Wicked as a Pixie (Daughters of Neverland Book 3)

by Kendra Moreno

  Pixie dust dances in the air around us in clouds, sending tiny sparkles in every direction.

  “Beautiful,” he murmurs. “You taste like light, Pixie. Like light and honey.”

  For a moment, the sight of him staring at me with emotions I’m not familiar with in his eyes makes something inside me squeeze, but the moment it does, all the panic I’d been feeling comes back so savagely, everything in me tightens. It must show on my face, because Atlas frowns and leans back, helping me to sit up.

  “Pixie?”

  He could be yours.

  The voice whispers in my mind and all that I am both seizes them and revolts against those words. My wings flare wide as if I sense a threat. They don’t know that the threat comes from inside me. Red spots dance in my vision at the happy thought, at the way Atlas looks at me with care and worry, and I nearly choke from the emotion in my voice.

  “Tink,” he tries, reaching for me, but I find myself scooting away from his touch. I try hard to ignore the brief flash of hurt on his face, but I can’t. I want to reach out to him and run away. I want to kiss him and hide. The war inside my mind makes my heart beat frantically in my chest, triggering instincts.

  “I can’t,” I choke. “It’s too much.” I claw at my throat as if that’ll help.

  “Hey,” he says, but he doesn’t reach out for me again. “It’s okay. We can work through it. I’m not trying to scare you or force you, Pixie. We can slow down.” Even though he says the words, I know he doesn’t want to. The world is ending around us. We might die tomorrow. It seems idiotic to slow down at a time like this. I know he doesn’t want to go slow, and something inside me doesn’t want to either, but he’ll do so if it makes me happy.

  And that scares me more.

  Someone shouldn’t care like that about me. I’ll only hurt him. I’ll only hurt them all.

  For a moment, I let weakness take over and my hand twitches for him, lifting just a little. With predatory eyes, he follows the movement, knowing I’m fighting it, but I can’t reach out. I get control of myself a second later, flare my wings wide, and lift into the air. The pixie dust floating around us swirls with the sudden wind, making Atlas look like some sort of kneeling god in the flowers.

  He watches me closely, but he doesn’t move to chase. He’s letting me make the decision, and though everything in me tells me to take him in my arms and let him claim me completely, I can’t do that to him. He’s the sun, and I’m an eclipse. I can’t look into his eyes and see that light snuffed out by my darkness. I can’t kill everything he is.

  “I’m sorry,” I rasp, and I take off through the trees before I can see the look on his face, but something has me looking over my shoulder once before I disappear through the trees completely.

  Atlas stands there, sparkling, beautiful, watching me run. I choke on the emotion in my throat, the war inside my mind making my motions frantic.

  The fact he doesn’t chase me and force me to listen proves he’s too good for my world.

  I lock myself inside my green room and don’t leave for hours. Only then do I give into the tears.

  Though I’m a monster, though everything in me tells me to keep him, I let the smallest bit of humanity through. I’ll make the right decision for both of us, no matter how badly it hurts.

  No matter how much the image of him standing in a cloud of my pixie dust makes me yearn for the emotion I saw in his eyes.

  I’m just not the pixie he thinks he sees. But Gods, how I wish I were.

  Chapter Eleven

  JUPITER

  The glass vials in my backpack jingle as I shuffle through the trees, clicking gently with my movement. I’m starting to run out of the test tubes, and it irks me that a hundred of them weren’t enough. There are far too many interesting things to study here in Neverland. I need more supplies.

  White and March trail behind me, escorting me a little further out to gather samples. Though I can protect myself now, White knows it’s far easier to get the drop on me when I’m kneeled down with my test tubes. I’m not ashamed to admit, if I’m focused on something interesting, I’m less likely to realize someone is sneaking up on me.

  I’m not sure why March came, though. While he’s been spending most of his spare time with Tiger Lily, he still seems interested in everything going on, his eyes taking in more than we ever gave him credit for. Seeing the Hare in love has certainly changed my perception of him. I’ve never seen something both terrifying and adorable. He’s taken to wearing his glasses again, and it should make me nervous that he prefers a skewed blurry version of the world to the normal one, but it doesn’t. Even in love, the March Hare is mad.

