Page 50 of Caging Darling

A bloodcurdling scream rends through the fog.

Ahead of me, Tink stills. Her trembling hand finds her throat, strokes it kindly. I stop as well, but she flicks her head toward the tree line and bids me to follow.

Pine needles scrape at my cheeks as I peek out toward the storehouse. There are three wraiths gathered by the structure, one weeping silently on her knees as the other two—a man and a woman—stand over her.

“They took her voice,” John explains. “Peter lured her here, because the Sister needed something to anchor Neverland so it wouldn’t collapse.”

Pain rattles through me. “That’s not all that surprising,” is all I say to Tink.

She glances at the bargain on the inside of my elbow and nods her head knowingly.

“You’ll want to get close for this one,” says John’s wraith, nudging me forward.

I don’t want to go anywhere close to the wraith of the Sister. Not after what I saw the night I falsely learned Peter was my Mate.

A chill snakes up my skin, but I venture forward all the same. Even as I reach them, the way Peter speaks protectively over Tink causes thorns to stick in my belly. I’m not sure if it’s jealousy, prodded on by my Mating Mark, or if it just reminds me of the possessiveness with which he talks of me, and I can’t quite separate myself from my anger at looking at Tink and seeing myself as the one with my knees in the dirt, voice stripped.

Images of my night with Peter in that cramped inn room flood my mind, reminding me of his tender touch. The way he treated me like his queen.

My thought or—I look at the bargain on my elbow—its thought? I graze my cheek. Or does that one belong to you?

I don’t know the difference anymore, but when I reach Tink, the scene before me reverses, Tink floating upward to a standing position, the Sister leaning over and whispering something in her ear.

“I know you believed he loved you,” the Sister says. “But did you know that his skin writhes every time you touch him? Did you know that when he leaves your bed, it’s to empty his stomach of disgust?”

Tink’s wraith stares up at her, but I can’t tell because of her lack of features whether she’s shaking in fear or rage. Tink—the real Tink—walks up behind the apparition, her hands fisted, but she’s not shaking. Not anymore.

“Did you know,” the Sister asks, “how powerful that Mating Mark is on his back? I’m sure it was romantic for you, wasn’t it? Him claiming he could resist it because of the strength of his love for you. But Mates can’t resist each other. Can’t deny each other.”

Pain pierces me as the memory of confessing my love to Astor assaults my mind.

I’m the one Mate who’s resistible, it seems.

“You think he’s good, but there’s a wickedness in him, born of the intensity with which he craves his Mate. He can’t have her now, of course. She’s only a child. How does it feel, my dear, to be less desirable than a child?”

Tink’s shaking, and the Tink behind her looks solemnly, not at herself, but at me. In remembering this awful night, all she can think of is the pain I must be experiencing in hearing this.

Nausea coils through me.

“She almost died once, you know, not long ago,” says the Sister. “He came to me, begging me to spare her life. But that decision wasn’t for me to make. But your lover, he can be so convincing. He even had his own plan. His own idea for how to save her.”

No.

“He told me of a friend of his, one with healing powers. He said she could heal the girl. That he’d seen her bring back children from near-death.”

Something in my brain clicks. It’s a lie. Iaso’s blood had never been powerful enough to save someone so close to death. Astor had told me as much. That’s why my parents had slit her throat, bleeding her dry to get enough blood to heal me.

“It was a secret between the two of them,” says the Sister. “She’d brought Peter back from near-death when they were children, but the power had awakened something in her, frightened her. So she’d asked him never to tell a soul.”

My mind goes numb.

The wraith Tink is crying now, silently, her chest and back shaking. The real Tink is crying too, but her tears are less violent. They slip down her cheeks as she watches nothing but me.

“He tracked down the woman, came to her as an old friend, telling her of a child who had fallen ill and needed her help. Though the healer shied away from working her magic on the deathly ill, fearful of waking that dark and terrible power within her, she made an exception for her friend.

“You see,” says the Sister, “I went to the mother of the girl. Made a bargain with her so that Peter, your lover, could have his Mate one day. He has been a dutiful servant to me, after all. But do you know what else he requested? It wasn’t enough for the girl to be healed. For a bargain to be struck, that would mean she belonged to him when she came of age. No, he had another request.

“He asked me to tell the parents that the woman’s blood wouldn’t be enough. He asked me to lie, so that they would bleed that woman dry.”

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