Rise of the Lost Prince (9 page)

“Maybe the city is—”

“The city of Oceanport sold
Neverland to your father.”

She sat up in a shot, and he had
to admit Wyndi looked good in his bed.

“What?”

“Your father bought Neverland.
This place is now part of Darlinghart, Inc.”

She dropped her chin, autumn hair
falling to obscure her face. “His beach front condo project,” she muttered
under her breath. “I knew he’d been working on something.” She glanced up at
him, blue eyes sad. “I didn’t know this was the land. God. I’m so sorry,
Petúr.”

“Don’t be,” he said, in a much
harsher tone than he ever wanted to use with her.

“What are you going to do?”

“For now, scare off the
surveyors,” he said, turning from her, and stomping out his bedroom door.

****

Wyndi was experiencing a mishmash
of emotions and shaking from lingering need. Her skin still tingled from
Petúr’s touch, and she wanted to hold onto every sensation, like the way his
large hands felt upon her body. His kiss. The warmth of his mouth. The mastery
of his tongue. The way he made her feel hot and wanting. Yet her mind kept going
to the anger apparent on his face when he spoke of her father buying Neverland.

Her poor warrior. Was he really
hers?
Yes,
she decided. There would
be no denying the instantaneous, heated connection between them. No denying how
much she wanted him. And how could she disallow the passion in his kiss? She
caressed her mouth with her fingertips. She couldn’t.

There was also no refuting Petúr
was a warrior to his core. Capable. Strong. Stoic. Yet, she’d seen moments of
boy-like vulnerability. Sadness within the depths of his eyes. Longing. Those
emotions he worked at hiding away made a lot of sense. When Wyndi heard Bell
tell him about Illia, his mother, how he’d been left behind as a newborn baby,
never knowing of her. He grew up never knowing of his home, and her own heart
ached for him. By his own admission, he’d always felt different. An outcast.

Wyndi bit at the inside of her
cheek and shook her head. How he’d survived, she didn’t know, but he had. He’d
thrived even. And, now, the one place he clearly loved, the place he’d made his
home, was being threatened by her father.

She rolled out of bed, brushing
her fingers through her hair, and setting her chin. “Screw that.”

She would do something about her
father and his newest pet project. She couldn’t see Petúr and the others
homeless. She just couldn’t.

Wyndi marched, with determined
barefooted steps, into the room everyone referred to as the control center, where
Tera and Byte were sitting in office chairs in front of a wall of monitors. Her
attention bounced to those monitors, seeing men in white hardhats scatter when
something huge and dark shot past them in a blur overhead. She heard a noise
akin to a sonic boom. Panicked shouts. Saw their surveying equipment and some
of those white hats tumble from an unseen wind an instant before a thick fog
rolled in. And was that Vibe, strolling over to one of the men who cowered
behind the old ticket booth?

Her eyes narrowed. Yeah. It was,
Vibe. Obviously, the twins had the amusement park rigged with cameras as well
as listening devices.

“Don’t hurt me,” the man said,
voice shaky.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” said
Vibe.

Where
was Petúr?
He had to be in the mix somewhere, but she didn’t see him.

Pulling her attention away from
what was going on outside, she blurted out, “Do you guys have a telephone in
here?”

Tera glanced over his shoulder.
“Hi ya, doll.”

Her brow crinkled. “Er…Hi.”

“What do you need a phone for?”
asked Byte, not bothering to glance in her direction.

 
“I lost my purse and laptop last night in the
ruckus outside my bar. My cell phone was in my purse and I need to make a
call,” she said.

“We’ve got your laptop and your
purse.” Tera pointed to a desk butted up against the far wall. “Vibe brought it
to us last night.”

She smiled, bounding over to snag
up her purse, then frowned when she didn’t find her phone inside. “No phone,”
she uttered. She tapped her foot. “Can I use yours? I need to make a call,” she
said again.

“To whom?” asked Byte.

“My father.”

Byte turned around at that. “Why
would you need to call Cromwell Darlingheart?”

“You know he’s my father?”

He nodded. “Of course. Petúr told
us.”

She bit at the inside of her
cheek. “I want to call and tell him to call off the surveyors.”

“No need,” said Tera. “Those
pesky humans will be gone soon enough.”

“Yeah,” said Byte.

She glowered at them. “I’m a
human.”

“We know, doll.” Tera’s nostrils
worked. “No getting around that fact.”

Wyndi put her hands on her hips.
“What’s that suppose to mean?”

“Just that we could smell you
from a mile away.”

She frowned. “Smell me?”

“Oh, absolutely, doll,” said
Tera.

“So, not only do I smell, but I’m
pesky?”

“Never said that.” Tera elbowed
his brother. “Did I, Byte?”

“Nope,” said Byte, shaking his
head. “He never said you were pesky. Just that you smell.”

Wyndi sniffed the ends of her
hair. Her shoulder. “What do I smell like?”

“Candy. Sugar sweet.”

Candy wasn’t a bad scent as
scents go she supposed.

“Mm,” Tera agreed.

“All right, all right,” she said.
She needed to get this conversation back on track. “I don’t really care if you
consider me pesky or not, or if I smell like candy.”

“Reek actually,” Byte said. “You
reek of candy.”

She sighed. Exasperated. “Fine.”

“Not sure reek’s the right term,
Byte,” said Tera. “Reek indicates something bad, and her odor—”

“Odor,” Byte said, laughing. “As
if odor is any better than reek.”

“Odor’s better than stink. Or
stench.”

“True,” said Byte. “Her smell,
while strong, isn’t unpleasant.”

“Ah. I know.” Tera clapped. “How
about wonderfully odoriferous?”

