I peer up at the stalactites that hang overhead as we enter another open space, the men spreading out and walking abreast of each other. “Where are we going?”
When Peter puts his hands on my hips, I yelp. “To bed, silly. Where else?”
Chapter
Five
“Don’t go, Peter,” Wendy entreated, “I know such lots of stories.”
The man ahead of me reaches over his head, grabs his shirt, and strips it off. The others begin to follow suit.
“Whoa!” I dig in my heels and whirl on Peter. “No way.”
“You aren’t tired?” He reaches up and grabs his own loose tunic, then pulls it off. His body is golden. Lean and muscled.
I step back but bump into Curly. “I’mnotsleeping with you.” Realization hits me. “Is that what you mean by ‘tell us a story’?” My throat constricts. “Absolutely not!” It comes out as a squeak. I can’t believe I’ve fallen for this. What the hell was I thinking? I should be trying to escape, not making nice with the idiots who play tea party and act like it’s perfectly normal to kidnap a woman.
Peter stares down at me, his mouth twisted in a perplexed line. “Stories are the same as sleep to you? What does that mean?”He looks over my head at another man, the only one in glasses. “Nibs, is that something new?”
“Couldn’t say.” Nibs strides up, his broad, hairy chest blocking my view of anything else. “You’re the only one who’s been to the mainland lately.”
“I’ve never heard that.” Peter taps a finger on his chin.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I press my palms to my cheeks. “Like, literally, I have no idea what you’re even saying. What mainland? This island isn’t evenreal.”
Peter opens his mouth to speak again, but I cut him off. “Is ‘tell us a story’ a euphemism for something else? For … for sex?” I ask in my boldest voice, trying to hide the quaver of fear underlying it. “Because I’m absolutely not doing that. Take me home. Whatever train you want to run, you’ll have to do it with someone els?—”
“I had a train set,” Nibs says thoughtfully.
Peter’s gaze darkens. “Nibs?—”
“It was painted bright colors. Wood, I think it was.” His eyes take on a far-away look. “It couldn’t run by itself, of course. I had to push it around the track. My father used to play with it, too. We’d pretend he was the conductor. I was always the caboose. But sometimes we’d play, and I’d make the ‘chugga chugga’ sound, and it would make me cough so hard it hurt. My mother?—”
“That’s enough,” Peter says sharply.
Nibs blinks slowly a few times, then runs a shaking hand through his dark hair. “What was I saying?”
“Nonsense. Just nonsense.” Peter claps him on the shoulder.
“Oh.” Nibs gives an uncertain laugh as the other men shift on their feet, some whispering to each other. “Sorry.”
“No harm, Nibs. Now, all of us to bed. But I’ll need to talk to Moira for a moment.”
The men obey him without question, filing away through the cavern until they disappear into yet another chamber.
I swallow hard. “Look, I don’t know what the hell is going on. I just want to go home.”
He sighs. “Youarehome, Moira. This is where you’ll stay. It’s to keep you safe.”
“Safe from what? Bad hot dogs from horny frat brothers? I can handle that myself.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “The pirates.”
I remember the ship I saw out on the water, the dark wood shining in the dappled moonlight. But then I shake myself inwardly. “That doesn’t make sense. I’m not in danger from pirates, especially when I go to a school that’s at least 300 miles from the nearest ocean. I don’t know you or what you’re talking about, all right?”
“You don’t know about Wendy, then?” He lifts a brow, his brown eyes piercing right through me.
I cross my arms over my chest. “Wendy is my great-great-grandmother. So, no, I didn’t know her personally.”