  “What things are you looking for this time?” White asks, searching around us for danger. We’re not far outside the Coven, just enough to reach some areas I haven’t before, but it’s best to be on guard at all times.

  “Anything odd.” I glance behind me and smile at him. “Anything that’s either an interesting thing from Neverland or looks like it doesn’t belong.” Yesterday, I’d stumbled onto a fire ant pile. Everyone had been fascinated by it, been too close, until I broke through and told them to back up, the fire ants already swirling in anger after someone poked the mound. Only March had been brave enough to stay close. Only March had been foolish enough to stick his finger in the center of the mound.

  “What the fuck!?” he screams, dancing around as he tries to shake off the dozens of fire ants climbing up his arm.

  “I told you not to touch them.” I shake my head. “They’re called fire ants for a reason. They come from the pits of Hell.”

  March had looked at me with wide eyes, taking my comment seriously. Later I caught him trying to drown the mound with water. When I explained that wouldn’t work and pointed out why, he actually looked afraid. Now, I think he follows me out of curiosity. What other sorts of demons will the Dreamwalker find?

  “What does your shirt mean?” March asks suddenly.

  Looking over my shoulder at him, I smile. My t-shirt is one White had brought me on one of his trips and it’s one of my favorites. In bold letters, it says, “You matter, unless you multiply yourself by the speed of light², then you energy.” It makes me giggle every time I read it.

  “It’s a science joke. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Under the right conditions, energy can become mass, or matter, or vice versa. Back in the human world, we tend to tell each other we matter a lot, because many of us fear we don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.” I blink. “Well, that took a deeper turn than expected. It’s just a science joke. You matter, unless you multiply yourself by the equation, and then you’ll be energy, instead.”

  “You have to tell yourselves you matter a lot?” March asks curiously, his ears twitching. “Does it help?”

  “Not always. Only those that need to hear it.” I pause. “Neptune used to say it a lot, both to herself and me, when she’d have hard days. In the end, it hadn’t sunk in for her. So, it doesn’t always help, I guess. Sometimes, it’s a last-ditch effort to remind yourself why you should live.”

  For a moment, March doesn’t say anything, but White’s hand threads with mine and squeezes in reassurance. I don’t speak about Neptune much, the memories still painful to the point of suffocation, but White and I talk about it when I need to.

  “It didn’t work for Peter, either,” March murmurs finally, looking over his shoulder back towards the Coven and Tiger Lily. “But something similar worked for me after Alice died, so I can understand the need tell oneself that.”

  “What did you tell yourself?”

  March blinks at me. “What?”

  “Instead of ‘you matter’, what did you use?”

  He adjusts his glasses, and I’m not sure if it’s to see better or worse. “You’re alive,” he admits. “Well. . .mostly.” With a shrug of his shoulders, he points to a flower blooming in the side of a tree, one of the ones that reach out with spindly arms if you’re not careful. “Those look
odd.”

  Dragging my attention from the March Hare that’s suffered so much at the hands of Wonderland and focusing on what he points at, I find myself furrowing my brow. “That’s strange. These are from my world. Orchids.”

  “What’s strange about them?” White asks, leaning closer.

  “Besides the fact they’re here in Neverland? Orchids aren’t a vine. They grow on bushes or trees. They don’t strangle trees like a parasite.” Using the pair of long tweezers White forces me to utilize, I carefully move the metal towards the flowers. The moment I touch one to a petal, the flower snaps shut, teeth I never saw clamping around the metal so suddenly, I drop the tweezers and stumble back into White. “That’s definitely not normal for orchids.”

  “That makes no sense,” White growls, bending down to grab my tweezers once he steadies me. “They’re flowers from your world, with attributes of Wonderland or any deadly world really, but they’re warped into something else and in Neverland. This is stranger than the fire ants.”

