3. Peter

She squirms, her lush ass right in my face, her long legs kicking, her small fists hitting my back.

She smells of roses and fear.

Wendy.

It's her. I got her, I… Brought her over. It's why I was in the real world in the first place, so that's a fucking win. If only I didn't hurt everywhere and if she stopped squirming…

Because dammit, my dick likes it way too much and my head hurts too bad, and until I sort through my fucked-up thoughts, I can't.

Can't fucking think.

I need to find the others.

Skirting the town, I head toward the hill rising over the fields, keeping an eye out for mermaids despite the damn exhaustion. It's swampy and they often come out of ponds, grab your feet and try to drag you down with them.

Fucking island.

Fucking nightmare.

At some point, I realize she's stopped beating on my back and I wonder if she's okay, if she's still breathing. If I should care. But hell, after all the trouble I went through to get her, she'd better be.

Something slithers around my ankle, yanking, and I almost go down. Wendy smacks a small fist against the small of my back as I curse and grind my molars, pulling until my leg is freed.

Fucking dammit.

At least the girl is still alive.

I trudge up the hill, my breathing ragged, splinters of pain jamming into my sides. I spent too long in the real world and it fucked me up worse.

Fucking joy.

Still cursing under my breath, I limp toward home. Or whatever you call the half-buried dungeon where we currently live.

We actually call it the Foxhole, or just "the house", but it must have been an underground shelter at some point. An air-raid shelter?

Do you get air-raid shelters in nightmares?

Why the fuck not, right?

Dragging my feet for the last yard, staggering down the steps, I crow out our usual greeting—"Lost Boys!"—and kick the door open.

Only to find Tink in my face with his short sword in one hand and a grin on his face. He starts, "Peter, you fucker, the—"

"Move!" With a snarl, I shove his annoying ass out of the way and lurch the rest of the way inside to dump the girl on the ratty brown sofa. "Fuck."

"You're in a mood." Tink twirls the short sword cheerfully and whistles a little tune. "I'd say it's nice to have you back but you don't seem to think so."

"Shut up, Tink." I groan as I straighten. I reach for him without thinking, needing to touch him, reassure myself he's okay, feed the dark desire for him burning in my veins, but he somehow manages to move out of range before I do. "I'm getting too damn old for this."

"You're not old," he says.

Fuck, I hadn't realized I said that out loud.

"You don't get old," he goes on. "None of us do. Nightmares, see. That's their magic. They freeze horrible things in place."

Yeah, we are horrible things, but I don't feel like talking. I limp over to a chair and swallow another groan as I fall in it gracelessly.

My leg burns like the fires of hell.

"The Twins?" I ask.

"Out hunting. We weren't expecting you for dinner."

Ignoring the sarcasm that seems to lace every word Tink speaks, I close my eyes and breathe out, trying to get a grip on the pain, hoping nobody will talk to me for a while. Leave me in peace to rest.

But Tink wouldn't know the need for alone time if it bit him in his muscular ass. He ambles over and lifts the hem of my pants with the tip of his sword.

He tsks. "Mermaid venom?"

Moot question. He can see it with his own eyes. Where the mermaid's nails scratched me as I'd swum through the dark sea, carrying Wendy to shore, black tracks spread under my skin.

I don't even have the strength to reach for him this time, and he doesn't come any closer, either.

Same dance. Same story.

Wendy is making noises from the sofa—not the interesting kind, mind you, which would be sounds of pain or sex. She's more like… grumbling to herself as she attempts to straighten her soaked clothes that are already stiffening with salt, like mine.

It'd be cute if she wasn't yet another girl, yet another nuisance to put up with, with no real hope to offer.

A waste of my time.

"What is this place?" she mutters with a huff, finally sitting up, rubbing her palms over her thighs.

She's wearing woolen black stockings and a short skirt and low boots. Her sweater dips low enough that when she leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees, it affords me a nice view of her cleavage.

"Who are you?" she asks. "Why did you bring me here? Take me back."

I shift on the chair, my hard-on getting uncomfortable.

What the fuck is with this girl, this bedraggled, annoying chatterbox of a girl that gets me so hard when the previous ones were barely a blip on my radar?

"Oh. A girl!" Tink turns toward her, resting the sword on his shoulder, another manic grin on his face. "Damn, and I was sure it was a sack of potatoes. Such a pity. I miss potatoes."

There's a pause.

Her brows knit as she regards him for a long moment. "Are you a crazy person?" she asks calmly.

I laugh, a low chuckle that hurts my chest. Then again, everything hurts. "She sees right through you, Tink."

"I'm not mad," he growls, his grin vanishing in smoke. "Never say that."

Ow. Girl pushed a button. "This is Wendy," I say because that much I remember. As to why I brought her here…

"A Wendy." Tink relaxes. "Another one." He sniffs. "A pretty one. Is she the right one?"

"How the fuck should I know?" I grumble and run my gaze over him, the one I can't have, annoyed when my cock gets even harder, so damn hard it throbs like an open wound, a crazed animal trapped in the cage of my pants.

"She's too pretty to be the right one," Tink declares.

