Page 82 of Caging Darling

When my eyes land on the leather sketchbook, the sight takes me back there, just for a moment.

I can even scent him, the pipe tobacco and teakwood traveling two years from the past to come and meet me.

“Wendy Darling,” says a voice. I snap my attention over to the desk, where the Nomad sits, looking up from scattered notes. “I was wondering when you would come to see me. Cutting it close, are we not?”

“And you are?”The Nomad examines Peter with a predatory gaze, one that is almost as possessive over me as Peter’s. He cocks his head to the side, grinning with teeth that might as well be razors for the way he appears as if he’s about the snap Peter’s head off.

Strange. I remember the Nomad being arrogant. Larger than life. Dangerous. But I don’t remember him claiming his territory when the other male in the room was Astor.

“Her Mate,” says Peter, pulling me closer into his side.

The Nomad’s smile appears more genuinely amused now. He glances back and forth between the two of us. “YourMatehas a sense of humor about him,” he says. “Does he enjoy calling the sun the moon as well?”

Peter takes a step forward, and the Nomad rises from his desk to meet him. Instant dislike taints the air between them, and I can’t decide from whom it bleeds more incessantly.

I expected Peter’s disdain for the Nomad, anger that another male would dare place a bargain upon my skin. But the Nomad’s ire is unexpected. The same male who was unruffled in Astor’s presence appears incensed by Peter.

Still, he turns toward me, hands still splayed on his desk. “You’ve kept me waiting, Wendy Darling. I’m not particularly fond of waiting. Left a rather ill taste in my mouth the last time I did it.”

I remember the rumors about the Nomad. That he’s lived lifetimes, roamed the land of the dead. Is that the waiting he’s speaking of? When he was lurking on the other side of the veil, waiting to return to a fleshly form?

Chills snake up my arms, and from the way the Nomad’s gaze traces them, I get the sense they don’t go without him noticing.

“What are the terms of the bargain?” Peter asks.

The Nomad furrows his brow. “You traveled all this way and didn’t consider asking your Mate?”

Peter’s lip twitches, and the Nomad’s do too. If Peter admits I’m refusing to tell him, he’s admitting a flaw in our relationship, that I keep things from him.

It’s as good as admitting he’s not my Mate.

“Wendy Darling,” says the Nomad, watching for Peter’s instinctual flinch at the use of my name. “Do you wish to speak to me in private?”

My heart races, not with fear of the Nomad, but with hope. Better to be locked in the room alone with the Nomad than theman who already abuses me. But Peter scoffs. “Please, you made a bargain with her for a reason. I’m betting you want Wendy’s side fulfilled. Just tell me what the conditions are and I’ll get you what you want.”

The Nomad taps his quill against the side of the desk. It makes him look so much older than the skin he wears, the body that appears hardly a year my senior. His shaggy dust-brown hair hangs over his pointed ears, his blue eyes as icy as Peter’s.

In the end, the Nomad’s loyalty to me only extends so far. “I want the faerie that lives on your little island of a realm.” When I flinch, the Nomad grimaces, though it’s half-feigned. “Sorry, love. I’d rather we kept things between the two of us”—Peter shifts his feet at the wording, and the Nomad’s lip twitches—“but it appears you’ve had little intention of fulfilling your side of the bargain. Tell me, did you get what you wanted out of it?”

He glances at Peter like he’s dying to test it out, whether he feels pain.

Peter’s jaw ticks. “What do you want with her?”

I turn to face Peter, trying to decide whether he’s simply trying to stall, unwilling to admit that Tink slipped from his hands, or if there’s a part of his twisted soul that actually cares what the Nomad has planned for Tink.

The Nomad taps his long fingers together as he relaxes back into his leather seat and props his hands on his desk. “That’s not really any of your concern, now is it?”

“Wendy Darling is not only my concern, she is mine. And you branded what’s mine with a bargain. Of which she will die if she doesn’t fulfill it. So yes. My things. My concern.”

The Nomad’s blue eyes flick to me. “And how does your thing feel about being called as much?”

“Wendy’s not really in the position to answer questions at the moment,” says Peter.

“Is that so?” The Nomad leans forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “You’ve changed since I last laid eyes on you.” He scans me up and down. It’s not so much leering as it is assessing. While I’m used to men raking me with their vision, there’s nothing sensual in the Nomad’s assessment.

No, to him, I’m a means to an end, my body, withering from disuse on Neverland, a poor investment.

I open my mouth to tell him I won’t bring Tink to him, but nothing comes out. While there’s much I can do to get around having to fulfill the bargain, much I can do to postpone the urges to hunt down Tink, it’s more difficult to refuse directly.

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