Rise of the Lost Prince (5 page)

“All I needed was this,” she
said, tugging at the canvas strap with one hand. “So, I’m going—”

“We’re right behind you,” said
Vibe.

“All right,” Wyndi said, not sure
what to make of her alleyway rescuers. She breezed between them and kept on
making tracks, heels clacking on the tiled floor. “Someone get the door.”

No sooner had she said the words
than she heard her office door shut and latch behind her.

Once outside, she took in a deep
breath. The familiarity of sea-salty air caressed her as she made her way a
little farther around the building, into the overflow parking lot which wasn’t
overflowing, then froze—her two unwanted bodyguards coming to a stop on either
side of her.

What
in the name of Confucius?

Just steps away, standing beneath
the lamp light, stood Petúr, who towered over Bell, her bartender. Bell had
rucked up the back of her bar shirt, while he ran his large palm over the
surface of what looked to be a lacy, light pink, almost a shimmering scarification,
or tattoo of wings across her bare back.

Wyndi blinked. Then blinked
again. Something fiery boiled up from her belly, coiled around her bones, and
constricted. Were her nostrils flaring? In any case, she was seething, and
wanted to snatch Bell bald. Visions of wrapping her fingers around that blonde
ponytail and yanking with all her might danced through her head. And, just so
she was clear with herself, she wanted to do the said snatching not because she
was jealous.
No.
Jealousy couldn’t be
it. Why would she be jealous of a man she didn’t know the first thing about and
had absolutely no claim on?

Anyway, back to the problem at
hand. She narrowed her gaze. She was livid because this was her bar and her
employee was acting like a floozy out in the open where anyone could see her.
After all, Jolly Roger’s Bar & Grill did have a certain level of
respectability to uphold.
Yeah.
That
sounded more plausible.

Wyndi stomped forward, fists
tight, uncaring of the two massive men flanking her.

“What is going on out here?” she
asked, voice harsh. She hit Bell with a menacing stare. Switched and glowered
up at Petúr whose expression was unreadable. “Because I know I’m not seeing my
bartender, in my back lot, half dressed, doing God only knows what with you Petúr.”

She heard Vibe snicker.

“Incoming, big guy!” Dash yelled.

She jumped, startled, her hand
going to her chest.

Petúr grabbed both Bell and
Wyndi, spun on his heel, flinging them behind him. “Protect the human woman,”
Petúr said, kicking into gear.

Some sort of dark swarm emerged
out of the shadows on the far end of the parking lot. Eyes rounded, Wyndi
backed up. From nowhere another man came running in their direction. “Move!” he
yelled, shooting flames out in front of her. The heat was sweltering. Her mouth
fell open. Yes, he was shooting flames from his hands.

Bell grabbed onto her by the
collar and yanked. They hit the ground in a wallop, purse and computer bag
thumping down between them. Her heartbeat pounded in her throat. A sense of
déjà vu struck. Had she been on the ground earlier tonight?
Yes.
She rubbed at her thudding temples.
Everything slowed down around her as memories—and they were memories, Wyndi
realized—of being accosted by some sort of dark demon thing in the alley played
out inside her head as if she were watching a scratchy, looping video.

Vibe.
She remembered
him staring at her.
 
Recalled a ruffling
sensation, butterfly wings flapping inside her head. Heat. A penetrating
vibration.
No way.
Had Vibe done
something to her? Messed with her head somehow? What she was considering made
no sense. It just wasn’t possible. Was it?

 
She glanced up. Petúr, Vibe, Dash, and the
newest arrival, a redheaded human flame thrower, were in a semicircle around
her and Bell, taking on the converging monsters in her parking lot with a fluid
grace of movement which mesmerized her—a macabre ballet set to the soundtrack
of screeching, bones breaking, snarling growls, grunts, hisses, curses, and
groans.

