Chapter 6 What Was Promised
Chapter Six
What Was Promised
Peter takes my hand, guiding me past Thorne and Finn through the shadowed archway. Just as I’d guessed, it leads into the open air, onto a spiraling staircase that wraps around the massive tree trunk.
Glowing mushrooms and faintly pulsing flora in shades of blue, green, and purple line the way upward, casting shifting shadows across the wood. It’s almost necessary, with how jealously the thick canopy above hoards the sunlight.
We pass several rooms nestled in the thick branches above, each shaped like a small hut with curved wooden walls and round doors. They don’t look built so much as grown—like the tree shaped them itself, weaving walls and roof from bark and vine.
Peter gestures as we climb. “Thorne’s,” he says, nodding to a door hung with bone charms and black feathers that clack softly in the breeze. “Finn’s,” he adds, pointing to a door strung with glowing lanterns and sea glass that catches the light and shimmers faintly. “And that one’s Tink’s.”
I stop short.
Tinker Bell.
The name slams into me like a wave of ice water, unease curling low in my stomach. She lives here?
Of course, she lives here.
A strange prickle races across my skin. I hadn’t seen her—not a glint of her wing, not the chime of her bell-voice. No mocking laughter or narrowed glare. Usually, she is glued to Peter’s side.
Where is she?
Why hadn’t she come to mock me?
Tinker Bell never needed words to make her hatred known.
I saw it in her eyes the first time I met her.
In the slash of her mouth when he brought me here, when he dared to treat me as more than a passing fancy.
She’d wanted me gone—banished, drowned, dead.
And she’d tried. Sent the Lost Boys after me like hunters, and I, their prized prey.
She’s always been wild and strange. Tethered to Peter in ways I never fully understood—only sensed, and feared. And yet, it’s her absence that unsettles me most. Like the air before a storm. Too still. Too quiet. It makes me wonder what’s coming.
I press on, forcing my feet to move as I follow Peter up the final stretch of stairs, each step tighter than the last. My legs tremble by the time we reach the top.
The door at the summit is carved from dark wood, half-concealed by flowering vines.
Their sweet scent curls through the air, thick and heady, making my limbs heavy and my thoughts slow—dreamlike.
Through the sea-glass windows set into the door, I catch flickers of warm lantern light casting stained-glass colors onto the bark.
Peter opens the door without ceremony and guides me inside. The heavy wood closes behind us with a resounding thud that echoes in my chest
“Welcome to our room,” he murmurs.
A chill whispers down my spine at the possessive curl in his voice. Our room. But I don’t answer. Can’t. I’m too stunned by what I see.
The space is... beautiful.
A massive four-poster bed dominates the center, vines twist up the posts, their leaves glimmering faintly. Mossy green cotton, thick furs, and soft woolen throws are layered across the mattress in tangled, inviting chaos. It looks less like a bed and more like a nest.
The walls ripple with slow-blooming flora, petals unfolding from the bark.
Shelves are carved into the wood itself, overflowing with strange treasures—pressed flowers, cracked compasses, broken watches, feathers and fragments of glass.
A child’s marble. A lock of brown hair tied in a blue thread.
And there, near the center of one shelf, sits a small, tarnished thimble.
My thimble.
The one I gave him in place of a kiss.
I cross the room slowly, like I’m moving through a dream. I reach out and touch the cool metal, heart twisting.
He’d kept it. All these years, through whatever dark path he’d walked, he’d kept this—a small, ridiculous token of a young girl’s affections. He could have thrown it away. Forgotten it.
But he hadn’t.
A lump rises in my throat. It makes me feel absurd and young and fragile. Like the girl I used to be is still buried somewhere inside me, whispering he loved you once.
Or maybe he never stopped.
I turn, heart racing. Across from the bed, a window nook juts from the wall, cushioned in velvet pillows faded with age, overlooking the forest floor. It’s the sort of place meant for long mornings and lazy afternoons, for reading and silent contemplation.
Peter is watching me, leaning against the door, arms crossed, that same half-smile on his lips. He looks so pleased, like this is exactly how he imagined it would be. Like this moment—me here, in our room—was something he’s been waiting for.
I avoid his gaze, my attention flicking back to the bed. It’s far too big. Far too intimate. Far too dangerous.
When I finally summon the nerve to meet his eyes, I find dark desire burning in them. Like he knows exactly where this moment is leading.
