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

CHAPTER 3

“ W endy Darling, you’re staring again.”

I blink, remembering he’s there for the first time. It should be more difficult to forget Peter. Especially since my hand is encased in his as we roam barefoot on the onyx beach.

But it’s always been difficult for me not to drift.

“I was just admiring the stars,” I say, which isn’t exactly a lie.

“But not any stars in particular?” Peter asks, starlight shining on the copper tones of his hair. His eyes are knowing, but he doesn’t want the truth.

He doesn’t want me to tell him I was staring at the twin stars in the sky. The warping in the Fabric of Neverland that leads to another realm. If you can just get to it.

He doesn’t want me to tell him I glance at those stars every time I find myself outside, even in the daytime. Peter doesn’t want to know I chart their position in the sky. That even when I’m facing away from them, I feel their draw like a hook in my spine.

He doesn’t want me to tell him that sometimes I see things that aren’t there. That sometimes, when the disappearing sun turns the sky the deepest purple, the clouds share an uncanny resemblance to a ship swathed in shadows.

He doesn’t want to know that sometimes I let myself pretend.

I don’t mind pretending so much. Because one day, I’m going to stare up at those two glinting stars, the ones that wink at me conspiratorially from afar, and he’s going to come for me.

I’m not sure what I’ll do when he does. How I’ll react. I’ve come up with a plethora of scenarios in my head. Most of them ways to hurt him. Scathing comments I know will cut.

Sometimes, in those fantasies, I let Nolan Astor kiss me first. I convince myself that he’d want to. That somehow, my absence will have made me more attractive. More desirable.

It’s where the kiss goes from there that my mind tends to rewrite, depending on my mood or how many hours it’s been since my last dose. Whether I cry into his cheek or draw back to scoff at him and spit in his face.

In the end, I always choose Peter. I have to.

But sometimes Astor drags me away. I kick and scream for Peter, for my Mate. I do everything within my power to get back to him.

But Astor is too strong.

Peter doesn’t want to know that, so I let the lie slip between my teeth. “I’m thinking about how John explained the warping when we first got here. A rip between realms.”

Peter straightens uncomfortably. He doesn’t like it when I talk about John. Thinks it keeps the wound open, raw, instead of letting it heal.

I don’t deserve to let that part of myself heal. Not when I left my brother unprotected from the shadows. Not when I led him to his death. Maybe that’s why I’m surprised when tonight, Peter squeezes my hand and says, “I regret not taking the time to get to know him better.”

The words prick at my otherwise indifferent heart. “It’s not as if he would have let you. He never did like you nearly as much as I do.”

Peter furrows his brow. “Still. If I had it to do over… I would have tried to win him over.”

“I thought you did. While I was…” Stolen, taken, happy. “Away,” is the word I settle on. It tastes dishonest in my mouth. Like taking a sip of water, only to be greeted with the sharp tang of gin.

“I could have tried earlier.” Peter’s still speaking, it seems. “Maybe if I had, maybe if he’d trusted me, he would have come to me about the shadows.”

“Or never stopped eating the onions in the first place.”

Peter stares at me, and there’s such sadness in his eyes, it’s almost shocking. I have yet to get used to it, seeing Peter sad. Watching him hurt. Before, anytime anything painful would arise, it was as if a cold numbness washed over his expression. Now his silky blue eyes look as if they’ve been pierced, are bleeding water.

It hurts him that I hurt.

I don’t like seeing him hurt, either. Even after all he’s done to me, even after forcing me to choose him by calling in our bargain. At first, I was so angry. Angry with him. Angry with Astor. Angry over John’s suicide. I’d wanted to see Peter writhe.

I hadn’t realized that when Peter cried, I would see the boy who was burned for sport back in the orphanage. I hadn’t realized he would hurt on my behalf.

Vaguely, I’m aware that I’d be less affected by his pain if it weren’t for the Mating Mark that binds our hearts. When I severed Astor’s hand back in the cave, and his portion of the shared Mating Mark with it, I’d inadvertently refocused all the magic of the Mark back to Peter.

I’d still been in love with Astor at the time. Even when the Mating Mark had been ruined, my love had remained.

Even now…

“Wendy Darling,” says Peter, taking my hand and sliding in front of me. His wings billow at his back, blending in with the shadows of the night. “Dance with me.”

“Of course,” I say.

Because what else is there to say?

This isn’t the first time Peter’s taken me dancing in the stars since we returned to Neverland. Since he called in my bargain. We both know it’s our favorite memory together—that single night of blissful ecstasy when together we soared through the stars. The night I thought I’d never want to stop falling.

He thinks that if he can recreate the dance, if he can ask me if it’s okay to drop me, and if I can beg him to do so, that we’ll go back, wake up in the stars, back in the bodies of the people we were before Nolan Astor.

In some ways, he’s right.

It’s these nights that I let myself believe I love Peter.

