Page 30 of Caging Darling

“That tapestry hasn’t been woven yet,” says Peter. “But now at least they have a chance. Their parents can take them somewhere else, to a neighboring city where the physician will do their best to heal them.”

“And if they all die anyway? Then we have thirteen dead children instead of twelve.”

“Let’s just believe they’ll live,” says Peter, combing his fingers through my hair.

I almost laugh. Because Peter actually has the capability of believing the palatable lies he kneads for himself.

Peter nuzzles his nose into my neck, then looks into the mirror, watching us. Two pairs of brilliant blue eyes stare back. One pair alive, the other simply existing.

“It was difficult for me, too, the first time,” he says.

Something twitches in my belly. Surprise, perhaps? Peter rarely admits weakness, much less the emotional sort.

“I thought the Sister had already taken away your pain by your first mission,” I say.

Peter stares at his reflection, as if by searching intently enough he can recover the version of himself that he was before the Sister stripped him of his dignity.

“Not for the first,” he says. There’s a finality in his words that makes my heart pound against my chest.

“Is that why she took it away? The ability to feel pain?” I’d thought it was just so that, should Peter ever need to end the Lost Boys, if their murderous tendencies shone forth, he wouldn’t be hindered by his love for them. I’d never considered there was another reason.

“I…I fell apart after the first kill,” he says. “Most of the people I kill in this job, even if the crime they’re being executed for hasn’t been committed yet, they’ve still had a host of wicked things in their past that make it easier to dispose of them. That first kill…wasn’t like that. The victim to that point had been innocent.”

“What was the crime?” I breathe.

Peter squints his eyes. Opens his mouth like he’s about to tell me, then clamps it shut. “Does it matter?”

As we stare into the reflections of each other’s eyes, the emptiness in my chest would argue that it doesn’t. With Renslow’s blood staining my soul, with his daughter’s impending death my edict, I think I understand now why Peter couldn’t handle it. I think for the first time, I understand him.

“You’re not who I thought you were,” I whisper.

When he speaks, his voice is hoarse. “And is that a bad thing or…” Hesitantly, he slips his hand across my stomach, sliding it to the notch above my hips. A strange warmth chases the feeling, the pressure of his hand not quite soothing, but somehow masking the nausea at my belly. Like pressing on an aching muscle, replacing the pain with one that’s more bearable.

Maybe that’s what Peter is to me, what he’s been to me all along. Pain that’s more bearable than the alternative.

I sink into his chest, heaving now, and when he runs his other hand up my side, to my jaw, the crook of my Mating Mark, I examine the motion in the mirror. Watch as he traces my Mating Mark with his thumb. His blue eyes deepen a shade, his eyes fierce not just with pain, but longing.

“I love you, Wendy Darling,” he whispers.

For the first time since Astor, I believe it.

I don’t say it back, can’t bring myself to. I don’t know if I’ll ever let those words escape my lips, not with the anger that clings to my heart.

But there’s a part of me that knows if I said them, they’d be true.

When he tugs on my shoulder and turns me to face him, I don’t resist. I watch him watch me, feel his chest heave against mine as he takes me in.

He’s beautiful. His hair shines like copper. The way he’s let it grow out over his pointed ears gives him a boyish look, though once my gaze reaches his jaw, the strong cut of it banishes all thoughts of boyishness. His face is smooth, tinted the lightest of browns. When he stares down at me, my breath stops.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers. “I’ve never wanted anything more than I’ve wanted you.”

“I’ve never wanted anything more than you, either.” The words are already out of my mouth before I recognize them for what they are—a lie.

It’s not the lie in them that sends a bolt of shock through me. It’s that the words came out genuine. As if at the moment I’d said them, I’d truly believed them to be true.

No.

Panic swells through me, starting with a pang in my ribcage, then smashing through the rest of me, my pulse stabbing against the smooth skin of my neck.

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