  “Fucking demons,” March grumbles at the mentions of the ants again as he leans closer to the orchid. “They don’t have faces like our talking flowers.”

  “They’re triggered by movement.” I glance along the strange vine and point to one of the flowers that’s closed and bulging. “They probably wait for creatures to drink the nectar and snap closed on them when they least expect it. We have plants called Venus Fly Traps that use the same method, but orchids certainly shouldn’t be able to do that.”

  “What do your orchids do?”

  “Nothing. They literally do nothing but look pretty. They don’t move. They grow in little pots you get from the grocery store and they’re a bitch to keep alive. Seriously, you give a little too much water and the petals fall off the flower. Then you’re left with just this horrible stick in a pot that you try and save, but it never comes back.”

  White raises his brows at my sudden outburst, at the way my emotions heat as I speak. “Bad memories?” he asks, trying to hide his smile.

  I shove him gently, scowling. “It’s not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny. You can measure chemicals, study experiments, test toxins and sicknesses, but you can’t water a plant perfectly?” His smile breaks through and my scowl deepens.

  “I’ve never had a green thumb. There’s a reason I’m never assigned to floors with lots of plants. I’d kill them all.”

  “I think it’s adorable,” he murmurs, pulling me closer and dipping his head to press a chaste kiss to my lips. My cheeks flush at the emotion in the small action, but anything I’d been about to say gets cut short when I realize March is reaching a finger towards one of the orchids. “March, don’t—”

  The flower snaps shut, and I wince. White frowns at the sight of March holding up a bloody stump where his finger used to be.

  “How about that?” he says curiously, staring at the mess as it starts to grow back. “The flowers are carnivores just like ours.” As if his blood creates it, the flowers all begin snapping closed and open at the same time. “I think they’re asking for more,” March muses. “I never expected to be devoured by the flora.”

  White and I glance at each other. Sometimes, it’s best to not try and understand the March Hare. I’ve spent long hours studying him before, trying to piece together exactly what he is, and though I figured out he’s not all Hare—he couldn’t be—that was as much as I got. He has to be some sort of mix like Flam is, but though March is sharing his secrets with the Chieftess of Neverland, he hasn’t shared those secrets with us. Then again, I haven’t asked.

  “What were your parents, March?” I ask suddenly, tilting my head.

  He glances up at me and grins over his bloody finger. “It’s taken you an awfully long time to ask me, Dreamwalker.”

  “I didn’t think you would answer.”

  He shrugs. “I always answer when the questions are clever. My Pretty Lily beat you to that question. She just asked.” A grin spreads on his lips. “My father was a Hare.”

  “And your mother?” White’s hand squeezes my hip, showing me he’s listening as intently as I am even if he’s pretending not to. March’s lineage has long since been a puzzle of Wonderland.

  “So clever you are, Dreamwalker,” he murmurs, moving closer. White doesn’t tense, knowing March isn’t a danger to me, even if he feels dangerous. My instincts tell me there’s no trusting someone who’s insane, but March doesn’t work like that. He’s only savage to those who threaten those he cares for, and we fall under that category. He leans close, like he’s telling a secret, and winks. “My mother was a chimera.”

  I jerk, the image of the chimeras March and I encountered when I first went to Wonderland flashing through my mind. My brows furrow. “How on earth did that work?”

  “It didn’t,” he shrugs. “Not really. It worked long enough for me to be born, for me grow up a little.” His eyes meet mine and I see all the horrors reflected there. “And then, one day, it didn’t work anymore.”

  I find myself reaching for March without meaning to, grabbing his hand in a way we certainly aren’t close enough for me to do, and he stares down at my touch curiously. When he meets my eyes, I smile. “You matter,” I say.

  His face cracks into a grin, all the horror that echoes in his words tucked away again. “Unless you multiply me by the speed of light squared.”

  I nod, my eyes crinkling. “You should have been a scientist, March.”

  White snorts. “Don’t curse the world like that. Everyone knows to keep March away from anything explosive.”

