shoulder against the trunk of a nearby palm tree. She brings with her the smokey scent of burning wood and the sweeter scent of fairy wine.

“I know what you’re going to say,” I tell her.

“What?” She acts innocent. Zia isn’t innocent. It’s why I tolerate her.

I side-eye her with a scowl. She smiles at me.

Zia has big teeth and an even bigger mouth, so when she smiles, she’s all ravenous delight.

“If you hate the Darlings so much,” she begins, “then how come you can’t stop staring at this one?”

There it is.

“Everything hinges on the Darling,” I say and finish the cigarette, smashing the burning embers beneath my boot. “I take my eyes off her, maybe she wanders off. Maybe a pirate kidnaps her. Maybe she falls off a cliff.”

Zia steps into my personal space and I look down at her. Her curly hair is in two braids making her look younger than she is. Everything with Zia is a production, a facade. She’s always waiting for the moment she pulls back the curtain to show the devil that lurks behind.

She and I see something familiar in one another. Maybe that’s why we’re friends, of a sort. We’re also refugees from Darkland, so we have that in common too.

Zia grew up in the Umbrage. I was tossed into it. She was one of the first to come into the fold when Roc and I took over. She helped keep us informed. Helped suss out the liars and thieves—it was practically a full-time job. Loyalty was hard to come by beneath the ash of the Umbrage.

When Roc and I left, Zia left too. I wasn’t surprised to find her on Neverland years later. She lives in Darlington Port now, but she’s a neutral party of opportunity playing the fae, the pirates, and the Lost Boys. The only person she’s loyal to is me.

“You seem to forget,” Zia says.

I turn to her. “I forget nothing.”

She laughs again. “You seem to forget that I know you.”

I grumble and turn my attention back to the Darling. “Gable!” Cherry yells and Darling looks at the cards spread on the table, her brow furrowed. She doesn’t understand the game, but it doesn’t seem to faze her.

“Let me predict how this will all go down,” Zia says.

“I’ll pay you not to,” I tell her.

“You’re going to be mean to this Darling,” she says.

“I’m mean to everyone.”

The Lost Boy sitting next to Darling scoots closer to her and my molars grit together.

“You’re going to tell yourself she’s just a means to an end, just like the rest of them.”

Darling looks up at the Lost Boy, the firelight glittering in her eyes.

“Your shadow is going to try to chase her.”

It already wants a piece of her. The second I caught her scent when I walked into that bedroom, the shadow was writhing.

“So you’ll be even more terrifying. Even more vicious.”

Cherry laughs and falls off her chair. The Darling laughs too. Her hair is undone and several strands catch the ocean breeze.

There is a lightness in my chest that feels like flying.

Zia is still talking but her words are muffled, like I’m underwater.

“…and if you don’t do something about it,” Zia says, “you’re going to break her. And I’m going to be glad I’m not here to see the fallout when you do.”

I turn to her. “What?”

“I’m leaving, Vane.”

My heart thumps harder. “Where?”

“Home.”

“To the Umbrage? Why the fuck would you want to go there?”

“I don’t know. Something is telling me to.”

“What do you—”

I glance back at Darling and see the Lost Boy kiss her.

And I nearly lose my fucking mind.

* * *

I’m aware as I stalk down to Pan’s tomb that I’m letting him assume the burden of my rage.

Pan and I balance each other out. I could confront the Lost Boy for breaking the rules, but if I do, there’s no telling what my shadow will do. Tear out his guts. Bathe in his blood.

But if the Darling starts running from the horror of it all, I will have no choice but to give chase. And if I chase her, I will catch her and I will fuck her until she breaks and Zia’s prediction will be right.

Are you more or less a monster if you accept it? Once you give in to it?

And if you give in to it, will there be anything decent that remains?

Pan’s rage will eclipse mine. His rage has no restraint. It burns hot and fast like flame set to gunpowder.

I will pretend to be indifferent to this whole thing, and Pan will do the hard work for me and I can pretend for a little longer that I am only half a monster.

