Rise of the Lost Prince

Evernight
Publishing ®

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright©
2015 London Saint James

 
ISBN: 978-1-77233-232-2

Cover Artist: Jay
Aheer

Editor:
JS
Cook

ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized
reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal.
 
No part of this book may be used or
reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction.
All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual
events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

DEDICATION

To my
readers.
Thank you for being so fantastic and for your continued support
of my work.
To my FB group.
I think you rock! Thank
you for being such a fun and encouraging bunch. My heartfelt thanks must also
go to the lovely Ursula Avery. You are such an awesome person. Without you and
your friendship, Rise of the Lost Prince wouldn’t have been born. And, last,
but never least, thank you to my own personal hero. You are a man who never
ceases to inspire and amaze me. I love you.

London

RISE OF THE LOST
PRINCE

Lost Boys, 1

London Saint
James

Copyright © 2015

Prologue

Petúr’s long coat flared out
behind him, whipping in the wind—black raven wings. Above him, the moon danced
in and out of existence and periodically hid behind the dreary clouds. He’d
perched himself atop the rusted metal monstrosity which sat cold and derelict
among the ruins of the abandoned seaside amusement park. From the top of the
lifeless Ferris wheel he surveyed his realm, just as he did every night,
waiting for the faint cries. They always came, those haunting cries, and called
him and the lost boys into the darkness.

Cables clacked and Petúr tilted
his head in a bird-like gesture, listening to them echo into the rhythmic music
of the tide coming ashore. As if on cue, an eerie underlying chorus chimed in
from the direction of the closed ticket booth. He recognized the sound of the
warped roof when it moaned and creaked. The red painted exterior walls had long
since faded and peeled away from the briny wood in elongated streaks,
reminiscent of morbid tears.

He closed his eyes and attempted
to picture this place he and the others called home, trying to imagine what it
must have been during its glory days, but he couldn’t see anything. All he knew
was the truth of his surroundings. And, the truth was, with every passing year
more of his home crumbled. Even the entrance into this collapsing kingdom had
joined the sea, snuffing out the arched sign which once upon a time
blinked—Neverland—Mother Nature’s way of taking back her own when she’d claimed
a major portion of the boardwalk.

Everything
ends.

At least this parcel of land had
done one thing. It gave Petúr and the others refuge from a world who’d
discarded them as young boys.

He chuckled, darkly, and allowed
his mind to wander away from the image of being a boy. He, Firefox, and his
five other brothers may still exhibit the outward beauty of youthfulness, yet
this was nothing but a
façade
. They’d grown
into fierce warriors and protected the very people who’d spat upon them in
their youth. Who would still spit upon them if they got the chance, he suspected.

Shaking his head, Petúr
considered what he’d heard the whole of his life may indeed be true. He and the
others may well be mad, because only madmen would fight to protect those who
would never welcome them fully into the human world they’d had the misfortune
of being a part of.

Balling his fists into tight
knots, he knew it didn’t matter how many lives he and the others saved. They
were still different from those whom they rescued. And, while they may no
longer be petty thieves and beggars, they’d always been, and still
were—outcasts. Unnatural. Freaks. Something more. Something not human.
Although, there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it, other than to take
out their fury on those darklings who sought to destroy the weaker inhabitants
of the human race. And take out their fury—they would.

“AAaiiee!”

Petúr abruptly stood when he
heard a woman’s distressed scream. He took in a deep breath, tasting the flavor
of the night. His lip curled up into a snarl right before he stepped off of his
perch, shot into the clouds, and vanished into thin air.

Chapter One

Bell watched the body-glittered,
life’s-a-party gals take turns on the lap of the life-sized Jolly Roger statue.
One girl kissed his painted cheek while rubbing the top of his pirate hat. Another
vigorously grabbed his lifeless resin crotch. Things only proceeded to get
raunchier when the cell phones came out to take pictures of the,
look-at-us-while-we-molest-the-statue event, so she went to her happy place, the
place she allowed her mind to go when she wanted to block out the sights and
sounds of the noisy world around her. Nothing bad could touch her there. In
that world, it was too beautiful for the harsh ugliness surrounding her to take
hold. In that world, she could unfurl her wings without fear and fly.

