Page 26 of Devour the Dark

The first draw of the knife is nothing more than a scratch. The blade isn’t special, just Winterlander steel, not magical enough to do real damage. I pull again and press harder.

My skin finally breaks, and a bead of blood wells up. I hold the wound over the teacup.

The flow of blood is slow, the cut not quite big enough.

A clock ticks above the counter behind us. A slow tick-tock that churns up dark memories and darker urges.

I haven’t been a monster in years, not since I hunted down and claimed the Darkland shadow. Sometimes, what I was before, the things I did, it all feels like a fever dream.

When there’s a finger of blood in the cup, Roc grabs it and quickly slings it back.

He didn’t want it, but I know he needs it.

He slinks down in his chair, eyes closed once he’s swallowed it down.

Our blood is meant only to be drunk when in dire need of stabilizing the monster. It’s meant for emergencies only when nothing else will work.

It was Roc’s blood that helped me through the first phase of claiming the Darkland Shadow. When it fought me at every turn, when it tore at me from the inside, leaving three bloody claw marks over my eye. My monster didn’t like the shadow, and the shadow didn’t like my monster, and the first night, I lay in bed, writhing against their warring, sweating through my clothes while my bones ached.

“Better?” I ask him, returning to the chair across from him.

His eyes snap open and his irises burn bright green. “Better.”

Roc and I have seen each other at our worst. That is the one constant about our relationship. We will never turn away when our darkness shows its stains.

“You can’t stay here,” I tell him. “Peter Pan?—”

“I don’t want to stay here. Neverland’s usefulness has run its course.”

The clock keeps ticking.

“What will you do?”

“I have to go to Darkland.” He looks over at me. “Will you come with?”

“No.”

“Vane.”

“No. I’m not going to Darkland.”

He sits forward, his elbow propped on the table. He’s serious now. He’s rarely serious. Fine lines appear around his eyes as he frowns at me, his shoulders hunched forward. “Something is wrong.”

“No shit.”

“Not the witch. Not that.”

I won’t admit it to him, but he does have me slightly intrigued. “Then what?”

“The Myth Makers.”

“The Lostland Secret Society?”

“Yes.”

I sit up straighter. “Go on.”

“I found a maker’s mark on the back of the fae throne and another on the back of the king’s bed in Everland.”

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