Page 72 of Caging Darling

When I wake,it’s to Lady Estrias’s whimpers in the dining room below. We left her tied to the chair and drugged, but the effects must have worn off.

I could shrug on my nightgown—her nightgown—and pad down the stairs to comfort her. But I’m tired, and I can’t bring myself to feel guilty over her pain.

Guilt is a wool sweater, its collar scratching at my neck. I’ve simply worn this sweater for so long, my skin has grown tired of reminding me it’s touching me at all.

Peter doesn’t stir at the woman’s whimpers. His chest rises and falls without concern for the weeping woman below.

I watch my counterfeit Mate breathe next to me for a while. Then, slowly, so as not to wake him, I roll over and pluck my blade from the bedside table. When I maneuver myself back to his side, he bunches his forehead. Still, he doesn’t wake.

Not even when I trace the tip of my blade against his throat.

It’s become a habit of mine. A guilty pleasure. The meagerest thrill in an otherwise never-ending monotony. It’s the slightest resistance of Peter’s skin against the blade that calms my racing thoughts, soothes the restlessness in my limbs.

The bargain doesn’t allow me to harm him.

But I’ve gotten so very good at imagining, I don’t need to spill his blood to get the high.

CHAPTER 26

“Come again to tempt me into an affair, Darling?”

I let my satchel slip off my shoulders. It thuds as it hits the sandy ground of the dark cave. I doused my lantern as soon as I arrived. Even the moon isn’t out tonight, leaving the cave pitch-black.

My eyes will adjust, unfortunately, thanks to the glowing, swirling lights in the sky outside, but for now, I can’t see a thing.

Just how I like it.

I brought a bottle of faerie wine, for when my eyes try to adjust. There’s no more faerie dust on Neverland. Hasn’t been since Tink left. So now I just have to settle with what Peter lets me bring back from the manors of our victims.

I allow myself one bottle a month.

“We’re not having an affair,” I say.

He tsks, and I don’t have to see him to envision the way his ivy green eyes sparkle. “Are we not?”

“An affair would break my bargain. You and I, we’re simply?—”

“Friends?” I don’t miss the amusement in his voice. “I doubt that very much.”

I slump to the ground and allow my head to rest against the stone wall. “And why is that?”

“Can two people be friends when one hates the other?”

I clear my throat, and after a moment of silence say, “It couldn’t really be an affair, anyway. That would require me being married.”

“Are you or are you not married to the winged boy? I forget.”

I snort, twisting the emerald ring around my finger. “So does he. We’ve been playing the part for so long, sometimes I wonder if he’s simply forgotten he never actually married me.”

“I doubt that.”

“Well, he’s quite skilled at believing whatever he finds most convenient to believe,” I say.

“You wouldn’t know anything about that.” The voice is tinged with teasing, but there’s no missing the layer of concern underneath. The hint of judgment he just can’t seem to help himself from.

I roll my eyes, forcing myself to sit up straighter. “I assure you, I don’t believe in anything pleasant anymore.”

“Yet you keep coming to see me.”

---