The Shadow's Keeper ~OUAT Peter Panfiction (Book 2)

The Flock

"She tells us about a little cave, are you serious?" Regina complained, walking alongside Emma as the entire group followed a pacing Anwen and her captive lost boy.

    "Well, would you rather have her tell us nothing?" Emma suggested.

    "What if she's leading us into a trap? Then what?" Regina challenged in response.

    "Well...like you're always asking me: what am I willing to risk for my son."

     "But we have our son," Regina pointed out through a growing agitation. "It just doesn't add up."

     "None of it does, if Benjamin really is Pan, and Rumple's right about him wanting to take our magic, why does he need to take us to a cave to do it?" Emma cocked a brow, thinking about her own question.

     "The others," Regina suddenly figured out, "what a Rumple said--Pan's flock. This is a trap."

    Emma's head shot up in alarm. "Then why are we walking into it?!"

     "Because we need to find out what the hell we're up against," Regina firmed.

                            ~

    "You must tell me, how does it feel?" Pan asked, grinning as he paced around a sitting Beastly sibling. She was too lost in the pool of her thoughts, shocked as though she had actually ended her brother's life. She couldn't stay too quiet though.

     "It feels...like," she contemplated, "floating--I'm suppose to feel guilty, aren't I?" She looked up at him with a light of concern in her eyes, a fake one of course. And Pan ate it right up the way he always did, pathetically enough. 

     "Of course not," he tried to brand into her mind, giving her shoulders a light squeeze. Lowering himself in front of her eyes, he watched expectantly. "Satisfying, isn't it?" He excitedly challenged, quiet flames eating away at his insides. 

     Anne's breath hitched when he met her gaze, terrorized at the thought that he'd discover she was a liar.

     "Satisfying indeed," she tried, forcing a smile--her eyes unintentionally pleading to be believed.

     "Relax," Peter smoothly cooled as a smile carefully grew on his lips. He must've noticed her tension because when he got up, he walked back around and began rubbing her shoulders. She struggled against tensing further.

     Pan had to know something was up, he was far too keen not to. Hence, he should've known she wouldn't actually crush her own brother's heart--especially considering not witnessing her do it...so Anne inferred. 

     And the level of fear that thought had pushed Anne--the persist question that gnawed at her of whether or not he was pretending just as she was--struck her cold.

     Pan had the habit of playing along so ingeniously in the past, to scheme, so Anne then wondered that if he were, indeed, playing along, what was he waiting on?

Before he'd come out with it and confront her...

     "We can be together now,"--he ensured--"just as you hoped for."

     "What about the others?" She suddenly rushed.

     "I've got them taken care of, my love. I give you my word." 

     "They'll try to come for me," she feared, gazing at him, hard. 

     "Not when they've got Henry," he confessed with a proud grin. Pan's plan A, of course. If he could revert Anne, they'd have Henry to leave with. Plan B was to take their magic if that gift so happened to fail--his main endeavor, however--like he never even saw the point in a plan A. Yet he had conducted one. He was Peter Pan, so of course he'd never neglect to patch up any holes in his plotting.

     Anne's blood had ran cold when he mentioned Henry. No one would come save her now. Now that didn't entirely matter to her anymore but a part of her still wanted to be rescued.

     "But, that scavenger hunt, you couldn't have possibly expected I'd forget that. You were trying to lure me away from them--you played me like a game piece," she couldn't help defending. 

     So the flexible Pan had managed to miss one hole. His brows compressing in discomfort, he recognized his mistake. She remembered everything after he had kissed her so Anne was right that Pan should've have expected her to forget the way he tried replacing her memories. 

     "I was urging you on a safer path, but that was then," he excused.

     "It's not taken care!" She panicked, addressing her previous thoughts. 

     Pan had suddenly went from slight panic to slight excitement. She was worried about being found, she wanted to stay! Relishing in that thought, Pan smiled in relief.

     Troubled inside, Anne battled against the lingering thought that she didn't want to be rescued, but that she wanted to stay with Pan. But not only that, she still wanted her brother. She wanted them both but how could she manage that when the only way to have Felix is to leave Pan? Or perhaps there had been another way so she could have both, she tirelessly hoped. 

     "Hey," Pan suddenly spoke, cupping her cheeks, and claimed her eyes. "Calm yourself, that was then, darling. You're all safe now. They're going to leave and you'll never have to worry," he reassured with a passionate smile.

     As Anne gazed back at him, a silence pulsed through the air before she pushed her lips to his. Rushing her fingers through his curls, she deeply kissed him. Pan's heart palpitating once, he hurriedly kissed back. 

     Annoyed when he felt her break the kiss too early, he gazed at her suddenly tempted features.

     "Do something for me," she seductively breathed, gently trailing her fingers through his hair some more. 

     "Anything," he immediately agreed, brushing their lips together.

     "Show me the cave you keep your little toys."

     "What?" Pan panicked.

     "Your flock."