It’s natural, up here in the twinkling stars, to forget the pain and resentment that awaits me down below. When nothing is tethering me to the ground, it’s easier for the magic of the Mating Mark to coil me tighter, just like Peter’s arms, possessing me. Never letting me go.

I hate myself for it, but I like being possessed.

I like when we’re up here in the clouds, and the air gets so thin that my head swirls. I like the way Peter grips me like I’m his favorite toy.

When we plateau, I wrap my legs around his waist, making it easier for him to grasp my jaw in his hands. He pulls my mouth to his like the only air he is capable of breathing is hiding in my lungs. His lips are warm and hungry, and they taste of forgetting.

“Drop me,” I whisper in between kisses. I only ask because I know the answer.

“Never,” he says, and it’s almost as addicting as faerie dust.

He’s so obsessed with me, he can’t let me go. It feels like being drunk, but better. Because no one is going to take this bottle from me. No one is going to lock Peter in a cellar where I can’t get to him. It’s sick, and it’s disgusting, and tomorrow I’ll wake with a hammer at my skull, but Peter’s obsession with me, his desperation for me…

I like it.

It’s the only power I have left.

Astor would hate me for that, too.

That only makes me want to get drunk on it all the more.

Usually, I can banish any thoughts of Astor when I’m with Peter. Can sink into the greedy claws of the Mating Mark and allow them to sweep me away. But something about tonight has him rapping at my skull, judging me for every moment of bliss I steal.

He speaks to me, and though it’s no conversation we’ve ever had, I hear it as clearly as a memory.

This isn’t real, Wendy Darling.

Yes, I’m aware. Just like your love for me wasn’t real, I whisper back in my mind. Just like you only cared for me because your skin was still stained with the last remnant of the Mating Mark.

I thought you had learned to fight.

You’d rather me be miserable fighting than happy giving in.

You wouldn’t?

“Peter, I need you,” I whisper, my voice frantic, desperate as I clutch the clothes at his back.

He takes a sharp inhale. I’ve been back in Neverland for nine months, and we haven’t slept together in all that time. When Peter first called in his side of the bargain, I’d thought for sure he’d bed me. That my having to choose him would force me to pretend I was enjoying it.

But the bargain hadn’t erased my past. Hadn’t kept my body from plunging into a panic attack at the first touch of Peter’s that signaled escalation.

That was the moment Peter realized what he’d done. I’ll never forget the shock in his eyes as he watched me fall apart at his touch. I’d thought he’d known I wouldn’t want it, that it was the bargain forcing me, but the dread in his expression couldn’t have been fabricated.

He hasn’t escalated things since. Hasn’t touched me past slipping his hand under my shirt and leaving the imprint of his fingers on my back.

He’s waiting for me to be the one to initiate.

There’s a part of me that knows that if I asked him, he could make Astor’s voice go away for a little while. There’s a part of me that wants that—not for Peter, but for me. The portion of me that’s grasping for any bit of happiness I’m allowed.

But I know that once I let Peter have me, there will be no going back.

That’s the pitiful part of me talking. The daydreamer girl. The delusional child who thinks that maybe, just maybe, it’s worth holding out just a little while longer.

When Peter pulls away from the kiss, my attention drifts to the stars. By the time I catch myself and glance back at Peter, there’s jealousy sparking in his eyes.

“I’m starting to get a headache,” I say, because that’s become my go-to phrase when I want dust. I’m not sure why I can’t just say it. It’s not as if Peter would deny me.

I wait for him to reach for his pouch, but he doesn’t. I frown. “Did you forget it?”

Peter bites the inside of his cheek. “No. I just thought perhaps we didn’t need it tonight. That we could just enjoy being together.”

The inside of my chest tenses. A metallic taste fills my mouth. When I laugh, it sounds far away. Like someone else’s laugh. “It’s hard to enjoy anything when my head is pounding.”

“I know. I’ll get you some when we get back?—”

“Then I want to go back now.”

Peter’s expression hardens. “Wendy Darling, I know you’re still hurting. But I’m afraid of what you’re missing out on. That life is passing you by?—”

“What life?” I snap. “My brother is dead.”

Peter frowns. “I know. I know. But you’re not. Michael’s not. I—” He steers his icy blue eyes toward me, staring at me through those long eyelashes of his. He slides his hand down to mine, pressing his thumb to my emerald engagement ring. I have this flash of a fantasy of letting it slip off my too-small finger into the black waves below. “There was a time when we were excited about building a life together. I know it can’t be the life you had hoped for. Not anymore. Not without John. But Wendy Darling, there is still a life to be lived.”

“With you.” I can’t tell if the words coming out of my mouth are a question or not. They almost sound too breathy, too longing.

Peter cups my cheek and presses his forehead to mine, his wings beating softly behind him. “What do ya say?”

“I say,” I say, biting my lip and turning my most charming smile on Peter, “that I adore you.” I press my lips to his. “And that, unfortunately, I still have a headache.”