He's probably got a point. "Maybe."

"Don't talk about me as if I'm not here," she demands.

Tink laughs.

I snort.

Lord, she has a lot to learn.

"Maybe this time the magic will work." Tink turns back toward me, his grin returning, irrepressible. "Pretty or not, maybe she can do it."

"Magic?" She looks from him to me. "Are you serious? Is this an elaborate joke? Wait… Did Charlie put you up to it?"

I give her a blank look. Did I forget something here? Something more?

But Tink looks just as blank.

"Not a joke," Tink finally says. "Magic is real."

She huffs, almost laughs. They all do, at first. But the silence stretches, and her expression tightens.

"Look, I'm not a witch," she protests, "or whatever you think I am. I can't help you."

"We don't need a witch," I inform her. "We need a human."

"A human." She lifts her chin. "Then what would that make you?"

I shrug. "Inhuman. Monsters."

She shakes her head. Fear flashes in her eyes. "You really are mad." She turns to Tink. "You said, ‘another Wendy.' Did you bring others to the island? Other girls, like me?"

"Oh yeah. Every ten years, Peter brings a Wendy here. But it's never been the right one."

"You do?" Now she turns to me, her eyes wide, her cheeks paling. "You regularly kidnap girls?"

"Not just girls," I say patiently, with more patience, in fact, than I feel. "Wendies."

"Whatever." She dismisses my clarification. "And how do you know they aren't the right ones?"

"They all went mad and jumped off the cliffs."

Now her face goes white as milk. "What did you just say? Jesus. Oh, sweet Jesus. This is it, I'm leaving." And she gets up, just like that, and heads toward the door, long blond hair flying.

I blink after her. What the fuck? She's not easily impressed, this one. Not even my growling and Tink's insane grin seem to faze her.

Or maybe they do and that's why she's running?

"You shouldn't run," Tink tells her, turning his head to follow her with his eyes.

"Watch me," she hisses, limping a little in her low boots. Did she hurt her foot coming out of the sea?

"There's no way off the island anyway," Tink says.

She grabs the door handle, turns it, and Tink still doesn't move to stop her.

I glare at him.

So I get up, hissing at the burn in my leg. Why the fuck is this all up to me? I can't even remember why she's here but I know I need to keep her around.

Fuck.

Limping worse than her, I make for the door, but she's already opened it and climbed up the steps, getting out and running away.

A roar rips out of my throat as I follow her out, my limp turning into an uneven loping run that eats the distance.

Fucking shit. My leg is on fire from the mermaid's venom, my head is pounding, my dick is rock-hard in my pants, and she runs?

"I don't get it," Tink mutters behind me. "Does she wanna die?"

Beats me.

She stands no fucking chance. I catch her before she even reaches the path, grab her arm and haul her back to the house—the bunker—as she yells at me to let go.

Before we get to the steps leading down to the door, I push her against the upper half of the outside wall that's protruding from the ground, face first, press my body to her back, and just breathe in her scent of soap and floral deodorant, of salt from the sea and sweet, aroused girl.

And those damn roses.

"Let me go!" She's squirming again, and damn, it's so fucking distracting. "I have a family! My brothers need me."

"Do I fucking look like I care?" I breathe in her ear and pull out one of my knives, the one I keep in my belt. I press it to her neck, run the flat of the cold blade over her unblemished skin. "Huh?"

"Oh, God…" She whimpers. Her throat clicks as she swallows. "Please, don't kill me…"

"Then stop running," I growl, caressing her skin with the blade. My dick is pressed against her ass, my arm wrapped around her waist, my breath is on her neck.

"I have to go back…"

"You're not going anywhere." Sheathing my knife, I lick her skin, salty and sweet, and lower my hand from her belly, dipping it under her skirt, into her panties. "Got it?"

Her breath goes out when I find her clit and circle it with my forefinger. That gets her attention alright.

"Please," she whispers.

She's soaked, and it would be so damn easy to lift her skirt and fuck her right here, against the wall.

So fucking easy.

But I swirl my finger again, pressing a little, and she moans. She's trembling, afraid and shocked, and yet aroused.

I feel a bitter chuckle rising in my throat. The dark and the fog have carried me here, and that same darkness lives inside of me, but to find her responding to it?

Hard to believe.

I press her harder against the half-buried wall until her cheek is mashed to its surface.

From the corner of my eye, I see Tink standing on the top step, arms folded over his chest, chewing on a grass stalk.

I see the Twins at the edge of the path, standing very still and watching intently.

Arousal flares, blasting through me. I want them to watch. I want her to squirm. Can she see them? Does she know we have an audience?

"Tinker," I say. "Colt. Wesson. Meet Wendy Darling."

She jerks a little, and I swirl my finger around her clit again, then slide it lower and push it into her hot pussy.

A cry escapes her as she comes on the spot, clenching around my finger, drenching her panties more.

Dammit. She does like this.

But soon she'll come down from her high, realize what happened and hate me for it. Fucking despise me.

Good.

It's what she's supposed to do. Loathe and abhor me. Hate my guts.

But let's be honest. Most probably, she already does.