I swallow hard. “Peter… can we talk?” My voice emerges fragile, barely above a whisper, like the wrong word might shatter whatever tenuous peace we stand on.
A slow, devastating smile curves his lips. But there's something else beneath it now. Something fractured. A bit unstable.
”Oh, we’ll talk, Wendy. Trust me, there’s much to discuss between us,” he says. He steps forward once. Twice. Then pauses. A strange flicker crosses his expression, like he’s remembering something—or deciding something.
“But first…” The words trail off, unfinished, weighted.
“First?” I echo, wary.
That grin returns, full of mischief. So familiar it makes my heart ache. So wrong, I want to step away.
He reaches for me.
I flinch.
The change in him is immediate. The warmth vanishes like a snuffed flame. His hand catches my chin with a roughness that makes my eyes sting, his fingers pressing in until I wince.
“I promised I’d take care of you,” he murmurs, low and cold. “Now, you can fight me… or you can submit, and let me worship you.” His grin sharpens into something almost feral. “Either way, I’ll be the one to give you your first orgasm.”
His gaze drags over me, slow and claiming, until I can feel it settle beneath my skin. “And I know it will be your first, darling.”
Heat rushes through me—embarrassment, yes, and fear. But threaded beneath it is something far more dangerous. Want. My lungs tighten, unsure which instinct to obey. I should recoil. I should run. But I only stand there, trembling, caught beneath the weight of his gaze.
I force a swallow, spine straightening despite the tremor in my limbs. “What would you prefer?”
The voice that leaves me doesn’t sound like mine—breathless, almost curious. And when his eyes darken with interest, I understand why the question slipped free at all.
Somehow, instinctively, I know: he wants me to fight him.
His lips brush my jaw. He doesn’t kiss me, just lingers there, tormenting me with what could be.
I close my eyes and remember the single kiss we once shared, sweet with youth, bright as starlight. I wonder if he still tastes like that now, or if he’s become something wilder. Like dusk settling over Neverland, when the magic shifts and nothing is safe.
“I crave your submission,” he says, his voice almost tender. “Whether you offer it freely… or make me take it by force. Either way, we both get what we want.”
I gasp. ”Both?”
He draws back with a cruel kind of grace. My body protests the loss of his heat, my spine arching instinctively toward him before I can stop myself. Before I can remind myself, I shouldn’t want this.
“You think I didn’t notice how aroused you were?” he says, tone mocking. “My hand in your hair, my cock hitting your throat… I guarantee your cunt was dripping for me.”
His vulgarity stuns me. My mouth opens on instinct. “No—” But the word sounds brittle. False. Even to my own ears.
Peter’s gaze shadows over, his voice a low threat. “If I slid my fingers between your thighs right now,” he murmurs, “do you think I wouldn’t find you wet?”
My heart slams against my ribs. Every part of me trembles, wanting to deny him, to defy the very proof slick against my skin.
“Don’t lie to me, Wendy.”
I stumble back, my calves striking the edge of the bed. It jars something loose inside me—something terrified and hungry at once. Peter moves faster than I can think, pressing me down against the mattress with clear command. He isn’t violent. Just… inevitable.
The bed is soft beneath me. Cool cotton and warm fur, whispering against my skin. He hovers above me, gaze burning, devouring. My breath hitches.
“So what’s it going to be?” he asks.
I search his face for mercy—for the boy I once knew. But there’s nothing left of him. Only the raw, hungry ache of a man who seems to believe he owns me. Because once, long ago, I gave him everything. A kiss. A thimble. And a heart that has beaten for nothing but him ever since.
A small part of me wants to fight him—to feel the moment he forces my surrender. It’s shameful how my body aches for that violence, how easily desire tangles with fear. But I’m not ready to accept that impulse. To lose myself to it.
I close my eyes, an exhale shivering past my lips. “I won’t fight you,” I whisper. “Not this time.”
I meet his gaze. “I want your gentleness.” Another breath. “I want to be worshipped.”
His smile breaks like thunder. Triumphant. Beautiful. Terrible. Yet beneath it flickers something colder, the faint tremor of disappointment. As if victory doesn’t taste as sweet as he imagined.
And then I understand with startling clarity. He doesn’t just want me to fight, he wants to break me. Because Peter Pan doesn’t merely crave surrender.
He craves conquest.