Page 30 of Caging Darling (The Lost Girl #3)

CHAPTER 30

M y heart stops beating in my chest.

No. It’s not him.

I’ve done this before. Thought I heard him in a crowd. Spun around to find it wasn’t him. I thought I heard him on the beach, but when I turned, it was just his wraith.

That’s all it is. His wraith. Following me from Neverland.

But the fact that Peter tenses next to me tells me it’s not in my head this time.

The shock of it all, the disbelief, keeps my heel sutured to the planked floor just a moment longer, just long enough to catch the way the Nomad is glancing between me and the man who just entered the room.

Lying in wait. Like he’s curious who will devour the other first.

Peter’s already spun around to face him, teeth bared. I take my time. Feel the ridges of the planks beneath my feet as I pivot.

It’s a lifetime before I glimpse his face.

Nolan Astor looms in the doorway. He’s changed in the almost two years since I last saw him. His face is more weathered with exposure, his jaw more chiseled with age, his cheeks slightly more sunken. More ruddy. His beard is the same, perfectly accentuating the sharp angles of his jaw. He’s wearing a familiar white sailor’s shirt, except the sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, revealing inky patterns that snake up his forearms.

Those are new.

I can see the tattoos from underneath his white shirt, weaving up his arms and down his chest, poking out just above his shirt at the collarbone.

Astor’s inked his entire torso since the last time I saw him. But that’s not all that’s changed.

In the faerie lantern light, a hook shimmers where his left hand should be.

A whoosh, then a slicing sound fills my ears, threatening to bring me to my knees. Threatening to pick me back up again.

The hook isn’t as I envisioned it when the woman who looked like Iaso mentioned it in the pub. I was picturing something made of iron. This looks to be made of glass, which can’t be right. Nolan Astor wouldn’t pick a weapon that would shatter so easily.

He wouldn’t pick a woman who would shatter so easily, either.

I’m not sure what I’m expecting from him seeing me for the first time. I’ve played out this moment so often, with so many outcomes, so many variables. Now that it’s here, none of the words I’ve practiced so obsessively come to my mind. It’s empty, overcome by those piercing green eyes. They look me up and down, scanning every part of my body like he’s probing for damage done to his ship after a storm. Searching for anything that might need to be patched up.

I wonder if he expects to find bruises. Not that he’ll find any. Peter made sure I covered them with cosmetics before meeting the Nomad.

Captain Astor’s eyes trace the skin on my jaw, traveling up and across my cheek, leaving behind a flame in their wake as he raises his gaze to meet mine. He swallows, but his throat only bobs halfway. “Darling,” he says.

My name is a balm on his lips, but the bargain I’ve made with Peter won’t let me react to it in a way that would be choosing Astor over Peter.

In some ways, this bargain saves me from myself. Saves me from what I want to do, which is throw myself into the arms of the man who betrayed me and forgive him for every barb he’s lodged into my skin. The bargain keeps me sutured to Peter’s side, keeps me from calling Astor’s name like it’s the only thing that makes breathing worthwhile.

In that moment’s hesitation, something in me shifts. Anger mingles with longing. Only, just a tad slower, more delayed. It seeps through me, fusing with my desire until it’s a passion I’ve yet to recognize.

A scenario I’ve practiced, played out in my head a million times, presents itself to me.

“I’m sorry,” I say, sounding just as dazed as I feel, but it works. “Have we met?”

Astor’s face falls, horror overcoming his expression. I wait for him to glance down at my elbow, where, underneath my glove, Peter’s branded me with the bargain.

Instead, he whirls on Peter. “What did you have that wretched Sister do to her?”

It’s odd to me, that he thinks this is the Sister’s doing and not the work of the bargain. But it’s not as if he’s had time to think about it.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” says Peter, his possessive stance screaming a man who considers himself victorious.

Astor’s pointed ears draw back, just slightly, the skin at the corners of his eyes stretching. And for a moment, all I glimpse in those ivy green eyes is hopelessness.

I shouldn’t. Should let him believe it a little while longer, but I can’t help myself. Glimpsing Nolan Astor staring at me like I’m something he lost, not the other way around, fills me with such ecstatic energy, I lose control. Just for a moment.

