Chapter 20 Bathed in Crimson
Chapter Twenty
Bathed in Crimson
The forest path stretches before me, hushed but for the occasional rustle of leaves stirring in the breeze. Sunlight filters through the canopy, pale and thin. I feel deeply shaken, like the storm of emotions that tore through me earlier never truly passed.
My fingers trail along the rough and ridged bark of the trees.
I trace the grooves without thinking, trying to reel in my emotions before I see Peter.
My arms ache. My chest feels bruised. Every step is leaden.
The path opens, revealing the treehouse rising above the clearing.
My stomach tightens at the sight. A prickling unease climbs my spine—something waits for me inside. I can feel it.
I have to fight the urge to turn back. To disappear into Neverland so completely that even Peter couldn’t find me.
I wearily step inside, wincing at the creak of the front door. By now, the others should be awake. There should be movement, voices, the scent of food drifting through the kitchen. But the space is silent, empty.
I climb the staircase slowly, each step heavier than the last. I reach the landing and pause outside the door. My hand hovers over the latch. The air is still, and the forest hums around me with a quiet tension that warns of danger.
I tell myself it’s nothing. Just nerves. Just exhaustion. But the knot in my chest twists tighter.
I push open the door to a silent, empty room.
Just as I let out a sigh of relief, a hand clamps over my mouth from behind with an unyielding grip. My body locks, as my heart slams into my throat. Panic detonates inside me like a spark to dry kindling.
His scent hits me a second later—wild, like pine needles crushed beneath a boot after rain. My body remembers him even when my mind refuses. I tell myself to fight, but the moment his fingers close around me, the world folds in on itself, and the only truth left is the cage of his hand.
Peter Pan.
“You want my kindness, hmm?” His voice is low, measured—but beneath it, rage coils, restrained only by a thread.
His grip is bruising, each finger a shackle I can’t escape. My breath comes in ragged pulls against his palm, my pulse thundering as terror knots tight in my chest.
“Well, I want your loyalty, Wendy,” he snarls. “And I don’t take kindly to betrayal.”
I shake my head frantically, trying to speak, to explain, but his hand doesn’t budge.
“You think Hook could save you? Help you leave me?” His breath is hot against my ear, his tone turning venomous. “Kill me?”
My eyes fly wide. He saw.
He saw me talking to Hook.
No, no—he misunderstood. He has it wrong.
I thrash harder, trying to pull away, to force the words out past his palm, but he doesn’t let go.
His other arm tightens around my waist, locking me in place as he drags me toward the bed. I stumble, heels catching on the rug, muscles screaming in protest.
He releases me with a shove, and I reel forward, gasping, drawing in my first full breath like I’ve broken the surface of water.
His hands are on me again, grabbing at my dress from behind, yanking it over my head in one swift motion. Before I can react, he tears off my bra, then my panties, leaving me exposed before him. I gasp, equal parts fear and arousal igniting in me.
His rough, calloused hands slide up my waist—slow at first, almost gentle—before climbing higher. When he reaches my breasts, he palms me hard, claiming, kneading, his need bleeding through every movement.
A small, broken sound escapes me. A whimper, I try to swallow. My heart stutters, caught between instinct and desire, between the urge to buck him off me and the shameful, traitorous want to arch into his touch.
His mouth drags along the shell of my ear, breath hot, words a low, vicious snarl. “I am your beginning,” he murmurs, fingers tightening until I gasp. “And I will be your end. There is no life for you beyond Neverland.”
My will weakens. A tremor shivers through me.
“You are my darling,” he growls, the words scraping against my skin like claws. “Mine to steal. Mine to keep. Mine to break if I choose.”
His grip tightens, dragging me back against the hard line of his body. I feel the rage trembling through him, the possessiveness, the wild fear beneath it all—fear I know he has but will never name.
“And Wendy… you’ve got one more hole I need to claim.” He bites my earlobe, his voice hard with anger.
A shiver of alarm shoots through me at the implication. His lips trail down my neck, biting and sucking, leaving marks over the bruises already there. I wince at the pain.
“Maybe,” he murmurs, “when your submission to me is complete—” His hands clamp on my hips, pressing his hard cock against my ass. “You’ll think twice before speaking to my enemy again.”
“Peter, it’s not what you think—”
He cuts me off, yanking my arms behind me. I feel him binding my wrists with what feels like leather, pulling them tight so that my arms are at an awkward angle.