  March perks up. “You get to blow things up in science?”

  White tugs me away, heading back towards the Coven, but I look over my shoulder and wink. “That’s one of the biggest things we do.”

  March stands there a few seconds longer, contemplation on his face, but even though we’re walking away, I swear I hear him mumble, “I should be a scientist,” and I giggle.

  Something about imagining the March Hare in a lab coat, his unnecessary glasses perched on his nose as he ignores protocol and sticks his finger in some sort of chemical, makes me laugh. The March Hare would make an amazing scientist. . .

  But he’d also be the worst.

  “Don’t you dare take him into your lab back in Wonderland,” White growls. “I prefer you in one piece.”

  “Oh, come on,” I chide, grinning. “Don’t ruin all the fun, bunny rabbit.”

  Silver eyes glare at me even as we jerk to a stop. March chooses that moment to walk by, one of the orchids in his hand after plucking it. I watch with wide eyes at it chews at his thumb. He doesn’t even flinch. “Oooh,” he says like a little kid. “Someone’s about to get spanked.” He winks and continues passed. “I’ll let the others know you’ll be indisposed.”

  “Yes,” White growls. “Tell them we’re busy.”

  The moment March’s footsteps disappear and we’re alone in a strange forest, the White Rabbit slams his lips against mine, claiming me, but even as he breaks the kiss and trails hot kisses down my neck, I giggle and say, “Bunny”.

  My screams of ecstasy fill the forest.

  Chapter Twelve

  I stand in the center of the Coven, watching as Aniya sits at another tea party. She’s growing rapidly, appearing as if she’s ten now. Most of the way she looks speaks of Tiger Lily’s influence. Her eyes, her hair, her coloring. If you don’t look closer, you’d think Aniya a child purely of the Tribe. But I’ve been studying the child closely ever since we found out her lineage, ever since we realized exactly what the little girl is.

  You’d raise a weapon among you?

  The crocodile’s words flicker through my mind, and though he’s right, though Aniya is a weapon, she’s still a child with a pure heart. Evil doesn’t come just from having power. Evil is festered, grown, encouraged, but Aniya is surrounded with love. No, she may be powerful, may grow even more so, but she’ll never be a danger to us, not purposely .

  I move across the C
oven, towards the empty table where Aniya sits with her creatures. There’s so many of them now besides the few small birds and snake that are always at her side. Now, the bigger creatures lurk in the trees, the ones that make everyone else too nervous to sit beside her. Sometimes, she calls them in, and we all keep a close eye on the little girl with the potential to be a weapon. Carl, the little green bird that always sits on her shoulder, focuses beady black eyes on me, sensing the danger I am, but he doesn’t complain. He knows I pose Aniya no danger.

  “Can I join your tea party?” I ask, waiting for permission to sit on the stump that serves as a chair.

  Aniya flashes a brilliant smile up at me, and in her eyes, I see the stars of her father reflected there. The older she gets, the more apparent they grow. One day, I wonder if they’ll be anything else but stars. “Of course,” she says. “Do you know how to make cake?”

  “Probably not the same as the March Hare. Do I just close my eyes and focus?”

  Aniya nods and smiles. “You have to think of all the details really hard and imagine it sitting on the table.”

  “Is this a power of yours or Neverland do you think?” I close my eyes and start picturing the cake we always serve for celebrations. It isn’t a cake like March’s but at least it tastes good.

  “Makau thinks it’s my power.”

  “Is it?”

  “It belonged to someone else first.”

  My eyes pop open and I study her closer. “You mean Peter?”

  Aniya’s eyes trail down to the cake in front of me, but she doesn’t reach forward for a piece, and when I look down, I realize why. I gasp, my wings flickering at my back as I quickly grab the cake off the table and stand. I’d tried to imagine the cake with white frosting, with the berries decorating the top, but I forgot the constant tinge of red in my vision. The cake became what I imagined but with one gruesome addition. Blood drips down the side, bleeding from the edges as if the very cake bleeds.