Page 68 of Caging Darling

Peter smiles, but I can’t tell if it’s out of pleasure or not. When he takes me by the hand, I have no choice but to follow.

CHAPTER 24

Peter takes me flying. We’re back to this again. To the one magical moment in our relationship. The moment Peter so desperately wishes to relive, he’s managed to beat it to death.

To my relief, he’s taken me to the opposite side of the island from where Tink and Michael are currently waiting for me. When he’d first scooped me into his arms and launched us skyward, I’d been sure he’d fly us somewhere they’d be spotted.

But even Peter can’t see my loved ones from here.

“Ask it,” says Peter, whispering in my ear as the stars twirl around us, my feet with nowhere to land.

My heart crawls up my throat. “Ask what?”

“Do you not remember?”

I do. He wants me to ask him to drop me. He wants to hear it come forth from my lips like a plea, like the first night we danced in the stars. When I gladly took the faerie dust to my lips, not knowing where it would take me. Not caring.

I go to ask him, just so that we can get this over with and I can go back to Michael and Tink, but when I attempt to say the words, they seem stuck in my throat.

“Wendy Darling?”

“I can’t—I can’t seem to get them out,” I say, confused.

The truth hits me before I can take the words back.

Peter laughs, and it’s so casual, it cuts through me. “Is this part of the bargain, then? Part of choosing me? Because I told you I wanted you to stay safe above all else?”

No. No, no, no. “I guess so,” I breathe with a smile. “But at the end of the day, I think the fact that you kept me safe is worth it, don’t you?”

Peter smirks. “What fun is being safe?”

I know he’s just playing his game. My counterfeit Mate is flighty, and this is just another instance of him waffling based on whatever emotion he’s experiencing in the moment, but the panic of it makes my skin crawl.

He leans over and whispers in my ear, his breath a warm fog. “I changed my mind, Wendy Darling. I don’t want us to be safe. I want us to go back to how things used to be. Before Astor took you. I want us to go back to being dangerous and loving every second of it. I want us to go back to living every moment with each other like it’s our last.”

And just like that, the terms change. My heart cracks.

Michael’s voice runs through my head.Wendy Darling’s sleeping.

I’m not sleeping anymore. I’m fully awake, but I can’t move. It’s like a nightmare that won’t leave you alone, even once you’ve wrenched yourself from sleep. One that immobilizes you, spoiling the relief of waking up.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” I ask.

Peter smiles. “You wouldn’t really hurt yourself, would you? You wouldn’t leave Michael. Earlier, you just wanted to scare me. That’s why you waited to jump until I was close enough to see you.”

My heart aches. He glimpses the truth in my face before I can hide it.

“Don’t you miss how things used to be, Wendy? I just want you here, with me. And you haven’t been here, with me, in a very long time.”

I stare at him. He wants what he can’t have. What he can’t command. But he’s slipping back into the Peter I used to know. The seductive fae who won my heart for the first time on false pretenses. The man who drove me into an insane obsession by being unpredictable. By keeping me running to catch up, too out of breath to consider whether it was from his charm or whiplash.

“You used to like it, Wendy Darling,” he whispers, trailing his mouth down my ear and to the crest of my jaw, where my Mating Mark is. “You used to like the danger. It used to drive you crazy. That’s how he got his claws in you, isn’t it? Well, Wendy Darling, believe me, I can be dangerous too.”

Peter drops me.

When it’s done,I keep hoping he’ll take it back. That now that I’m done flying with him in the sky, he’ll tell me it was just for a moment, while he could keep an eye on me, and that he really does want me to do anything in my power to keep myself safe.

When he doesn’t, when he returns us to the Den, I realize why.

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