Wicked as a Pixie (Daughters of Neverland Book 3)

by Kendra Moreno

  A handful of Wendy’s crew join but nearly half of Hook’s crew stand. Hook stands to the side, his jaw ticking with emotion, but the pirate won’t show it outright, not right now. He won’t know how to handle it, but when Wendy offers her hand to him, he gladly takes it, walking with their people who wish to end their journey here.

  The same happens in the Tribe. A handful of members stand and follow Tiger. I see familiar faces in both groups, people who have lived for so long, they don’t even know anything else.

  We all make our way to the handful of my own still sitting on the ground, waiting for my return. We take a seat, Tiger, Wendy, and Hook beside me, before we face those of our people who prefer death to starting over.

  “I never expected so many to choose to stay here,” I murmur, “but we sit with you in comfort, lending our ears to those who wish to speak. We will not try to convince you, because this is your choice, and in a world that has stolen many choices from us, it’s important you are the one to decide.”

  “How will it end?” a pirate asks.

  “We don’t know,” Wendy answers, her fingers clenching in Hook’s hand. He keeps his hook well away from the Sea Captain, but when I see him reach out towards one of his men and offer the hook in a version of a handshake, it nearly chokes me up. I don’t expect the show of emotion. I didn’t expect any of this, to have to say good-bye to so many when the time comes.

  “I’ve been in the world for a long time,” Swift murmurs. “Long before we had Daughters and even Queens.” His eyes crinkle at me. “But perhaps the most important thing to me that I need to say is this.” Swift moves until he sits before us all, the others placing their hands on his shoulders, touching where they’re able, giving him strength. “None of us would have made it without the four of you. I know I speak for all of us when I say we can so easily decide to lay down our swords because you give us the strength to do so. Neverland isn’t all gold and glitter, but it’s home, and even if it’s dark and horrifying, I can’t imagine myself anywhere else.”

  “I’m so tired,” someone says.

  “I can hardly breathe anymore with the weight of age choking me.”

  “I just want to sit and watch the world end and know I’ve lived a long life.”

  The sentiments are echoed through the people, each adding their own reasoning. Before we get half through, my eyes start to glisten. All our eyes do.

  “We’re strong because you give us strength,” Swift finishes. “And because of who you are, because you think you’re monsters when you’re anything but, we know the rest of our people will be safe, and we will take comfort in that at the end.”

  Wendy’s tears fall and crystallize as she reaches out a hand for Swift. He gladly takes it, smiling gently at the Sea Captain.

  “Don’t cry for me, Wendy,” he whispers. “It’s just another adventure.”

  Her tears come faster, littering the soil with tear-shaped crystals, and Swift pulls her into his arms, comforting her, but the rest of us find ourselves following, and though the tears don’t fall from my lashes, they hover there. Our people come around us, those who have decided their fate, and we hold as many close as we can, offering what we’re able.

  Finally, when we all move back, Swift looks at Hook. Both men sport red-rimmed eyes, their emotions out for everyone to see. “There is one thing I’d like to do before I die,” Swift says, a smile tilts his lips.

  “What’s that?” Wendy asks as she wipes her face.

  “Punch Hook in the face. I’ve always wanted to do it. Now seems as good a time as any.”

  Hook rolls his eyes. “When it comes time to leave, I might even let you try.”

  Swift chuckles, but he returns his attention to Wendy and his smile falls. “Do you think Chips will hate me for this?”

  Wendy shakes her head. “He could never hate you, Swift. The man’s in love with you.” She takes a deep breath. “I suggest you tell him gently and spend what time you have left together.”

  I stand, dusting my dress off, and everyone stands with me. “Tonight, we celebrate our people,” I announce, and when my eyes fall on Wendy, Hook, and Tiger, I say, “all of them.”

  It feels necessary to have some happy memories together before we’re forced to leave some of our people to die. I won’t steal their choice from them, not even if the urge to do so is strong. They’ve made their decisions, and they’re allowed to stick to them. But it hurts. I may be the blood-thirsty Queen, but I care for my people, and when we lose one, it pains me. Now, I’ll be losing over a dozen at once, knowingly, and I know the pain will be great.

