WICKED AS A PIXIE
Kendra Moreno
© Kendra Moreno 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests please email the author at [email protected]
Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are the product of the authors’ unmanageable imaginations; any similarity to real people is purely coincidence.
No pirating please.
Cover by Ruxandra Tudorica of Methyss Design
Edits by Dani Black of Black Lotus Edits
Proofreading by Cynthia Krietz
Formatting by The Nutty Formatter
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Afterword
To continue the adventure
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also By Kendra
You all have wings.
Always remember how it feels to fly.
Prologue
THOUSANDS OF YEARS B.C. (BEFORE CHOOSING)
The beat of the music thrums through my soul beneath my bare feet, absorbing into my body and heightening the haze. Everything around me is dark, so dark, but I keep my wings spread wide behind me as my own source of light, the pixie dust raining on the ground, sending the fae and pixies circling me into a feeding frenzy. The metallic tang of blood hovers on the wind, coats my tongue as it curls around my shoulders like an aura, and I find myself purring at the taste of it.
Slowly, I make my way between those bowing to me, giving over their power to the most powerful. I’m already covered in blood, drenched in it; I’ve already proven my strength. This part is nothing more than the ceremony to crown me, the most bloodthirsty pixie of all.
I had run through the forest for hours, hunting, finding prey after prey and stealing their lifeblood. It’d been a pleasure to do, fun even, but I keep my face as regal as ever, even splattered and smeared with red. My once green dress is coated with dried and fresh blood, making it look rust colored rather than the pretty green it’d once been.
At the front of the Coven, before my people, stands an altar, an offering to the new Queen. As tradition dictates—tradition we somehow know—I’m to be offered something worthy of my title, to commemorate the moment I step in as ruling monarch. I know to expect it, have even prepared myself for it, but still I’m not prepared for the boy chained there.
“Were there no beasts?” I murmur, glancing at Swift where he stands prone before me. “A human is hardly an offering for a Queen.”
The boy smiles at my words and I narrow my eyes, studying him closer. There’s a challenge in his eyes with my words and I don’t like it. A shock of bright red curls sits on his head, tumbling over his forehead and making him as attractive as his sharp jawline does. He strains against his bonds, lean muscles standing out, but he won’t break his ties. Not while they’re enchanted. He’s a prisoner to my whims, and as my offering, death is on the table.
“He took out three of our own before we captured him,” Swift offers as explanation.
I hum and raise my brow. “So, not just a human then.”
I reach forward and stroke a sharp nail along the side of the boy’s face. He looks the same age as I am, frozen at sixteen, but here in Neverland, that’s not so strange. There are no adults here, not in the normal sense, but we’re all still plenty mature enough. Only our bodies are frozen. The boy takes the opportunity to snap his teeth at me, an attempt to bite me, but I’m fast and it only makes me laugh.
“Feisty,” I murmur, stroking my nail along his straining arm, drawing a bead of blood in one place where I press too hard. “Do you have a name?”
“Why would I tell you my name?” he snarls, pulling harder at his bonds. “When I get out of here, I’m going to relish ripping you to shreds.”
Laughing, I lean close and smell, the scent of his blood almost making my toes curl. It smells like power, like an aphrodisiac, and I’m anxious to taste. “You’re not the only monster here,” I murmur, licking my lips. I find myself climbing on top of the altar, straddling the boy, my teeth sharpening as I prepare to strike. The need to taste him is overpowering.
“You may think you’re the worst monster here,” the boy says, “but you’re not, Tink.”
I freeze and narrow my eyes. How did the boy know my name? “Who are you?” I snarl, sensing the threat. Even with his blood calling to me, begging me to taste, making me almost animalistic with how badly I want to taste, I wait. A Queen knows all her options. A Queen has control. And I will be the Wicked Pixie Queen of Neverland and everything I do must represent that.
“Peter,” he rasps, and I can feel his arousal beneath me. He’s not as immune to my powers as he thinks. “Peter Pan.”
And then the boy tilts his chin up, offering his neck. The invitation is too good to pass up. I strike, sinking my teeth into his flesh, pulling on the blood that immediately wells in my mouth. The taste that hits my tongue is sweet, sprinkled with stars, strong. The strength and power in his blood tells me all I need to know.
We didn’t catch Peter Pan. He wanted to be captured.
That becomes even more apparent when I feel his hands on my hip and the back of my neck, holding me to him, hands that had previously been tied down with unbreakable chains, but I can’t seem to bring myself to care. I pull harder on the blood at his neck, intending to drain him, but that was never his plan. He only made me think I’m in control, but I’m not. I recognize it too late, too far gone in the bloodlust to do anything more than drink my fill. I could no more break the connection than he could.