I unlock the tomb door and enter into the darkness. There is no light here, but my shadow can make out the shapes of things.

The bed. The tables. The stacks of books.

I kick the end of the bed.

Pan’s breathing shifts as he’s roused from sleep. “This better be important,” he says.

“The twins are throwing a party,” I say. “And the Darling is drunk.”

He lurches upright. “The fuck?”

“I know. That’s what I said.”

“Why didn’t you stop them? Or her for that matter?”

Because I’m afraid of what I might do.

“I’m not her babysitter.”

“Vane, for fuck’s sake.”

He’s mad at me. That’s good. I can handle Pan’s anger. I cannot handle a running, terrified Darling girl.

He pulls the sheets back and flicks on the bedside lamp. Light floods the room and my vision adjusts as Pan stumbles to the corner of the room to a pile of clothes. Can he not go faster? She’s probably bent over the table by now.

My cock thickens at the thought.

For fuck’s sake.

“How drunk is she?” he asks as he pulls on his pants.

I shrug. The gesture chafes against my discontent. “She was on the lap of one of the new Lost Boys when I came down.”

Pan growls. I narrow my eyes, regarding him with what I hope looks like worry.

Fuck it. I am worried. I’m fucking worried for us both.

He throws on a shirt and goes to the door, ready to yank it open once the sun is down.

“Think about what you’re about to do,” I tell him, but I’m not sure if the words are for him or for me.

“You should have been watching her,” he says.

“Why do we care if she fucks a Lost Boy anyway?”

“I care,” Pan says.

So do I.

“You’re being rash,” I add. “You do have a habit of being rash, but right now, I don’t understand it and I don’t like it.” Lies. I understand it too well. “Maybe pause for a second and consider the options—”

He yanks the door open.

“All right. Violence it is.”

Watching Pan come undone is enough of a salve for my own unease.

I follow him up the winding stairs. “Three, two, one. One, two, three. Better watch out: Peter Pan is going to murder thee.”

* * *

There is a Lost Boy heart lying on the cobblestone and a dead Lost Boy not far from it.

Pan is painted in blood.

The air is a coppery tang in the back of my throat.

Pan yanks the Darling away from the carnage and back toward the house. She doesn’t resist.

I have to give this one more credit. She’s not as weak as she looks.

In the loft, Pan yanks her into the dining room and tosses her into a chair. He sets his hands on either side of the seat, caging her in.

“What part of this do you not understand, Darling?” he says.

The twins edge closer to the table. “Pan,” Bash starts, but Pan silences him with a look.

“I have rules,” Pan says.

“So I’ve heard,” the Darling replies with enough bratty venom to poison an ox.

“It’s for your safety,” Pan adds.

“Is it? Because last I checked, you kidnapped me.”

The sound of Pan’s teeth grinding together fills the room.

“I’m trying to save this fucking island,” he says.

“I don’t care what you’re doing,” she says. “This isn’t my home. And I didn’t take your fucking shadow.”

He scowls, then shoots a glare at us. “Who told her?”

“Wasn’t us,” Kas says.

“Don’t look at me,” I say. And then, “Probably Cherry.” Makes sense. She can’t keep her fucking mouth shut.

“You going to kill her too?” the Darling says. “Maybe you’ll kill me next? Dig out my insides and search for your answers. Maybe it’s printed here on my bones.” She lifts her middle finger and glares at him.

Naughty Darling girl.

Pan is silent and it’s in this silence that I realize the mistake I’ve made.

It’s in this silence that everything changes.

He yanks her to her feet and presses her to the edge of the table. She doesn’t fight him. In fact, her body is curled into his.

“What are you doing?” Pan says. “What is your plan? Fuck every Lost Boy on the island just to provoke me?”

Bash takes another step, but Kas puts a hand on his brother’s arm to stop him. They both look at me.

They want me to stop this mess. But I can’t.

None of us can.

We are all trapped on this wave, crashing toward shore.

