Page 101 of Losing Wendy

“Where are we going?” I giggle, though I can’t help but glance toward the cave where I’ve trapped the captain. It’s not terribly far off, but I worry it’s within hearing distance for Peter, though the rush of the waves should keep sound from traveling.

Besides, surely the captain knows better than to alert Peter of his presence.

“On an adventure,” he says, swinging my arm in his. There’s a buzz about him, the flicker of a glow. Like he’s the center of a particle of faerie dust, making everything around him just a few shades brighter.

At first, I think he’ll take my hand and fly me heavenward, so I let out a gasped shock when he backs me into the cliffside, the jagged rocks jutting underneath my shoulder blades.

I don’t have time to protest before his mouth meets mine, desire threatening to whisk me away.

But as his hands roam my body and find the waistline of my trousers, the world shifts, and I’m sixteen. I’m no longer in Neverland, but in my parents’ smoking parlor, heady incense filling my nostrils as I try to sever my mind from my body. My pale pink fingernails dig into the velvet lining of my father’s favorite chair, while a man whose name I haven’t bothered to remember…

“Peter. Peter, stop,” I say, my breathing ragged as I pull myself from his hungry kiss and grasp at his wrists, now playing with the buttons on my pants.

He blinks, and it takes him a moment to seem like he hears me. When he raises a brow in confusion, a host of dreadful memories bash me over the back of the head, swirling my vision.

“What’s wrong, Wendy Darling?”

The words teeter on the tip of my tongue, but they refuse to go any further, muted by the warnings of my mother never to tell a soul. So I offer Peter a half-truth instead. “I promised myself I wouldn’t.”

He cranes his head to the side. “Ever?”

I let out a nervous laugh. “No. Of course not. Just not…” My cheeks heat, and I try to hide my embarrassment—unsuccessfully, I might add—by taking Peter’s hand and wiggling it. “Not until I see a ring on your finger.”

Peter’s pointed ears flick, and for a dreadful moment, he says nothing. I wait for him to laugh, to tell me I’m being silly. That marriage has no meaning in a realm tucked away from the rest, a world all our own.

I’m already preparing a defense that will keep me from having to tell him the truth, but when he removes his hand from mine, there’s a weight left behind, a metallic chill wrapping around a finger on my left hand.

My gaze drops, and so does my heart.

The ring is forged of silver, a dazzling emerald shimmering amid a halo of sparkling diamonds.

“Peter.”

I glance back up at him, at his beautiful face. His shining copper hair. His perfectly tanned skin. The ever-present twinkle in his eyes. He’s just smirking, that smug arrogance playing into his features perfectly.

“Is this one of your tricks?” I can’t help the way my voice falters, but Peter just shakes his head.

“I told you, Wendy Darling. You and I are going on an adventure. That is…” He extends a hand. “If you’re brave enough.”

A breathless smile tugs at my lips, and I pinch the band of the ring between my forefinger and thumb, rotating it over the skin where my finger meets my palm. It fits loosely, just a tad too big.

That’s what Peter was doing while he was away. Procuring a ring from one of the realms.

I forget to breathe.

Peter twists his head to the side, examining me with vague curiosity. “You don’t like it?”

“No,” I laugh. I laugh because it’s a ridiculous notion. Because it’s absurd to imagine any sane girlnotcherishing the moment a beautiful boy gifted her a beautiful ring. “It’s just…”

He swivels me into his chest. “It’s just what?”

“It’s just…don’t you think it’s a bit…hasty?”

“Says who?” he asks, his eyes gleaming.

“Says…well, says anyone with an ounce of sense, probably.”

“If you’re looking for the sensible sort, I’m afraid you’re with the wrong man.”

---