Page 71 of Caging Darling

CHAPTER 25

Lady Estrias is still whimpering in the dining room by the time I enter Lord Estrias’s smoking parlor.

Her husband is already dead, slumped in a plush chair, his eyes fixed on nothing at all, fresh bruises spotting his throat. One would think that my counterfeit Mate would have adopted a slightly more sensitive approach to murder since bringing me on these missions.

But alas. Peter would have to notice my emotions for that to be the case, and given what I’m planning, I choose to be grateful for the oversight.

“You didn’t wait for me.”

Peter grimaces, but he doesn’t answer. He gave up on arguing with me over this particular subject months ago.

When I reach Lord Estrias’s body, I notice that his arm is flopped over the armrest, extended at an awkward angle. For him. Not necessarily for me.

I crouch, my fingers finding the hilt of my blade, tucked away underneath my skirts by a leather scabbard wrapped around my calf. Peter’s already examining the portraits lining the wall. He never watches me.

When I take my blade to the corpse’s wrist, there’s the briefest moment of satisfaction, a thrill, filling the gaping hole inside my chest.

Then the severed hand plops against the white rug, staining it red, and the emptiness in my chest returns.

When Peter pullsme into him later that night, both of us supplanters in the lord and lady’s bed, his eyes sparkle with adoration.

I can’t help myself. I like it.

I revel in his obsession with me. The way his fingers clutch my hair like he thinks if he loosens up, I might flutter away for good.

Little does he know.

“You’re mine, Wendy Darling,” he says as his lips devour mine.

It used to bother me, back at the beginning of my captivity. But being a possession means I’m just one more thing for Peter to lose.

“You’re mine, back.” And for so, so much longer, I don’t say.

When he kisses me like this, when he takes me to bed, I retreat into that hole in the back of my mind. The alcove I used to hunker down in while the suitors handpicked by my parents did to me as they pleased. It was a dusty place at first, unused to my company.

I’ve all but made a home there now, a bed for me to lie in.

In this bed, I dream of dying. Not the sweet surrender I used to crave, but a wakeful sort of dying. I envision my soul, trapped in spirit form, just like Iaso, Peter’s unwillingness to let me go tethering me to this realm.

There was a time that would have been a nightmare. Now I find it entertaining.

Soon, but not yet. Might as well stick around for a few more weeks. Might as well remain Peter’s, but just out of his reach, chuckling silently at the torture he’ll feel when he loses me.

And he will lose me.

When it’s over, I come out of the hole in the back of my mind and emerge in the Estriases’ bed, wrapped in his arms. I almost never fall asleep like this, in his arms, anymore, but as he breathes deeply behind me, my eyes grow heavy.

There’s peace in knowing I only have a month left. A month left before I’ve failed to fulfill my end of the Nomad’s bargain.

When I’d bartered for two years instead of the one he’d been offering me, I thought I was doing myself a service. Speaking up and fighting for myself, for once.

If only I’d held my peace, I wouldn’t have to retreat into my dark corner every night. Everything would be quiet, except for Peter’s sobs on the other side of the veil. His screams my lullaby.

Just one more month.

I’ve been doing this for almost two years. Ten months without any help. What’s another mooncycle in my brother’s murderer’s arms?

It’s this thought that lulls me to sleep.

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