Page 7 of Dark & Darker Still (Vane and Roc: Origin)

“He hasn’t said anything to me. I had to hear it from my friends.”

Lainey’s mouth drops open. “That asshole.”

I grab one of the chocolate croissants and take the stool beside her. “I know. I agree.”

“You do know the easiest way to get his attention, don’t you?”

I wrinkle my nose. “Who says I want his attention?”

“Oh my god. Please.”

The aroma of flaky pastry, melted chocolate, and browned butter hits me. I haven’t eaten in hours and hours. “Fine. I’m listening.”

I eat as she talks.

“Step one: ignore him. Like seriously, pretend he isn’t even there. He will hate it. One time, when we were kids, he refused to play Hearts with me and so I pretended he was invisible for two days and on the third day, he made us a picnic in the garden and played Hearts until my eyes burned.”

I admire Lainey’s commitment. I’m not sure I have the iron will to ignore Vane. Even when I’m not trying to look at him, I’m drawn to him.

“Step two: make sure he knows you’re hooking up with someone else. And not Roc. He won’t care about Roc.”

I already knew this one. It’s why I flirted with the Crown Prince.

“Step three: disappear for a day. Make sure no one knows where you went. He’ll lose his fucking mind.”

“You might be the most adorable little demon I’ve ever met. I love you.”

She laughs. “I can’t take all the credit. I’ve learned from the best. Uncle Madd is the worst when?—”

“Wait.” I cut her off.

The laughter dies from her face. “Sorry. I?—”

“Was he here?”

“Al . . . “

“Was he?”

She swallows and looks at me and the look says everything.

“How long ago?”

“He left last night.”

“He’s on the island?”

She shakes her head and my throat constricts.

“He was going to Winterland.”

The Madd Hatter was on Darkland, and he didn’t come to see me. I should be grateful. I should consider myself lucky. I can never be sure if Madd is going to fuck me or kill me. He’s the worst of the family.

And somehow the only one who makes my palms sweat and my mouth dry.

Terror is a lot like love and I’m not sure which it is I feel for the Madd Hatter. Maybe both.

“Did he stay here?”

The desperation leaking into my voice is pathetic and shrill, but I can’t stop myself. I’m like an addict hoping for some everpowder stuffed in a cookie jar.

Lainey nods. “In the blue room.”

Every room in the seaside cottage has a color theme and we call the room by its color.

The blue room is on the southwestern corner of the house with wrap-around windows that overlook the vastness of the Seven Isles Ocean.

I lurch away from the kitchen. Lainey lets me go.

I cross through the living room, down the hall. Pass the bathroom and Ms. Ollen’s room.

I come up on the last door where it’s partly cracked open, all the early morning light spilling in through the windows.

The door creaks on its brass hinges when I push it in.

The bed is made. The candles on the nightstand are out, but are clearly half spent, the cold wax frozen in a drip down the sides.

I can almost hear his breath, the ragged huff of it, the flame guttering and going dark.

The curl of the smoke.

The danger of his touch.

I can smell him here.

Soft leather. Rain-dampened wool. The burn of clove cigarettes.

The press of his lips against my throat, the desire to drink, the inability to do it.

The vibration of power caged behind a curse.

“Alice.”

I snap back.

Roc is in the doorway. His shirt sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. A smudge of grease runs over the ink tattooed on his skin.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he says, quiet, testing.

I’m dizzy and ravenous and restless and angry.

Madd isn’t dead, but sometimes I wish he was. Maybe then he’d talk to me.

“I’m just tired,” I say and avoid his eyes.

“You want to lie down?” He props his elbow above him on the doorjamb and leans in. “You can stay as long as you like.”

There is nothing I want more than to curl into that bed, wrap myself in the thin cotton that Madd used just last night. Sink into the smell and feel of him.

It would be as close as I’ve gotten to him in years.

“No,” I answer and step away. “Let’s get back home before it gets too late in the day.”

I go to move past him, but he snatches me by the arm and tugs me into him.

His expression is serious, his jaw clenching. “All three of us will break you if you let us.”

It’s the most honest thing he’s ever said to me.

I lick my lips. Nod.

All three of them, the Madd men.

I should run.

I should leave them all behind and find my own way. Make my own life on some other island, with some other man, one who doesn’t drink my blood or threaten to kill me or fuck me until I can’t see straight and disappear before the day dawns.

A man who smiles at me in a sun-drenched kitchen while he makes me pancakes and pours me coffee.

But even if that man existed, even if he could love me, I would never be the woman who sits, content, in a sun-drenched kitchen waiting for pancakes and coffee.

Not while the dead whispered in her ears.

I’ve always been drawn to morally grey men because in the gray, I don’t have to be so afraid of my own shadows.

“I can handle whatever comes my way, Roc,” I answer.

“Yes, but why, when you don’t have to?”

He’s giving me the easiest out. The chance to leave them, no questions asked.

But how can I? How could I ever exorcise the Madd men from my life?

They are with me as much as the spirits in the ether.

No matter how far I run, I will never escape.

And maybe, deep down, I don’t want to.