“Good girl,” he rasps, grinding against me, his voice thick with something other, something vicious. “Fill yourself with power.”
But at some point, it stops feeling like power, and instead, it feels like I’m drinking darkness.
Straight, brutal, powerful, darkness. . .
“Good girl.”
Something inside me shifts, and I accept the mantle of Queen with blood coating my skin and stars in my veins.
Just as Peter always intended. . .
Chapter One
I stand on the doorstep of my home, staring out at all the various people now holding residence in my home, in my Coven. There was a time where I would have happily turned them all away, told them to figure their problems out themselves while I focused on my Coven, but that wa
s long before I was Chosen as a Daughter. Being a Daughter is about more than my people. It’s about all of Neverland and doing whatever I can to keep the peace. Right now, there isn’t much peace to be had.
So when it came time, I pulled the Tribe into the Coven, and Wendy and Hook’s people came along with them. And now, we have those from a different land, from Wonderland, taking up residence inside my home. And I can’t get it out of my mind. There’s a strange juxtaposition between our people, the cultures so different from each other even though we come from the same land—not including the Wonderlandians—that it makes for an odd sight every time I study them. The coarser outfits of the Tribe contradict the elegant fashion of the Coven, while some of the pirates are dirtier than if they’d rolled in the mud. Change is coming, and I’m not sure any of us are ready for it.
I can’t get one particular man out of my mind, my eyes constantly drawn to him in the bustle of activity, but that’s a disaster waiting to happen, so I keep to myself, holding myself apart from everyone else. There’s no need to make more enemies. There’s no need to revert into the Wicked Queen.
I’ve been consistently checking the heart since it nearly died, since Peter sacrificed himself to give us just a little more time. It’s strange to touch the heart and feel stars behind it now. When I told Tiger Lily, she’d gone to touch the heart herself, but she’d admitted, sadly, that she couldn’t feel anything of Peter there. Sympathy for the Speaker of the Trees fills me every time I speak to her, every time I see the pain in her eyes. To have that kind of loss, I can’t imagine. I don’t even know what it is to lose someone you love. I only know what it’s like to lose pieces of yourself.
Sometimes, I check the heart as many as four times a day, afraid there’s been a change since the last time I checked, but though there are brief fluctuations, it stays steady, but that doesn’t mean anything. Each time I check it, it only solidifies what I already know.
Neverland is dying.
No matter how many times I check it, no matter how often I attempt to push more power into it, the heart dies a little more each day. No matter how much we try to stop it, the end is happening, and we’re running out of time to stop it. Peter’s sacrifice only stalled the process briefly, only gave the heart just enough juice to steady, but we’re running out of time. Even now, something inside me counts down the minutes. If only it was an exact number. If only I knew how long we truly have.
“We should switch from trying to stop it to finding a way to escape with our people,” I murmur out loud, shaking my head. The more I think about it, the more it seems like our only option. Saving our people is more important than saving the land. There’s no stopping the dying of the heart, not now, and it’s only accelerated with Peter’s sacrifice, even if he momentarily reset the clock. Each day, the fluctuations get a little closer together, and though the heart is steady, it’s still steadily dying.
The only reassurance about everything happening is that the Crocodile is as stuck here as we are. Unless he gets ahold of Wendy, he can’t escape either, and that brings me pleasure. I’d leave the asshole here to die with the rest of his creatures if it was up to me. Of course, it’s not. Tiger Lily reserves the right to decide what to do with her brother. That’s her decision to make when the time comes, to deal the final blow or give him a chance to change. Neither Wendy nor I will make that decision for her.
Because monsters can change. I’ve learned that in all the years I’ve been in Neverland. I’ve learned it just by looking at myself.
My eyes flick over toward Captain Hook where he watches Wendy move some small crate. There’s heat in his eyes, flickering for all to see; he never tries to hide it. He doesn’t step forward to help her, knowing she’d just hiss at him in annoyance, so he watches, perfectly happy to. Another monster that found a reason to be less monstrous. We all have our reasons, even if those reasons aren’t always known. It helps to find someone who makes you want to be better. It helps when there’s someone who cares.
Once upon a time, when Hook and I had briefly come together, we’d made each other worse, and so it had never gone anywhere besides to the deepest parts of the ocean. Hook had been a different person back then, on a rampage of proving strength and power just like me, determined to be as dark as possible. For me, it was simply who I was at the time. I hadn’t liked how dark I became around Hook though, and in the end, I hadn’t wanted blood to be my only legacy. But Wendy and Hook? They’re two sides of the same coin, perfect for each other in every way. Though there’s still darkness in Hook’s eyes, he pushes it aside for his Wendy Bird, a better man deserving of standing beside her. I’m happy for them, even if there’s a slight jealousy of their bond, too.