“Yes,” Darling says, her voice hard-edged and daring. “They call me Winnie Whore, you know. Fucking boys is what I do best.”

It seems I underestimated her too.

Pan takes a breath. It’s the breath of fury.

Darling trembles beneath him.

The shadow writhes seeing her tiny body dwarfed in Pan’s grip.

There is one rule Peter Pan never breaks.

Don’t touch the Darlings.

I made him into a blade. I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s braced to cut.

Pan spins her around and bends her over the table. He drives her down, face pressed against the wood. His other hand bunches up her skirt around her waist and yanks down her panties.

She gasps out excitedly.

“If you want to fuck the Lost Boys,” Peter Pan says, “why not start at the top?”

“Maybe I will,” she says.

He kicks her legs apart, baring her.

She heaves another breath, pushing out her ass to him and I’ve never been so fucking envious of Peter Pan.

He and I share Lost Girl cunt all of the time.

But not now.

Not fucking now.

Yes, now, the shadow says.

Join them.

Break her.

I clench my teeth as my cock grows harder. There is a great roaring in my ears.

“If you want to act like a whore,” Pan says as he leans over her, hand tangled in her hair, “then I’ll treat you like a whore.”

He shoves into her.

She gasps out.

I can’t move.

I can’t look away.

The shadow pushes closer and closer to the surface and it takes everything I have not to let it have control.

One of the twins says, “Fuck me,” almost a whisper.

A moan escapes the Darling. Her fingers are curled like claws, like she wishes there was a sheet beneath her, something to bunch up in her grasp. She wiggles beneath Pan, pushing back against him.

He wanted to punish her, teach her a lesson, but I think she’s the one commanding the room.

Maybe he knows it. Maybe we all do.

Maybe we are all a little broken, looking for a way to mend the pieces.

Take her too, the shadow says.

I’m so fucking hard…

I can barely hear Darling’s moans over the incessant thumping of my heart.

I’m going to break her.

If he passes her to me, I’m going to fuck her hard and fast and she’s going to crumble beneath me.

I can’t.

I fucking can’t.

I hate her. I hate everything about this fucking Darling.

I hate her so much I want her to quiver beneath me.

“Do you want to come, Darling?” Pan asks her and she mewls a yes.

“Beg for it.”

“What?”

“Beg for it, Darling.”

“Please,” she says and sucks in another breath. “Please can I come?”

Muscle and tendons move in Pan’s forearm as he finds her heat between her legs. She cries out, jolting beneath him.

The sound of Winnie Darling coming is enough to untether me.

Pan fills her up as she trembles beneath him, riding through her pleasure.

And after he pulls out of her, he drops into one of the chairs as the twins take their turn with her, Bash inside of her, Kas fucking her mouth.

Pan looks at me when I readjust myself, the ache in my cock enough to turn my violet eye black.

There’s a sheen of sweat on his forehead and he’s still catching his breath as the table judders over the hardwood floor.

We’re all in trouble.

The whole fucking lot of us.

When the Darling and the twins are finished with their fun, Pan says, “No one else touches her. Do you understand me?”

Bash is still breathing heavily. “Got it.”

Pan glances at me again.

It takes everything I have to shove the shadow back down, to keep the desire for her terror at bay.

I can smell her. Her arousal has tainted the night air.

Pan’s gaze is questioning.

Will I join them? Will I sample the sweetness of Darling cunt?

There is a quote circling in my head. One read in an ancient book, written by a Greek philosopher. “It is hard to contend against one's heart's desire; for whatever it wishes to have it buys at the cost of soul.”

I come around the table and yank the Darling upright, turning her around. Her skirt is still bunched around her waist, her ass bare against the table.

“Open up, Darling,” I say.

Her curiosity is pathetic.

And my hunger for her obedience is even more so.

She parts those pretty lips for me.

I lean in and spit in her mouth. “That’s all you’ll get from me.”

She flails, dragging her hand over her mouth. “You asshole!” She pummels me with fists and I let her.

It’s better for both of us if she hates me.