The corner of my lip twitches, not into a smile, but a smirk.

The emotions play across his face in quick succession. Realization. Relief. Both replaced by anger at being made a fool of. Then something else entirely. The skin around his eyes relaxes and his lip jerks upward ever so slightly.

“Come now, Astor,” I say, my voice a silky taunt. “I thought you were quicker witted than that.”

Astor and I stare at one another. We might as well be the only two people in the room.

“No,” says Peter, placing himself between me and Astor and the stare neither of us can seem to break. Peter doesn’t turn to address the Nomad lest he have to take his eyes off Astor. “We won’t be needing your hired hand.”

“I’m afraid you’re not really in the position to make demands…sorry, what exactly is your name?” says the Nomad. “I just know you as Wendy’s other Mate.”

Peter seethes, but I hardly notice. I’m still staring at Astor. He’s still staring at us.

I’d like to think it’s a challenge, which one of us will drop our gaze first. But I’m not playing a game as much as driving headfirst into a whirlpool and drowning in it on purpose.

I’ve spent so many nights staring into Astor’s shadow, wishing to catch sight of that color green, I can’t bring myself to look away. I can’t speak to why he’s still staring.

“Then send someone else,” says Peter.

“No,” says the Nomad.

I can hear Peter gritting his teeth next to me. “Do you not have as many qualified men as legends about you would boast?”

“Captain Astor is uniquely qualified for this position. Not only that, he’s also uniquely motivated.”

My heart flutters at the idea Astor is motivated to keep me from dying, but the Nomad decapitates my budding hope by saying, “He entered a similar bargain as Wendy here, except he was forward enough to demand five years instead of two.”

My heart deflates. Just like that, the tension between me and Astor snaps.

He looks away first. I continue to stare, wondering how this man I thought was my friend could have left me to die in Neverland, waiting out my term before even beginning his.

Did he really wish so badly not to have to face me?

Do you hate me that much?

My stomach coils, and I turn to face the Nomad, putting my back to Astor. Still, I feel his presence as if there are bells around his neck signaling his every move, every rise and fall of his chest behind me.

“Captain Astor here came to me recently looking for work,” says the Nomad. “We’d had…other priorities, but now that you’re all here, it seems like an expedient time as ever to fulfill both of your bargains. Now that we all want the same thing.”

“I’d hardly say that,” says Astor, his voice from behind closer than I expect, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to rise.

“Would you prefer to wait another month?” the Nomad asks. It’s a challenge. He’s waiting to see where Astor’s allegiance lies.

Or perhaps he’s just bored and wishes for Astor to come up with something witty to say.

“You know I like nothing more than a challenge,” is all Astor says. “Securing the impossible.”

Chills crawl down my spine, and Peter closes the space between us instinctively.

“And you two?” asks the Nomad, glancing back and forth between me and Peter.

I stay quiet. I’m less than eager to hand over Tink, my friend, to this wicked being. As much as I’ve suffered in the prison of Neverland, she’s suffered worse and longer. If I can find a way out of it, I won’t betray my friend. Possibly the only caregiver Michael has left, especially since I have no idea whether Tink was able to reunite with Victor and the other Lost Boys after escaping Neverland.

Still, there’s no use in refusing outright. I don’t have that kind of power. I’ll have to deal in the currency of sabotage if I want to give Tink the chance to escape the Nomad’s clutches.

“A bargain is a bargain,” is all I say.

The Nomad almost smiles. He turns to Peter. “I assume you’re in. Unless you’d like for me to send these two traipsing off on their own.”

“That will be unnecessary,” Peter says, grabbing me by the arm and pulling me close and making a show of whispering in my ear. “Besides, this will be fun, won’t it, Wendy Darling? Just another hunt for us to revel in.”

He slips his hand over my back and pulls me in, biting at my ear.

I know better than to glance at Astor, but I feel him tense, nonetheless.

I don’t recoil. I lean into it, swallow the disgust. It’s not that difficult. I’ve been pretending to adore my brother’s murderer for almost a year now. It’s as easy as sliding my feet into a pair of slippers.

Besides, when I let out a giggle at Peter’s touch, I glimpse the reflection of a hook in the mirror, twitching.

And that’s more addicting than dust.