Floating
through the forest among the huge moss-covered trees exploding up from the lush
fern-carpeted ground, Bell glanced up at their branches stretching and reaching
for the sky where they almost touched the puffy clouds. Slivers of sunlight
fell through that heavy overhead canopy, hit the flora in shimmering pin-pricks
of light, and caused the dew on the green leafy vegetation to twinkle like
diamonds.

Drifting
on the breeze, she passed a small speckled fawn. The young deer was headed
toward the burbling sound of the peaceful brook which curved around an ancient
boulder. The craggy rock had been claimed by nature ages ago, but sprigs of
blue and gold wildflowers had somehow found a home nestled within the fissures
time forgot.

“One mooore, Babycakes,” Cromwell
Darlingheart said in a slur as he slid his empty shot glass across the black
slate bar.

Darn
it.

She was wrong. At least one thing
was ugly enough to penetrate the serenity of the woodland home she’d
unwillingly left behind.

Blinking, Bell extended her arm
and caught the glass. She rolled her big jewel-green eyes, totally irritated.

“I think you’ve had enough. And
if I hear, ‘Babycakes’ one more time, I’m going to call your daughter and tell
her where you are,” she said, not bothering to hold her tongue.

Music from the jukebox started. A
harsh
ding
followed by the cook
shouting out, “Order’s up!” and the raucous sounds of men playing darts in the
far corner swirled around her. She missed the peaceful sounds of nature.
 

“You-you wouldn’t?”

“No?” She lifted one thin blonde
brow. “Try me.”

“I’m not wo-worried, Baby—”

If she wasn’t in such a public
place she could glamour him, or as her beloved sister would’ve said, “Put the
fairy whammy on him.” However….

Bell grabbed her pink cell phone
from the pocket of the apron she wore tied around her slender hips and
brandished it. As she suspected, Cromwell shut-up mid-sentence. The threat of
his daughter giving him a verbal thrashing for drinking himself into yet
another stupor would do the trick. But still, even if she worked for his
daughter, Cromwell was ultimately the Big Kahuna. Not only was he the owner of
Darlingheart Inc., but also the owner of Jolly Roger’s Bar & Grill.

Cromwell burped, loud and long.

Yeah,
she thought
with a brow crinkling scowl. Sometimes smiling prettily and being pleasant was
a hard thing to accomplish. With a sigh, she smoothed out her features. Hard or
not, she needed to be somewhat careful if she wanted to keep her shitty
bartending job because she had to pay her rent. Even so, Bell straightened her
spine. She wasn’t in the mood to placate him as she usually did.

Cromwell frowned, rested his pricey
suit-covered shoulder against the huge fish tank that made up the entire living
wall beside him, then hiccupped. A second or two ticked by and she practically
saw the wheels turning inside his head before he swiped the back of his hand
across his mouth and draped his arm around the shoulders of the muscled man
seated next to him on his left.

“Well…Jessup. I suppose it’s time
to make like a banana and spl-split.” He broke out into an obnoxious chortle.

Jessup glared at Bell, electric
blue eyes sizzling. For a human, he was sort of yummy.

“Thanks,” he said.

Without removing her gaze from
Jess, she placed the dirty shot glass into the container beneath the bar and
nodded at Cromwell’s hired body guard. “Any time.”

The burly guy shook his head, and
helped his well lubricated boss up from the barstool.

“Bell,” Sven called. She turned
her attention to the thin man dressed in a flouncy pirate shirt and long
dishwater-blond dreadlocks. “I need five Appletinis for table six.”

Bell glanced over at the table in
question to see five skimpily dressed females. The same females who were
putting on a show with the statuary earlier. All sparkly and giggling, they
admired their fake, over-the-top costume jewelry now. All of them were draped
in the stuff. Huge rings, dangling bracelets in every color of the rainbow,
beaded necklaces, and one even wore a bedazzled plastic crown.