He moves me further up the bed, face-first into the soft sheets. He arranges me until I’m kneeling, hands secured behind my back, face resting on the bed, ass raised to him—entirely at his mercy.
Panic flares, and I have to fight to steady my breathing.
He’s going to fuck my ass with no preparation, and the anger radiating off him in waves only heightens my rising fear.
But instead, his cock slams into my pussy with brutal force.
I gasp in relief as he drives into me, pressing my face deeper into the bed.
My muscles go lax on instinct, my body softening under him even as my mind reels.
I can’t stop myself from yielding to the force of him, the heat, the raw, consuming intensity that steals every breath I try to draw.
He groans behind me. “Your cunt is always so fucking wet for me. Only for me.”
His grip on my hips is bruising as he moves faster, his cock sliding in and out of me at a relentless pace. The sound of skin smacking against skin fills the room in an obscene symphony that makes my body tremble with each thrust.
“Peter!” I cry out, voice breaking. The pleasure is overwhelming, teetering on the edge of pain—and yet I crave more.
His thrusts are merciless. One hand tangles in my hair, shoving my face into the mattress. I turn my head in his grip, gasping for air.
I can’t move. All I can do is take it.
His cock slams into me again and again, each thrust driving me deeper into the mattress. His hand in my hair pulls back hard enough to make me cry out. The pain only heightens the pleasure, setting every nerve ending in my body on fire.
“Don’t you ever fucking talk to Hook again,” he snarls. “Do you understand me?”
I nod frantically, my voice breaking on a moan I can’t hold back. “Yes, Peter,” I gasp.
The treehouse shudders. A deep groan ripples through the floorboards as cracks splinter along the wood around us.
Magic thickens in the air, humming, vibrating with his fury.
Gold runes flare across the walls, pulsing like a heartbeat—and I don’t need to look to know they’re blazing across his skin too.
Only this time, the glow is tainted. Gold bleeding into red, corrupt.
The boards quake beneath us. The runes flicker in time with his thrusts, pulsing brighter with every movement.
It’s like Neverland itself is reacting to this wild claiming, echoing Peter’s rage.
I can feel it in the air, in the ground, in the very walls around us.
The island is trembling in anger with him.
And Peter—he only fucks me harder. Each thrust knocks the breath from my lungs, his voice a low chant against my skin, mine, mine, mine, sinking into me until it feels like it’s carved into my very soul.
It’s too much and not enough. I’m suspended on the edge of something vast, something terrible and exquisitely beautiful.
Pleasure twists sharp as wire; pain flares hot and bright.
I’m sobbing, begging, pleading for release or for mercy, anything, everything.
His name falls from my lips like a curse, a prayer, like both at once.
He laughs softly, dragging his teeth along my shoulder. “You’ll curse me even as you’re crying for more. That’s the devotion I want.” His hands tighten, forcing my hips back to meet his. “Every time you say my name, I’ll make sure it leaves your lips broken and trembling.”
I feel him pull out suddenly, and I cry out—part protest, part relief.
But he doesn’t leave me empty for long. His fingers slip inside me, then slide up to my ass. Alarm coils in my stomach, and I struggle against the bindings at my wrists.
“Peter—” I sob, eyes clenched shut.
“Shh, Wendy,” he soothes me, pushing two fingers into the virgin hole, stretching me, preparing me. My body tenses instantly at the unfamiliar intrusion. Mercifully, he gives me time to adjust, slowly pumping in and out, stretching me further.
“Fuck, you’re tight,” he groans. “I can’t wait to feel you clench around my cock.”
He withdraws, and I hear the wet sound of him spitting. A moment later, he spreads my ass cheeks, pressing the head of his cock against my entrance. I gasp, my muscles clenching instinctively.
“Relax, darling,” he murmurs, voice low and almost tender at my ear. “You can take me. Just breathe.”
I draw in a deep, quivering breath, trying to do as he says—trying to open, to yield. But my body resists, muscles taut, clenched tight against the pressure of him. I can feel the thick head of his cock pushing against me, the slick wetness doing little to dull the razor edge of the burn.
“I’ll go slow, sweetheart,” he soothes, hands gliding over my hips.
The shift startles me—his earlier fury still thrums in my chest, but his voice is calm now, his touch unbearably gentle. And somehow, impossibly, I begin to relax. My breathing evens out. The tension bleeds from my limbs. His hands are careful, coaxing me open.