Page 116 of Losing Wendy
When the captain speaks again, his voice is a low growl. “Tell me why you’re shaking, Darling.”
I bite my lip and focus on teasing the captain, if only because it keeps my tears from spilling over. “Only if you say please.”
“I’ve only ever said please to one person in my life. You, unfortunately, do not rank as high as her.”
We stare at each other a moment, and I fight the urge to glance at his severed Mating Mark. I find myself examining it sometimes, but I only let myself when he’s not watching me.
In this staring match, I’m the one who loses, who gives in and averts my gaze.
I’m always the one who breaks first.
“One of the Lost Boys was found dead. Right outside the Den,” I whisper, hardly able to get the words out.
I wait for the scathing comment, the cruel words that will probably scrape my insides out, but it doesn’t come. Instead, the captain just utters one word. “How?”
I can’t look at him, can’t look at a living person while I’m discussing such awful acts. “They stabbed him in the gut, then removed his pinkie.”
“With what?”
The question startles me. “I don’t know. A dagger, I assume.” Now that I consider it, I suppose I didn’t get close enough to Joel’s wound to check. Even if I had, would I have been able to distinguish between the wound of a dagger and a hatchet?
“Hm,” says the captain, allowing his head to rest back on the rock now that he’s done eating. “So who did it?”
I stare at him slack-jawed. “Don’t you think if I knew…” I trail off, realizing I’m not sure what I’d do. Tell Peter so he could have the killer executed for their crimes? Drive the dagger into their heart myself? I don’t think I’d mind so much if the killer turned out to be Tink, but if it truly is a Lost Boy, would I want them to meet the same fate?
And does it make me unjust that I would show partiality like that?
“There’s a faerie on the island who has a bone to pick with Peter. It’s possible she killed the boy to punish him.”
“That doesn’t seem particularly logical.”
I snort. “Does a woman riddled with jealousy have to operate logically?”
The captain’s eyes glitter with amusement. “Have you ever met a female murderer?”
“No,” I say, because I refuse to count myself among them.
“That’s because they don’t have a tendency to get caught. They bide their time, and they generally don’t leave a mess behind, either.”
I stiffen. “My brother thinks she was hoping to find me, then killed Joel when she stumbled across him instead.”
The captain’s brows lift. “And do you believe that?”
I say nothing.
“You said you’ve never met a female murderer, but don’t I remember you telling me you’ve killed before?”
My heart stutters, my mouth dry. “That was in self-defense.”
The captain waits patiently until I give in to those piercing eyes of his and relay the account of Thomas’s murderer’s death.
“You said it was self-defense,” he says once I finish.
I bristle, my pitch soaring. “It was.”
“No, it wasn’t. You were defending Peter, were you not? Was the man coming after you?”
“Peter’s my…” I swallow my words, training my hands at my sides to keep them from stroking my Mating Mark. That doesn’t stop Captain Astor’s eyes from fixing upon the smattering of golden flecks. “He’s my fiancé. Murdering him would have been no different from ripping my heart out.”