  I’m the oldest pixie of all. I should have considered staying as well. But when my eyes trail around the Coven and land on where Atlas stands talking with someone, I know I’m not ready. I still have things to live for, still want to see Aniya become the powerful being we all expect her to be. I want to see other worlds.

  Swift joins me when I start walking away, his hand threading through mine. I don’t even ask, and Swift doesn’t speak. I let him into my green room and hover when he buries his toes in the soil, watching as he searches for comfort in the room I do the very same in every day. When his lover comes through the door with a stricken face, I move aside and allow him into my haven, watching as the two embrace and Chips starts to cry. When Swift begins to sing softly to him, holding him tight, I disappear, fighting the emotion choking my throat.

  Do not cry for endings, love.

  Wipe the tears quickly from your eyes.

  The darkest night will end soon

  And again the sun will rise.

  Together we may walk this earth,

  And together we could leave.

  The hardest part of letting go

  Is remembering you must breathe.

  Love began us on this path,

  And love will set us free.

  Do not cry for endings, love,

  Just sit here and breathe with me.

  His song of heartache, of endings, follows me through the house, echoing, until I can’t stop the tears from trailing down my face.

  But I never let anyone see.

  A Queen, even if she’s hurting, must always remain strong.

  Chapter Ten

  The celebration begins the moment night comes. Four large bonfires take up space in the center of the Coven, logs piled high so the flames will lick along them and light up the sky. Food is prepared, so much food from every group, and when someone breaks out the fairy wine, I don’t say a word. Let them drink until they can’t remember their pain. Let them all drink until there’s no ending, no beginning, nothing but a moment of happiness.

  This celebration feels far heavier than any other, and though we celebrate often, it’s never like this. The air hangs thick with sadness, with pain, and though it’s the happy thoughts that usually get to me, the pain is nearly just as potent, coating my tongue until my chest aches, until my heart throbs painfully. We don’t even know if we will make it out, if we’ll find the door and be able to open it, but we’re going to try. That’s the best we can do.

  The thoughts lay heavy in my mind, and watching our people murmur their good-byes in the middle of the drumbeats nearly does me in. It isn’t until they all start howling together, their cries of agony echoing in the night sky, that I can’t sit here and witness it any longer. I want to be there for them, but when my chest squeezes viciously at the sight of Chips and Swift howling, their song echoing through my mind again, that I find myself moving through the Coven, away from the worst pain. I wander until I find myself in the small blooming clearing Atlas had taken me to, the colorful flowers beckoning.

  The flowers are just as pristine as they were when I first came to it, the floral scent heavy in the air. My pixie dust coats some of the flowers, making them sparkle in the low light. I sit down carefully in the middle, absorbing their strength as much as I’m able, trying my hardest not to let my emotions get the better of me. When the small bugs begin to glow, insects I’ve never seen
before, and circle around me, I nearly lose my breath.

  “I’ve been looking for you.”

  I turn and meet the eyes of Atlas, of a man who seems to move without sound, and smile sadly. “You found me.”

  He watches me closely, his eyes taking in the flowers around me, the insects fluttering around offering their glow. “Is everything okay?”

  Looking down, I nod. “I just couldn’t handle the emotions. I’m going back, but I needed a moment to recoup. The darkness, it was getting to be too much.”

  Atlas nods and gingerly steps between the flowers, coming to sit beside me. His thigh brushes my own, sending sparks of awareness through my body and the memory of our kiss flashes through my mind. He leans back on his hands, seemingly at ease even while I practically undress him with my gaze.

  “I know all about darkness,” he murmurs, staring up at the insects. “I was in a war when I was only fifteen, in mind and body,” he adds, because in Neverland, fifteen-year-olds could be thousands of years old. “Somehow, I’d had a part in saving the world, and when we went back to my world and tried to go back to normal life, well, it didn’t come easy.”

