Page 117 of Losing Wendy

The captain stares at me for a long time. Long enough that I have no choice but to avert my attention to the foggy night beyond the cave. “I guarantee you it wouldn’t. If Peter had died, you’d still be right here, heart beating whether you wanted it to or not.”

“That man deserved to die.” I sound like I’m convincing myself more than the captain, so I turn toward him and add, “He killed two more of the Lost Boys.”

At this, the captain’s fae ears perk. “How do you know?”

“We found a bracelet belonging to one of the boys on the man,” I say while I give him tonight’s dose of rushweed.

The captain winces at the taste. “Forgive me; I’m not aware of the rules. Is possessing a piece of jewelry enough to charge and execute a man for murder in this realm?”

I fist my fingers into the charcoal sand. “He did it. I know he did.”

“Whatever you say, Darling,” says the captain. He closes his eyes, looking much too peaceful for a man being held captive. “Say, how well do you know that fiancé of yours?”

My heart thuds. “Better than you.”

The captain’s grin is painted on. “Oh, I highly doubt that.”

“You keep saying that, but you refuse to offer any evidence.”

“Well,” he says, lolling his head to the side lazily. “I don’t have a bracelet to hand over, now do I?”

Anger slices through my veins, but I rein it in. “Why don’t you just tell me what you know?”

“Would you believe me, Darling, if I did?”

CHAPTER 42

It’s dark on the way back to the Den. Darker than usual, given the moon is a bare sliver in the sky, and the streaks of vibrant light haven’t come out to dance, obscured by wistful clouds.

Maybe that’s why I don’t see her coming until it’s too late to scream.

As if I would scream, anyway. As if my body would grant me the privilege of fighting back.

Vibrant blue eyes blink at me through long golden eyelashes, appearing just in front of my face, just as a hand clamps over my mouth. Long, jagged fingernails dig into my neck, already drawing blood, sending me back to the night she scratched my Mating Mark up with her claws.

The scars have healed over since then, but I’m not sure she’ll let that happen this time.

Scars don’t heal on a corpse.

I at least possess the presence of mind to struggle and thrash, which is more than I can say for the last time I was attacked. Perhaps stabbing that man to death changed me in more ways than one. Even so, Tink’s grip is firm, and before I can grab at my dagger,she plucks it from my belt and uses it to slit three gashes between the knuckles of my right hand.

This time, I do scream, though there’s no one to hear it. Not through her clamped fingers. Not over the roaring waves and the mournful wind.

Pain rips through me, and Tink knots her fingers through my hair as she gags me and drags my body across the wet sand. Loose pebbles jab at me as I struggle, but it’s no use. Even if my scream could alert anyone, it would only be the captain, who can’t help me in his drugged state.

Who wouldn’t help me anyway, I realize.

A few moments later, Tink uses the knot she’s made in my hair to thrust my face into the waves. When I try to flip over, the back of my head hits stone. The stars that pepper my vision are nothing compared to those that fill the murky void when my gasp, reflexive as the freezing water submerges my body, causes me to inhale a mouthful of water.

The salt burns on its way down, stinging my throat, corroding my lungs. I can no longer feel the rest of my body, but I trust that it’s thrashing. Making pitiful splashes in an already tumultuous sea that won’t even notice.

I’m dying, and it’s happening too quickly and too slowly all at once. Death is so painful, I want nothing more than for it to be over, but as the blackness encroaches, my body fights back.

Wanting so desperately to live.

Part of me reaches for the last bits of faerie dust left in my system from today’s dose, but the panic of my body is flushing it out, metabolizing it.

I’m going to drown sober.

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