Page 27 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)

CHAPTER 27

“ W endy Darling.” Peter’s voice is stern. Not the type he usually uses when he’s waking up, sleepy and muted. It’s sharp, piercing me like a harpoon and yanking me from the peaceful waters of sleep.

My heart pounds, still confused about whether we’re awake or not.

“What did you do?”

I frown, stretching my arms out in front of me so that they dangle over the side of the bed. “What are you talking about, love?”

If he’s talking about me severing another hand, I’ll just roll back over and go back to sleep…

“What. Did. You. Do.” He grabs me, flipping me around in bed to face him, then pulls me out of bed entirely, my bare feet hitting the cold floor like a bucket of ice.

Alertness surges through me, though I’m still just as confused.

He grabs my neck. Hard. I wince, but he doesn’t seem to care. When he pulls his hand away, he shoves it in front of my face, so my eyes have to focus to see what he’s trying to show me. It doesn’t help that his hand is trembling.

“I was playing with your hair while you slept,” he whispers, accusation suffusing his tone.

Slowly, my eyes adjust to the dim lighting in the room. Paint, the color of cream, smears across his tanned hands. The blood drains from all the muscles in my body.

“Wendy Darling, tell me what you did. Who did that to you?”

I stare at Peter for a long moment. Fear lances through my blood, setting me on edge. But I’ve feared Peter for so long now, it feels like a baseline.

“What does it matter, my love?” I ask. “I choose you.”

I glimpse the jealousy spark in his eyes. I could get drunk on him looking at me like that. Like he’ll die if he ever loses me.

“What did he make you agree to?”

I smile. I like that he thinks my bargain was with Astor, the last person in the world who would ever bind himself to me. I like the way it gets under Peter’s skin, makes him crazy. I can see it in the way his eyes strain, his nostrils flare.

Anger makes Peter ugly. At least, it makes the outside match the inside. It’s easier to see him that way, now that I’ve had almost two years to ward my mind against my Mark. The urges, the feelings pulling toward him, are still there.

I’m just so much better at setting them aside than I once was. Seeing myself as a separate entity from them.

“What is it you’re afraid I agreed to?” I ask.

Peter shoves me up against the wall, holding me there by his forearm. It presses up against my neck in a way I know is sure to leave a bruise. Pain threatens to steal the breath from me.

I don’t mind.

Let him kill me. It’ll just end my torment a month earlier. Let him set me free. He’s already taken everything else from me. Why not my life, too?

“Wendy Darling, you will tell me what you did. That’s part of choosing me.”

It’s not. I know that well enough from prodding at every loophole in my bargain. I remember my father bringing in a nobleman who owned several goat farms. He hated the animals, because they would stalk the perimeter of the fence, looking for any weaknesses.

I happen to like being a goat.

It’s one of the few things from which I derive pleasure these days. That, and taking my trophies. Watching Peter look away as I slice through their wrists.

“What did you do?” I ask, repeating his question back to him.

He doesn’t have to ask what I’m referring to. It’s typically a hopeless endeavor. I can’t count how many times I’ve begged him to tell me what really happened the night he killed John, knowing in my soul it wasn’t the self-defense he claims.

But tonight, Peter’s angry.

For him, it’s a rare state.

“Your brother poked his nose where it didn’t belong. And even then, he didn’t have the good sense to keep it to himself. Thought he could skewer me with Victor’s crossbow. He only just missed. I would have overlooked it, but he knew too much. He didn’t understand that I only did what I did to Iaso so we could be together. Didn’t understand that the only thing the truth would do was hurt you. Ruin us. If he had just kept quiet, I never would have had to hurt him.”

It should ache, this revelation. But it only confirms what I’ve suspected for ten months now.

I should cry. But the only reaction I can bring myself to muster is a wry laugh.

When Peter realizes it’s directed at him, at his unforgivable delusions, he applies more pressure, until my back begins to bruise against the force of the wall. He’s never done this, hurt me physically like this. Black spots swell at my vision, but I welcome them.

Just a few more moments.

When my vision blurs in and out, that’s when Peter realizes what he’s doing. He jumps backward, startled at his outburst. Like a child that’s just tossed his favorite clay model across the room in a tantrum.

It’s funny he’s only realizing now how shattered I am. That he broke me a long time ago.

That I’ve since glued myself back together.

Never strong enough to escape, but escape hasn’t been the objective for a long while now. And I’m plenty strong enough to outlast.

“Peter.” I whimper his name, hoping to capitalize on his guilt. It’s not the best way to get him to kill me, but it’s enjoyable to watch all the same. Shame warps his pretty features, and he drives across the room toward me, touching my neck where he bruised me. The pressure of his fingers, trying to be helpful, hurts.

He’s such an idiot.

“Wendy Darling, I—I’m so sorry I had to do that,” he says. “But you have to tell me what bargain you got yourself into.”

I just smile. My mother taught me well.

“ Tell me ,” he screams.

I’m not sure Peter’s ever screamed at me. I find it somewhat cathartic.

“You have to choose me, you have to…”

“Funny how these bargains work,” I say. “It’s like there’s some arbiter deciding what’s fair and what’s not. Whoever it is, they don’t seem to think choosing you necessitates confessing all of my innermost thoughts. Of course, you wouldn’t like all of my innermost thoughts, so perhaps that’s why.”

Peter’s face falls. It’s the first time since the night he admitted to killing my brother that he looks as if he sees something inside me other than adoration for him. Even during the times he knew he didn’t have my entire heart, he must have attributed it to my depression over John’s death. But now, as he scans my face, I watch him rifling through every moment over the past two years, searching for the signs of the hate I’ve harbored in my heart.

“Wendy Darling.” His voice is cold now, but pleading all the same. “You have to tell me what bargain you entered. You don’t understand. If you don’t fulfill a bargain, the magic will take your life.”

When I don’t answer, his eyes go wide. “Wendy, please. I’m begging you to tell me.”

“I think I like it when you beg,” is all I say.

Something hardens in Peter’s expression. Instead of stroking me, like he has been doing, he takes his hand and yanks my hair away from the back of my neck, pressing his thumb against my skin to remove the paint I so carefully applied.

“What is this?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I don’t know?”

Peter doesn’t answer.

I laugh, and the sound of my laughter echoing through the room sends chills up my arms.

“I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me what bargain you entered.”

“Or what?” I ask, head still facing the ground from the position he’s got me in. “Or you’ll kill me?”

Peter tenses behind me, and I can’t seem to stop myself. “Or maybe you’ll kill John. Or take Michael somewhere I’ll never see him again. Oh, I know. You’ll sacrifice Iaso so that I can live, that way my true Mate will hate me forever.”

Peter’s breath is sharp.

I remove Peter’s hand from my neck. Then I turn around to face him. “Tell me, Peter. What exactly will you do to me that you haven’t already done? What could you possibly take from me that wouldn’t rip you apart on the inside?”

Peter stares at me. “Surely you don’t hate me badly enough to die.”

I smile. “I didn’t want you to find out like this. Wanted it to come as a shock. But I think it’s better this way, don’t you? I think I’ll enjoy it all the more watching you dread it.”

Peter’s fist flexes, and I find myself hoping he’ll slam me against the wall again, except this time, just a little too hard.

He doesn’t. “How long?”

As if I’m going to tell him that.

When I don’t answer, he grabs me by the back of my neck and lifts me to my feet, pushing me toward the door.

“Where are we going?” I ask.

This time, he’s the one who doesn’t answer.