  “What happened?” I ask, taking his hand in mine. I lean back until I can lay in the flowers, but Atlas hesitates when he sees my wings where he’d lay. “They’re strong,” I murmur. “Lay on them. I need you closer.”

  Gingerly, Atlas lays down on my wings, as if he’s laying on glass, but the weight of him tucked against me is comforting and I hold his hand tighter.

  “When we returned to my world, I started having terrible nightmares. I saw death, blood; I saw my sister and people I cared about slaughtered. . . I saw my mother a lot.” He doesn’t look at me, keeping his eyes on the insects above us. “She died in Wonderland before we ever got to the war. She went peacefully, but that didn’t matter much when I was a kid. In my mind, she was still a casualty of war.”

  “Did you ever tell Calypso?”

  He shakes his head. “She would have blamed herself, and it wasn’t her fault. With the power that suddenly filled me, with being Chosen, I didn’t realize what it would make me, how it would change me, and returning to normal wasn’t really an option.”

  I squeeze his hand. “How did it change you?”

  “I stopped enjoying the smallest things because they came easy. Sports? I had to tone down my powers because I accidently outran them all, outplayed them all. I lost a lot of my friends, people I thought important to me before I fell down a rabbit hole, because I couldn’t focus on frivolous things anymore. I couldn’t talk about grades or worry about scholarships when I’d been in a literal war. And then, there was so much I had to keep a secret, so much I couldn’t tell them, that I didn’t realize I’d closed myself off until I was left standing alone.”

  “It sounds lonely,” I murmur, turning my head to look at him. When his eyes meet mine, something in me shifts.

  “It was lonely for a long time,” he admits quietly. “But I found new things to interest me, started taking classes online, graduated early because things came easier. I had a college degree before I was twenty-one that should have taken me until twenty-six to get.” He grabs and holds up the axe he always carries on his back. “I got really good with a battle axe, learned as many fighting styles as possible. When one became boring, I switched to another. Sometimes they lasted a year, sometimes a few months, but I kept myself moving. I knew I’d one day return to Wonderland, knew that was our destiny at some point. Cal just wanted me to be older first, to be a normal kid. The problem was, I stopped being normal the moment we fell into Wonderland.”

  I reach up and run my finger along the battle axe he holds, the intricate designs etched into the metal. “It’s a beautiful weapon.”

  “Hatter calls it the Berserker axe. I have fancy armor that goes with it, too. I still don’t know what any of it means, though. I have no idea what I am, or what I’m supposed to be.”

  I turn onto my side, careful to tug my wing from beneath his back before I face him and place my hand on his hard stomach. One of his arms move beneath me, holding me closer to him, but his other one cups my hand, holding it.

  “Perhaps, that’s the best part. The not knowing,” I whisper. “Knowing makes things complicated.”

  All my years, knowing what I’m capable of, it’s a heavy burden to bear. It seems like it would be a blessing to not know, even if it would be far more dangerous.

  “I think it’s frustrating. I would much rather know what I’m capable of than sit here wondering when I’m going to snap and kill innocent people.”

  I curl my hand along his jaw and make sure he’s looking at me.

  “You could never hurt innocent people, Atlas. I can sense that easily.”

  “How could you?” he asks. “You don’t know that much about me.”

  “Because I’ve killed innocent people,” I admit. “And it takes a certain level of monstrosity to do it. You’re not a monster.”

  For a moment, neither one of us says anything. I simply look into his eyes, studying him, and when his lips peel back in a smile again, there’s something just a little sharper there, as if trying to prove he’s more monstrous than I think him. I don’t know how to tell him it’s not the characteristics that make a monster, but the soul inside. While mine is wrapped in darkness, some of it left over from the Shadow I once pulled from Peter’s body, Atlas’ is shining like its own sun. Sharp teeth do not make a monster.

  With the way we’re laying, me on my side and wrapped around Atlas, it puts us closer than I anticipated. Our faces are close enough that I can lean forward. Even with my fingertips still on his chin, even with my wing partially beneath him, the temptation to claim him is strong. Fortunately for me, I don’t have to make the decision of whether to lean forward or not.

