Page 34 of Caging Darling

She mistakes my horror, my guilt, for ineptitude.

“A difficult thing not to notice,” she says, looking as if I’ve handed her the fodder for my own pyre. “Oh, did you really bed him, or are you just making up stories to make yourself feel better? Dreams, dear, are for when we’re sleeping. Not for when we’re awake.” She brushes the corners of my eyes, where lines are already beginning to set in from my faerie dust usage. “Though I suppose you addicts never seem to know the difference, do you?”

“Serida,” the blonde girl says. “Let’s get back to dancing.” Her voice is guilt-ridden, but not enough to stand up for me any more than that.

I can’t blame her. I’m just as much of a coward.

“Fine, I’m bored anyway,” says the red-headed woman, Serida. She scratches my cheek with her long red nail before turning and whisking away, her hips swaying in her black dress as she leaves.

I feel sick. Feel as though I might vomit. I turn back to the latrine, but nothing comes out.

Again, images of Astor dancing with that woman, setting eyes on her, seeing her like he once saw Iaso, taking her hand andleading her upstairs to one of the many rooms fit to serve such occasions, taking her to the bed and…

I try to stop the images from flooding my mind, but I have no barrier against them.

It hurts.

He’s not coming for me. Astor’s not coming for me.

The thought squeezes my lungs until there’s no air left in them, drains my muscles of all their strength until I can hardly stand. I stumble backward and my back hits the cold stone wall of the bathroom.

It’s slick with mildew, smells of it too, and I slide myself down the stone. At my bottom, the floor is moist with a substance I don’t want to think about. It seeps through my beautiful dress, staining it.

I don’t care.

Because he’s not coming.

Was he ever coming?

I gasp, the thought too painful, too piercing to consider.

So I don’t. I won’t. I won’t entertain that thought. It’s too painful. And I can’t…

I can’t live like this. Not forever.

There’s a reason he can’t get into Neverland. I rock back and forth, hugging my knees as I make it all make sense. He tried to get to me. He must have. He wouldn’t have abandoned me to Peter like that. Not after what he witnessed Peter’s shadow self do in the Carlisles’ library. He wouldn’t, he just wouldn’t…

Again, the beautiful red-headed woman flashes before my vision. I squint my eyes shut, like that will banish the memories, purge my chest of the stinging poison swelling up within it.

Astor’s not mine. Not anymore. I released him from his Mating Mark. He was right. He never loved me the way I loved him, not truly. It was all the Mating magic, the Fates’ design.

But he cared for me. I know he cared for me. He hurt for me, didn’t he? When I told him what my parents had made me do growing up, it had angered him.

Another explanation occurs to me. His anger could have been not from pain on my behalf, but jealousy due to the Mating Mark.

No. No, no, no. He’d planned to kill me, trade my life for Iaso’s that night in the cave. In the end, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. He’d wept into my shoulders, sobbing apologies.

It hadn’t mattered how much he wanted Iaso back. He couldn’t bring himself to part with me.

Or his Mark couldn’t, says a voice in the back of my mind. No. I won’t listen. I grit my teeth so hard, they make a squealing sound as I weep into my open palms.

“Darling, why are you crying?”

I snap my neck up, tears streaming down my face as I search for him. Astor. My Mate. My rightful Mate.

All I find are shadows.

One in particular takes form in front of me.

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