In front of her, Petúr gripped
two daggers, one in each hand. Even though hell was happening all around her,
she couldn’t stop watching him. He ducked blows, bent, spun, kicked, thrust,
chopped, slashed, his chocolate colored hair tipped in golden sun swishing
around his chiseled cheekbones…. His golden eyes caught in the light, flashing
deadly ferocity.
God.
He was pure
banked power and liquid motion as he cut down dark being after dark being,
without mercy.

Heads rolled. Blood arced. Dark
gnarled remains burst into clouds of smog, leaving behind ash that scattered in
the breeze. Perhaps she should be horrified to be witnessing such brutality, or
maybe she’d completely lost her mind, but Petúr was utterly fantastic. Coat
gone. Shirt hanging in tatters. Glorious muscles flexing. The blood of those
monsters splattered across his fallen angel’s face.

He was artwork, yet she didn’t
think she’d ever seen any artwork, or anyone, so hauntingly beautiful.

Chapter Four

Oh,
hella no.

Bell wasn’t going to cower on the
ground, especially with some wacked-out black thing slithering across the
pavement, coming toward her and Wyndi.

“We can’t stay here.” She tugged
on her boss’s arm, getting no response. “We need to move.” She looked over to
see Wyndi, her expression strangely blank, with her gaze clearly trained on
Petúr. “Wyndi,” she said, adding a bit of bite to the tone, relieved to see
blue eyes as she turned to look at her. “We’ve got to go.”

“Where? We’re surrounded.”

“Petúr!” Bell yelled, kicking out
at the misty hand reaching for her boss’s foot. “They’re after her.” She hadn’t
made contact when she kicked and didn’t know how to fight shadows and mist. She
needed to get into the air. She could help from the air.

“Dash,” Petúr bellowed, embedding
one of his daggers into the neck of a darkling. Blood gurgled out of the wound.
“Get the human out of here.”

“Come on!” Bell tugged then
shoved the now terrified looking Wyndi face-first toward the warrior right
before she transformed into a hummingbird, clothing falling from her form when
she took flight.

From her vantage point, high
above the battle on the ground, she saw Dash turn. The slithering shadow had
started to reach for Wyndi again. Dash was fast. He ducked a blade being hurled
at him, slid on his hip, reached up, wrapped his arm around Wyndi’s waist, then
bam
! They were gone.

Dash
can teleport
.
He and the others who fought by Petúr’s side had to be the fabled lost boys,
caught within the world of man when Queen Serbian sealed the portal between the
human realm and the world of the fae. A brief moment of relief washed over her.
Dash would have Wyndi far away from this nightmare in a matter of milliseconds.
Yet the relief was soon followed by a sense of renewed panic.

Vibe took a knife to the thigh.
The one who wielded fire was quickly being overtaken. And she knew Petúr didn’t
see the dark being sprouting up from the pavement, shrouded in mist. Bell
didn’t know if this would work or not, but she had nothing to lose at this
point. She had to do what she could to protect Petúr.
 

Bell dive-bombed the asshat
headed toward Petúr’s back, releasing her fairy dust. It fell from her tiny
flapping wings—glistening bits that sprinkled the misty-shadow-dude. His
shoulder appeared. A stump of an arm. Now that she could locate him within the
mist, she could glamour him, or at least she hoped she could.

No
coulds, Bell.
She would stop the advancing army of darkness.

Bell shifted back into her fae
body, placing her small nude frame between Mr. Stumpy and Petúr, fairy wings
flapping, dust pluming out behind her, surrounding Petúr, Vibe, and the fiery
one in a cloud of shimmering fairy protection.

“Stop,”
she said,
projecting her voice from that place deep inside her mind, blowing fairy dust
into the vicinity of the dark one’s face. An iridescent nose, mouth and chin
appeared. Bingo. She locked onto his eyes—shadowed shades of red. “You will
stop your attack and call back your minions.”

The butt-plug cackled. “Your pathetic
little fairy tricks do not work on me.”

Shit.
He couldn’t be
glamoured. She wished she had been able to finish her talk with Petúr, tell him
who he was. However, they’d been interrupted by Wyndi as Bell tried to prove
she was indeed a fairy. No time or choice in the matter now. She had to invoke
the right on behalf of Petúr.

