Page 1 of Prince of Never

Chapter 1

Imogen

Inearlydiedonce,at the hands of a monster who paraded around as a man.He appeared from the shadows, on a night much like this one, with nothing but the pale moonlight breaking through the darkness.He lured a young and stupid girl away from her friends with a smile and few kind words.A tale as old as time.

Only this one had fangs.

That’s why I never stayed past dark, never risked the night alone, where creatures could hide in the cold depths of the shadows, as if they were portals to another world, a world of demons and deception, a world where good was swallowed by something sinister and wicked.Nothing good ever came from the dark, merely the illusion of something beautiful.

‘Imogen!’

I snapped out of my thoughts, turning my attention from the rising moon and shimmering shadows as if I was emerging from a fog.‘Sorry, what were you saying?’

Ivy’s brow creased in concern.She’d obviously been trying to get my attention for a few minutes.‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said quickly.‘I just have a lot on my mind.’It was my standard response, the one I gave anyone who asked me that question after I zoned out.I’d learnt that’s what they really wanted to hear.

But Ivy wasn’t just anyone.She knew me better than that.

‘You want me to believe you’re thinking about the lecture tomorrow, don’t you?’she said.She always called me on an evasion.I loved her brilliant purple hair and the cat-eye liner that ringed her blue eyes, but that was the real reason we’d been fast friends.I tended to be drawn to the oddities around me, according to my ex-boyfriend, anyway.The odd ones were the honest ones, in my limited experience, and far less likely to judge my own quirks.

‘Would you?’I asked.I hadn’t realised it had gotten so late.But preparing for the lecture I’d been asked to do had eaten into my day, consuming the hours like a vacuum.

Ivy made that face she always did when I asked her to pretend I wasn’t spiralling.Sometimes, I wished she’d just play along.By all accounts, I should have gotten over my fear by now.What adult was scared of the dark?But I just couldn’t shake it.

‘Maybe you should let Tim walk you to your car,’ Ivy said.

I looked over her shoulder at Tim, a scrawny man with skin no one had yet told puberty was long since over.I knew he wanted more from me than I was willing to give, and I didn’t want to give him hope where there was none.‘No, I’ll be alright.’

Ivy raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

‘Okay, look, even if I’mnotgoing to be alright, do you really think Timothy will be much protection?’I asked, darting my gaze to him as he fumbled with his pen, dropping it to the floor, then scattered a collection of papers in his haste to collect it.If anything happened on our way to my car, I’d end up protectinghim.

But nothing was going to happen.I wasn’t going to get attacked because there was nothing out there.That’s what all the doctors and the police kept telling me.There were no monsters out there, just people.The man who’d attacked me at the club twelve years ago had just been a vicious example of one.The strange beauty of him, the pale skin and sharp eyes, the way he’d hunted me through a crowd and known exactly what to say to lure me out, was nothing more than the worst of what humanity had to offer.

Or so they’d told me.

They told me some of what I’d experienced hadn’t been real, that it was a figment of my imagination.Fear made people believe crazy things and I had a history of seeing crazy things.With my medical records, no one believed that I’d felt the stab of fangs in my throat, felt the blood being drained from my veins in greedy pulls.Someone had shouted as I’d lost consciousness, thinking that my life was going to end in that dark alley.But I’d woken up days later to the steady beat of a heart monitor.

It was just an unfortunate incident.Wrong place, wrong time.No fangs involved.I brushed my fingers to the scar on my neck, the one that only I could see.The one that everyone told me wasn’t there, the one I’d told the doctors I couldn’t see so they’d let me go home.

‘...Okay, probably not.But—’ Ivy said with a frown.

‘No buts.I’m a grown arse woman, I can get myself to my own car,’ I said, determination in my voice.She looked like she was going to argue.‘Look, you’ll never keep up with me in your state, so don’t even try.’

She glared at me then, a hand falling to her belly as it stretched her top.She was due in a couple of months and we were all waiting for her to finally take her maternity leave, but I knew she would hang around until her water broke.Though I hoped not, because that wasn’t a sight I was particularly interested in seeing.

I didn’t have much in the way of maternal instinct.I looked like the kind of woman who should be a mother; the quiet librarian sort was apparently synonymous with motherhood.But given the unstable relationship I had with my own mother, I wasn’t sure I had it in me to mother a tiny human without fucking them up completely.

Better safe than hated by your offspring.

But now I had procrastinated long enough.‘Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow.Unless you decide to finally go on maternity leave.’

‘So I can stare at my untouched liquor cabinet with longing?Pass,’ she said, drawing a giggle from me.She kissed my cheek before finally letting me go.She didn’t know the full story of my attack; I’d learnt long before I met her to keep that to myself.She knew only what everyone else had believed—that I’d been attacked by a man at a nightclub.But she knew enough to understand my fear.

I pulled my coat tightly around me as I forced one foot in front of the other.It wasn’t a long walk to my car, but at this time of night, the campus was deserted, giving the place an eerie vibe.The shadows seemed to shimmer, dancing just out of reach of the lamps that lit the path before me.I swallowed hard, that tremor in my hand beginning again.I hated feeling this weak.I hated the fear that I couldn’t seem to control.

A clatter sounded behind me, stopping me dead.I turned toward the sound, my eyes scanning the darkness.I gripped my coat tighter, as if it could keep my fear from spilling out of me and becoming real.I forced myself forward once more, my feet moving faster and faster until I reached my car.Only when my palm was pressed against the shining blue door did my fear begin to ease.It was all my own imagination.It was always just my imagination.

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