“Okay,” Wyndi interjected,
holding up her hand. “I don’t care about your word choices to describe what I
smell like. What I really care about is a—”

“No phones,” said Byte, face
serious now.

Tera nodded. “Yep. What he said.”

“Oh come on, you guys. You expect
me to believe that, with all the technology in this place, including the
internet?” She eyed the computer screen just to the right of Tera where a set
of golf clubs on Ebay took center stage.

“What?” said Tera, catching her
gaze. “I like to golf. What’s wrong with that?”

She rolled her eyes. “You want me
to believe you don’t have a phone? Not even a cell phone?”

“Believe what you will, luv,”
said Byte. “But, no phone until Petúr decides what he’s going to do about you.”

Do
about me?

Chapter Eight

Vapor and Vibe flanked Petúr as
they headed back to the castle, the two of them doing a fist bump with each
other. “Way to make those old dudes shake in their boots, Vape.”

“Shake? More like piss their
pants.” Vapor laughed before woo-hooing. “God. I love this scare the humans
shit.”

“I may have,” said Vibe,
Wink. Wink
. “implanted the suggestion
Neverland was haunted. So I doubt we see those surveyors again.”

 
“Don’t celebrate our victory too soon,” said
Petúr. “We may have scared off Cromwell’s men this time, but more will come.”

Vibe glanced at Petúr from the
corner of his eye. “Speaking of our old buddy. What are you going to do about
his daughter?”

“Something I imagine she’s not
going to like.”

****

“You can’t do this,” Wyndi
insisted, stomping her foot in the middle of the kitchen.

“I can, and I will,” Petúr said,
eyes burning like liquid gold.

Dash started studying the
newspaper he hadn’t been reading. And was Tera whistling as he walked off?
Men.

“I refuse to be some kind of
prisoner, Petúr.”

“On that note,” said Firefox,
placing a massive bowl of scrambled eggs in the middle of the table. “I’m outta
here.”

Petúr made a derisive sound,
glancing down at her. “Prisoner? Really?”

“Okay. Maybe not a prisoner in
the actual sense of the word, but—”

“I’m freakin’ hungry,” said
Vapor, grabbing up a plate of bacon. “So, you two fight away. I’m still
eating.”

“Me, too,” said Byte. “Pass the
toast, Vape my man.”

“Grapple is after you, Wyndi.”
Petúr said, ignoring all of his brothers. “And in case you’ve forgotten the
incident in your parking lot, he’s not someone who you want on your trail.”

“No,” she said, quietly,
picturing the swarm of darklings coming out of the shadows. A shiver spiraled
down her spine. “I haven’t forgotten.”

“I can better protect you here.”

“I can’t stay in Neverland
indefinitely, Petúr. I have a business to run, and I can’t go missing without
word.”

He crossed his arms, biceps
bulging.
Get a grip
, she thought.
They were having an argument in the middle of the kitchen, with witnesses. Was
it weird she wanted to lick the right well-formed muscle and then the left?

“You’re not leaving the castle,”
he said, lines of tension branching out from the corners of his devastatingly
gorgeous eyes. “End of story.”

The man was stubborn. Well, two
could play that game.

She crossed her arms, doubting
the gesture to be as impressive. “I at least need to go home for a little
while.”

He gave one terse shake of his
head. “Not happening.”

“I won’t stay long. I’ll do what
I need to then come back.”

“Nope.”

Wyndi heaved a sighed.
Exasperated. “I need to make some calls, get my assistant manager to fill in at
the bar, have Sven cover for Bell, and shift servers around on the floor.” She
glanced down at herself. “Not to mention, I don’t have any clothing here and I
can’t flit around in your T-shirts all the time.”

He smirked, glancing down the
length of her body. “Why not? I enjoy the way you look in my T-shirts.”

She quickly looked around to see
the others not really paying attention, or maybe they were good at hiding the
fact they actually were taking in every moment of their quarrel.

Her cheeks flamed. “Get serious,
Petúr.”

“I assure you, I am serious.”

More heat danced over her skin by
the way he was watching her.

“But—”

“Vibe will pay a visit to Jolly
Roger’s. You’re away on business for your father. At least, that’s what
everyone will believe.”

“And Bell?”

“Out sick,” he said. “Vibe will
make sure her shift is covered.”

She set her chin, hands on hips.
“And my father? Is Vibe going to scramble my father’s brains, too?”

A muscle in his jaw ticked. “What
do you mean, too?”

“I wasn’t mugged in that alley,
was I?”

“No,” he said in a quiet tone.
“One of the darklings was after you.” She blinked, the memory coming forward in
her mind of a ghoul with a forked tongue. “I’m sorry, but I was trying to
protect you from remembering something most would consider a nightmare.”

“And trying to keep me from
knowing about you and the others, too.”

“Yes,” he said. “But, now you
know, and I promise Vibe will never change your memories again.”

“And, my father?”

He pinched the bridge of his
nose. “You’re father is a hard man to get alone.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You’ve
tried to have Vibe do the mind thing on him?”

Petúr scowled. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” She lifted her chin. “Please
clarify.”

“Let’s just say, if we could have
stopped him from buying this place, we would have.”

He sounded so defeated. Some of
her ire settled.

“Just...” She paused and looked
away. “Don’t hurt him.”

“Do you believe I would?” he
asked, voice hard.

“I don’t know.” She glanced back
up to see the harsh planes of his glorious face. “Maybe.”

“Maybe? Please clarify.”

So, he wasn’t above using her
tactics.

“Perhaps you would.” She bit at
the inside of her cheek.

“Perhaps?” He snorted. “Perhaps
isn’t an answer, Wyndi.”