“I call forth the birthright of
Princess Illia, rightful heir to the crown of the Seelie Sidhe
Fae,” Bell said, lifting her chin
in defiance.

“No!” the dark one roared. The
other beings stilled.

“Petúr of the lost boys,” Bell said.
“On this day, you shall know who you are.” A misty hand shot out of the shadow
and slapped her to the ground; she hit hard, one wing twisting under her upon
impact. Pain spiraled along her spine. She didn’t have time to wuss-out from
pain. She fought past the ache and continued. “You are the firstborn and only
son of Illia the Fair, born into the royal line as Petúr the Just. Prince of
our land. The only male Seelie Sidhe Fae with the mark of supremacy. Rightful
and future King, defender of the realm, and protector of your people.” She
pointed up at the being in front of her, and knew who he must be. “And, you,
Grapple the Dark, banished healer of the royal court, consort to the demoness
of nightmare and shadow, shall bow at the feet of your prince and beg for his
mercy.”

The remaining horde screeched,
flashing into the void of night.

“Never!” Grapple shouted.

A barbed hook shot into Bell’s
shoulder—a devastating projectile. She screamed, the agony so harsh she almost
passed out. Yet that penetrating pain was nothing compared to what she
experienced when the hook was retracted, filleting open muscle and flesh. She
slumped. Strong arms banded around her, and then she was floating upward, blood
flowing in a river from the nasty wound.

“You may have been saved on this
night,” Grapple bellowed. “But I shall destroy you Petúr! You shall never live
to claim the human woman, or your birthright.”

“Vibe. Those humans,” said her
prince. She was jostled.

“On it.”

“Hang on, Bell.”

That was Petúr again. Her prince
had hold of her.

On the verge of losing
consciousness, with the ground becoming smaller and farther away, Bell saw a
trail of her fairy dust as Grapple slithered into the shadows from which he
came.

****

When Wyndi’s Prada covered feet
hit the ground, she heaved from her toes, tossing her cookies out in front of
her, hearing the disgusting splat on the broken and uneven concrete.

“I’m sorry,” Dash said, letting
her loose from his hold and patting her back. “I know teleporting can be
disorientating for some people.”

“I just—How? How is any of this
possible?” she asked, hearing the warble in her own voice, and wiping her mouth
on her torn and dirt-smudged suit jacket.

“I don’t know,” Dash said. “None
of us really know. All I can say is we aren’t like you.”

She straightened, knees
practically knocking together. “That’s putting things mildly.”

He chuckled. “Are you steady
enough to walk, or—”

Wyndi raised her finger. “Give me
a second.” Her rattled brain went to
Petúr
.
She was worried about him. His safety. “Don’t you need to go back and help
Petúr with those things? There were so many of them, and—”

“Trust me. Petúr, Vibe, and
Firefox can take care of the darklings without me.”

“Darklings?”

“That’s what we call them.”

She looked over at him, and
stared into his midnight colored eyes. “What are darklings? Some kind of
demons?”

“I think I’m going to let Petúr
explain things as much as he can when he gets here.”

She glanced around to see where
“here” was. At the moment, the moon was out, illuminating her surroundings in
silver-white light. To her left was a dead carousel, partially covered by
overgrown weeds. A few feet from there, a broken down bumper car ride. The once
brightly colored cars sat eerily still, coming apart at the welded seams from
rust.

Neverland.
She was
standing in the abandoned amusement park. “Why are we here?”
 

“This is home,” Dash said, taking
hold of her elbow.

“You live here?” She imagined the
shock playing out on her face was beyond evident.

“For now. Can you walk?” She
nodded. “Then, come on.”

Dash never let loose of her arm.
She wasn’t sure if he was hoping to assist her, if she should take a tumble due
to her unsteady legs and the uneven mess of the concrete, or if he thought to
stop her if she decided to run from him. As if she would run. Where would she
run to?