Page 128 of Losing Wendy

I’d done it before I even trusted him, really. Before I even loved him. It was like someone else had taken control of my hands, sent me into a frenzy. I’d realized then and there that I would sacrifice everything to keep what I’d wanted most from this life.

I’d driven a knife into an innocent man’s heart, and I hadn’t even given him a chance to speak.

Slowly, I find my fingers tracing my Mark, feeling its ridges.

You’re mine, Peter had said.

I hadn’t known how absolute of a statement that had been. How, of everything in the world I’d cowered from, that should have been the one thing I feared the most.

My Darling little thing, he’d called me when he brought me to Neverland, and I’d let him mold me into just that. A possession. His. Until I slaughtered his avengers for him. Silenced the evidence against him.

Peter never needed to call in his bargain. Because he’s my Mate, and that was always going to be enough to influence my decisions. Especially when I didn’t know to guard against them. He’d told me once that his glamour could influence me only because I let it, only because I was drawn to him.

He’d simply neglected to mentionwhyI was drawn to him.

You’ve been craving her for so long.

My mind keeps replaying the Sister’s words, like it can’t quite process them until it’s heard them thousands of times.

But it’s not her words I can’t process.

It’s that Peter’s my Mate.

It hits me like a shard of shrapnel to the chest, lodging there. The harder I try to dig it out with my fingernails, the more infected the wound becomes.

I can’t.

I can’t be Peter’s Mate.

Not after what I just witnessed.

He killed those boys, ended their lives so they wouldn’t come of age. Or so they wouldn’t spread the plague to the others. I can’t quite fit the two together in my mind as I scramble to make sense of it all.

Peter. My Peter, I might believe. But Peter isn’t just the male who took me flying in the sky, who taught me not only to fall but to like falling. Peter is the creature who just writhed before me, callous and cruel and thirsty for death. Peter is the voice who said he would have taken me long ago, if not for his gentler side restraining him.

Peter is the one killing the Lost Boys.

And my Mate plans to kill more of them tonight.

As I raceto slip from the tunnels, I trip over a root. A root I’m fairly certain wasn’t there before.

When I go down, I land with a yelp, then immediately cover my mouth.

Inside the cavern, a hunter shifts to attention. I can practically see his beautiful face, his glinting blue eyes narrow, his lithe shoulders roll, his ears flatten back as he senses me.

“Wendy Darling,” he says. Footsteps pad in my direction as he follows me into the tunnels, and I’m cursing the root that came up to grab me. I attempt to wrestle my ankle from its clutches, but it’s no use. No use at all.

The vine only curls tighter around my ankle, confirming that this land is loyal to one person and one person alone. It helped me when it believed me to be in Peter’s good graces.

I sense that is no longer the case.

Peter rounds the corner, having pulled on a pair of trousers and looking massive with how he has to hunch to fit through the tunnel. Something tells me he entered as a billow of shadows.

“Wendy?” he asks. “How long have you been standing down here?”

There’s no use in forcing my shaking voice to calm. I’ll have to work with my fear if I want to sound at all convincing. “I had another nightmare,” I say, blinking back genuine tears. “I didn’t want to wake my brothers, so I came looking for you.”

Peter’s eyes narrow. “How long were you standing there?”

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