  Because Atlas makes the decision for me.

  I’m certain both of us remember the kiss in the cave, and the moment Atlas presses his lips against mine in a rough kiss, it makes everything in me flare to life. Moving from his position on my wing, the Berserker shifts, coming over top of me, holding his weight on his forearms. It should feel threatening, but even though he holds himself there, even though his fingers curl into the soil on either side of my shoulders, I feel anything but caged in.

  “What would happen if I bit you?” he rasps as he breaks the kiss and starts a trail of fire down my neck. His sharp teeth scrap there, making his question seem more relevant, and the thought of him biting me makes my toes curl.

  “I’m not sure,” I murmur on a breathy moan. “I might bite back.”

  He trails down to the edge of my dress, where the sparkling material reveals the tops of my breasts. Before he presses his tongue there, he looks up at me from beneath his thick lashes, a grin on his face. “Next time, we can put that to a test.”

  Something inside me revolts against the thought of there being a next time, even if I want there to be. This is getting too dangerous. I try everything in me to push down on the feeling, to curb the desire to run. My distraction comes in the form of Atlas shifting onto one elbow, his other hand reaching down to stroke up my thigh, pressing the material of my dress up, up, up, revealing more of my skin to his eyes. He doesn’t question the black lines running across my skin, the evidence of the heart dying more every day. Before long I’ll be a living history of Neverland, the only thing left to detail what happened here in symbols hardly anyone can read.

  Everything in me focuses on the feel of his rough fingers on my skin, pushing the dress up higher, stroking along my inner thigh. And then he starts to sink lower.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, looking down my body at him.

  “I told you in the cave you tasted of glitter, but that’s not exactly right. You taste like light, like brightness.” Through heavy lidded eyes, the silver ring burning so bright, there’s almost no brown left, he studies my face. “I have the urge to see if you taste the same everywhere else.”

  His fingers reach my bare core beneath
my dress, and when he strokes through my wetness, both of us groan.

  “This is a bad idea,” I whisper even as I spread my thighs wider, inviting him closer.

  He hums under his breath. “And if it is, then at least it’ll be worth whatever consequences come from it.”

  I can’t argue. Atlas must have known I’d contradict his words, because there are certainly consequences, I wouldn’t be willing to face—his death, for one—but before I can say that, his lips seal over my clit, his tongue swirling. My back arches, the feeling of him between my thighs making everything in me want to float. I clench one of my hands in the soil at my side, but the other, I can’t help but tangle it in his hair, clenching a little too hard as he expertly steals my breath. My body lights up with pleasure, and when my claws come out, probably hurting him, he simply growls against me until I shiver and press harder.

  I gasp when he hooks my knees over his shoulders, fighting everything in me that forces me onto a cliff I’m not prepared for. The orgasm builds quickly, far quicker than I’ve ever felt, and with my hand in the soil, the life of the flowers we lay in only adds to the build.

  “Atlas,” I rasp as he runs his tongue up my seam, but it isn’t until he pressed a finger inside me gently that I cry out. Another joins it quickly, working me higher until I’m sure I glow.

  He groans against my core, the vibrations running through me. “Say my name again, Pixie,” he commands and curls his fingers inside me, touching somewhere deep that damn near shatters me.

  With my back bowed, I cry out his name into the trees as everything in me, everything Atlas does to me, shoves me from the cliff I’d been perched on. My body shakes with the force of it, continues to shake as he slows his movements, his tongue sending small aftershocks through me that make my thighs shake where they part around his shoulders.

  I’m panting in an attempt to catch my breath when I realize my claws still hold him to me. I uncurl my fingers, careful not to tangle them in his hair, and he places his chin on top of me, a satisfied grin curling his lips. His teeth are sharper, but he never once nicked me with them. Those inhuman silver eyes study me, watching for a reaction, and I realize the same moment he does that I’m glowing.