Page 53 of Devour the Dark

“I…he…” James crumbles. “Please get your hands off him.”

Antony cocks his head back. “Oh. Okay. Okay.” He looks up at Roc. “Someone’s finally managed to snag you?”

“When a handsome pirate claims me, who am I to resist?”

Antony chuckles. It’s the kind of deep, rich laughter that makes everything feel lighter and airier.

“It’s not like that,” James says.

Antony squeezes James’s hand as he moves away. “It doesn’t have to be anything, friend. Just let it be what it is.”

Roc swings his arm around James and pulls him down the aisle, following in Antony’s footsteps. “Yes, Captain. Just let us be what we are.”

I sense the air shifting beside me. “You know you can claim him too?” Winnie whispers.

Asha and Vane disappear into the clothing racks, pretending to look at the clothing while secretly plotting the strategy. They’ve only met, but Asha seems right at home with Roc and Vane. As if they understand one another.

We wander down an aisle, then around a rack of simple cotton dresses. Roc and James come into view again. Roc is so tall that he’s easy to spot across the racks of clothing.

There is agency in claiming something, in deciding it belongs to you. But nothing has ever belonged to me. Peter Pan kidnapped me when I was eighteen and I never returned home. Not even my own baby, my own flesh and blood, belonged to me. She was taken from my arms, smuggled a world away.

Everything I’ve ever had, has been stolen from me.

Everything I had in the Everland Court, I knew, deep down, belonged to Hald and that he could rip it away again at any moment.

“I’m afraid.” The words slip out of me without thinking about what they might cost.

Winnie tilts her head, regarding me like a puzzle piece, defining my edges as if to decide where I might fit best.

“Why?” she asks.

“They abandoned me once. They can again.” My vision goes watery with tears. “And now they have this entire thing without me. I don’t want to ruin their equilibrium.”

Winnie snorts. “Have you ever thought to ask yourself if youarethe equilibrium?”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“If there is anything I’ve learned about being with Vane and Pan, Bash and Kas?—”

“Wait, you’re with all four of them?” My question comes out almost a wheeze of incredulity.

“Yes? You didn’t know?”

“I think I thought it was Vane and Pan, mostly. The twins…I guess I wasn’t sure.”

“The twins aren’t as obvious about it as Vane and Pan. Kas and Bash aren’t as possessive or territorial. But yes, I’m with all four of them. We’ve negotiated all of the pitfalls of a five-person relationship. And trust me, there are a lot. But what I was saying is, while I might have come to them very late in their relationships, and I could have easily felt like a fifth wheel, I quickly learned they needed me just as much as I needed them. Hook and Roc might have established something before finding you—which honestly, the fact I’m even saying that is wild, trust me, they were trying to kill each other not that long ago. But anyway, what I mean is, you are not a third wheel. They need you for who you are, just like you need them for who they are. You just have to figure out what that is and embrace it.”

We pass a rack of hairbands that are sequined and embroidered and feathered. “You are my great-great-great something granddaughter, and somehow, I feel like you are far wiser than I ever was.”

She chuckles and takes my hand affectionately. “There’s this saying in my world—our world—fake it till you make it. I’m mostly just faking it.”

We laugh together.

“What is our world like now? What is something you think might surprise me?”

“Hmmm, oh god. Let me think. There’s so much.” We keep walking the perimeter of the store. “Oh here’s a good one. Women can finally own property.”

I pull away. “Truly?”

---