Page 83 of Caging Darling

The Nomad stares at both of us for a moment, that air of confidence still familiar on his face. When he moves his hand, Peter flinches, but the Nomad holds his palm up in a mocking surrender. “Just going for my bell,” he says, nodding toward a glinting silver bell on his desk. “No need to be so jumpy.”

Peter shifts on his feet, and the Nomad taps the top of the bell with an open palm and the bell rings out.

“This conversation is private,” says Peter.

The Nomad almost laughs. “This bargain is between me and your Mate.” He says the word Mate like one might a euphemism. “And as it stands, if I can’t trust you to control her enough to tell you about her bargain, which it seems she’s managed to keep from you for almost two years, I don’t know why I would entrust a mission of such importance to you.”

Peter takes a threatening step forward. “I assure you, Tink will be in your hands faster than you can blink.”

The Nomad blinks. Slowly, too. “If that’s so, surely you won’t mind a little company on your mission. You won’t have to suffer my own hired hand for all that long.”

As if on cue, there’s a knock on the door behind us.

“Enter,” says the Nomad, his smile sly.

The door creaks open, and footsteps soon follow. “You summoned me?” the stranger drawls.

Except the voice isn’t that of a stranger.

CHAPTER 30

My heart stops beating in my chest.

No. It’s not him.

I’ve done this before. Thought I heard him in a crowd. Spun around to find it wasn’t him. I thought I heard him on the beach, but when I turned, it was just his wraith.

That’s all it is. His wraith. Following me from Neverland.

But the fact that Peter tenses next to me tells me it’s not in my head this time.

The shock of it all, the disbelief, keeps my heel sutured to the planked floor just a moment longer, just long enough to catch the way the Nomad is glancing between me and the man who just entered the room.

Lying in wait. Like he’s curious who will devour the other first.

Peter’s already spun around to face him, teeth bared. I take my time. Feel the ridges of the planks beneath my feet as I pivot.

It’s a lifetime before I glimpse his face.

Nolan Astor looms in the doorway. He’s changed in the almost two years since I last saw him. His face is more weathered with exposure, his jaw more chiseled with age, his cheeks slightly more sunken. More ruddy. His beard is the same,perfectly accentuating the sharp angles of his jaw. He’s wearing a familiar white sailor’s shirt, except the sleeves are rolled up to his elbows, revealing inky patterns that snake up his forearms.

Those are new.

I can see the tattoos from underneath his white shirt, weaving up his arms and down his chest, poking out just above his shirt at the collarbone.

Astor’s inked his entire torso since the last time I saw him. But that’s not all that’s changed.

In the faerie lantern light, a hook shimmers where his left hand should be.

A whoosh, then a slicing sound fills my ears, threatening to bring me to my knees. Threatening to pick me back up again.

The hook isn’t as I envisioned it when the woman who looked like Iaso mentioned it in the pub. I was picturing something made of iron. This looks to be made of glass, which can’t be right. Nolan Astor wouldn’t pick a weapon that would shatter so easily.

He wouldn’t pick a woman who would shatter so easily, either.

I’m not sure what I’m expecting from him seeing me for the first time. I’ve played out this moment so often, with so many outcomes, so many variables. Now that it’s here, none of the words I’ve practiced so obsessively come to my mind. It’s empty, overcome by those piercing green eyes. They look me up and down, scanning every part of my body like he’s probing for damage done to his ship after a storm. Searching for anything that might need to be patched up.

I wonder if he expects to find bruises. Not that he’ll find any. Peter made sure I covered them with cosmetics before meeting the Nomad.

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