My eyes focus on the Sea Captain as she turns and grins up at her Star Captain, before throwing her arms around his neck and pressing a kiss against his lips. Happy thoughts. Everywhere I look I see happy thoughts, and they make me flinch with their mirth.
How amusing though, that the most human of us all is the one that will set us all free if we can figure out the door.
As I look out over the Coven, it’s as if, at the end of our world, everyone has suddenly realized all the time they’ve lost, finding new mates. Even my people are finding them. Swift lingers too close to the pirate from Wendy’s crew, the couple happy even if Swift tries to curb his happy thoughts. The Wonderlandians are already paired up, all but one, and their happy thoughts join the others, louder than most anyone else, because they’ve been able to be happy for a longer period of time. They can’t know the danger of those thoughts in Neverland and I certainly won’t be the one to reveal the weakness.
My eyes flick to a different part of the Coven, where Tiger sits with her daughter and the Mad March Hare of Wonderland. I’d always assumed Tiger and Peter would end up together, another couple who danced around each other for so long, it was annoying to watch, but unlike Hook and Wendy, Peter was never able to find the light, though I have no doubt he tried. After witnessing their words in the heart cave, after seeing the anguish, it had moved even my own heart and I mourned the loss right alongside Tiger Lily. Something that profound, a loss like that, will always stick with the Chieftess. Watching Peter struggle in that way had been hard for all of us, and ultimately, I assume it’s why he so easily sacrificed himself. He knew when his time would come, and there are two people currently in my Coven he was happy to do so for.
Peter loved Tiger. I saw it in his eyes in the cave, the first time I saw anything of weight in Peter’s eyes besides darkness, but I suspect Tiger had seen it more often. In their case, as the tragedies in Neverland go, love wasn’t enough. Sometimes, no matter how much you love something, you can’t save it. Sometimes, we can’t repair broken wings with tape and happy thoughts.
Still, two soulmates. Tiger has two soulmates. What I wouldn’t give to have just one.
“How long have you been out here?”
I startle at the sudden voice that comes from nowhere. I never heard anyone approach, but the moment the voice speaks, I spin. My knife is out the moment my eyes find the threat, my wings flaring wide in warning behind me like the predator I am, pixie dust raining around me with the sudden motion.
Atlas raises his brows, and even with my knife pointed at his throat, he a takes a sip of tea from a roughly carved teacup.
“Didn’t anyone warn you not to sneak up on people?” I growl, flicking my knife away quickly. My tongue runs along the sharp edges of my teeth, coaxing them to return to normal so I don’t scare the poor man. Something tells me he wouldn’t be scared at all, but I put them away regardless. Once upon a time, I kept the sharp edges out for all to see, but those were darker times. Now, I want to be more than the blood-thirsty Queen of Neverland.
Atlas shrugs and takes another sip of tea. “Sure, but I wasn’t sneaking. I can’t help if I’m quiet.”
I wrinkle my nose up at him and return my attention to my Coven, watching. “What is your role again?” I grumble. I’m being rude, I kn
ow, but I can’t bring myself not to be. Not when it’ll bring disaster otherwise.
I can feel Atlas’ eyes on the knife at my waist, and though he hadn’t reacted to my threat, he still keeps sight of the weapon. I have a feeling he kept himself non-threatening on purpose, and though he hadn’t reacted, he knows exactly how sharp my blade is.
“Berserker,” he answers, leaning against the railing at my side.
I glance at him in confusion. “And what exactly does that mean?”
He shrugs again, meeting my eyes. Atlas is handsome enough to be unnerving. I don’t know if it has to do with the power in his veins or if he’s simply built that way. His eyes are slanted, just like his sister’s, and though at first glance, his eyes look brown, if you look closer, you can see a variety of other colors, like a galaxy. His jaw is chiseled—what is it about chiseled jaws that make us all melt? —and the muscles that strain against the plain black shirt he wears urges me to touch them. I don’t, but still. I want to.
“Who knows?” he admits. “I’m a Son, somehow, the Lost one.” He grins. “So profound, right? But so far, I haven’t done more than chop the heads off the Tweedles with my axe and practice for something I know is coming. I’m lucky Cal even let me claim the title. I was only fifteen at the time.”
Wicked as a Pixie (Daughters of Neverland Book 3) Page 1