Monstrous as a Croc (Daughters of Neverland Book 4) Read online

  Monstrous As A Croc

  DAUGHTERS OF NEVERLAND 4

  Kendra Moreno

  © Kendra Moreno 2020

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests please email the author at [email protected]

  Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are the product of the author’s unmanageable imagination; any similarity to real people is purely coincidence.

  No pirating please.

  Cover by Ruxandra Tudorica of Methyss Design

  Edits by Dani Black of Black Lotus Edits

  Formatting by The Nutty Formatter

  For Mom & Dad

  Your support and love keep me going. Thank you for teaching me how to be strong.

  I love y’all.

  Contents

  Monstrous As A Croc

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  THE ORIGINAL HAPPY THOUGHT

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  THE ORIGIN OF THE MARCH HARE:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  THE FESTIVAL OF DANU

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  TO CONTINUE THE ADVENTURE…

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also By Kendra

  Monstrous As A Croc

  Chapter One

  “It’s going to be alright, Wendy. Just let me go and be strong enough to kick his ass.”

  She’s crying. Wendy, a girl who had been locked away in Peter’s Hollow for weeks, is crying for me. But when the tear drops, it sparkles more than any tear I’ve ever seen. I catch it midair and stare in wonder at the crystal that rolls between my fingers. I meet her eyes again, completely certain in my decision. If she holds onto me, we’ll both die. There’s always the chance that Peter will drop the both of us, and though I might or might not survive the fall, Wendy certainly won’t.

  “It’s okay, Wendy,” I tell her, nodding my head, but she’s refusing to let go, stubborn, beautiful. I’ve never seen someone so determined to save me. I can’t allow her to die, and if dying myself is what it takes, then that is what must be done. I might survive. I might survive.

  For a second, I regret not saying anything to Lily before I’d left. She’ll only know I’m not there, but if I die, she’ll feel it. We’re tied through blood and power, and the thought of what she’ll feel makes my chest squeeze. But I have to try and save Wendy.

  Because Wendy doesn’t seem like she will release my hand, I release mine and begin to slip right away. She’s strong in will, but Wendy has been starved for two weeks, hasn’t had a chance to build up the strength Neverland always encourages, and so I fall.

  She screams, kicking and fighting against Peter Pan, trying desperately to force him after me, but I know it’s pointless. Peter Pan will never do anything he doesn’t want to, and though he might be intrigued by my sister, that intrigue doesn’t extend to me.

  I fall in what feels like slow motion. We hadn’t been high enough to warrant this slow descent to death, but strangely, everything seems to still as I rush toward the river below. Nothing flashes before my eyes. After all, what life do I have to wonder about?

  I slam into the water with too much speed. My bones feel as if they shatter and pain blossoms throughout my body before everything goes numb. I sink, the current dragging against broken bones. Did I hit my head? Everything has a fuzzy layer over it. With no sunlight over the island, it’s difficult to tell what’s happening but all rivers lead to the ocean. Eventually, my body will be washed out to sea and the mermaids will have at me. Maybe then, this numbness will end.

  But I never make it to the sea.

  I slam against a large boulder in the middle of the rushing river and grunt with sudden pain that breaks through my dulled senses. I can’t move my arms to grab ahold, but I seem to catch there regardless, hovering between life and death. Something drags at me, a sucking motion, as if that’s what death is, a soul-sucking end.

  I don’t know how long I stay there. There’s no sun to mark the passage of time. Though I must be bleeding into the water, no creatures come to feast. Small blessings. But though I’m in pain, though I’m bleeding out and sport broken bones, my consciousness won’t fade. I want it to. Anything to ease the burden of failure. I hope Wendy survives. I hope my attempt wasn’t in vain.

  When the bright light flashes, I’m too weak to even close my eyes. I just lay there, pressed against the boulder by the force of the water, by some miracle or curse. My head is above the water at least, just enough to allow me to breathe through broken ribs.

  “Wolfbane, brother of Tiger Lily, you have fallen so far.”

  I swallow, try to speak, but only a rasp comes out. I want to ask who’s there, who she is, but all I could make out is brilliant light and a tinge of green, the colors of a sunrise somehow, too, but her voice sounds like paradise. Is this how I die?

  “I’m here to offer you a deal, sweet, wild boy. Neverland needs something from you. Prophesies lie in wait, and a monster must be born for them to come to pass.”

  I don’t want to be a monster. I don’t want to be anything like Peter Pan. That much I know.

  I try to shake my head, but even that proves beyond my strength. I must be dying, what little strength I have left leaving my body.

  “Unfortunately, you do not have much choice, Wolfbane.” The woman moves closer. “Besides, if you live, you will be able to save Wendy from herself. You already know, since the moment you caught her tear, that she plays a role in these prophesies, that she’s something special. Why not live to see her fulfill her destiny?”

  “. . .What’s. . .the. . .”

  I can’t get anymore words out, can’t get them peeled from between bloody lips.

  “What’s the deal?” Tinkling laughter. “You will live, but in return, you will lack control. You will be more monster than man, the compulsion to remain the Crocodile stronger than anything else. The longer you remain alive as just the Crocodile, the worse it will warp your mind. Choose wisely, Wolfbane. Die as you are or live as the villain and see Wendy through her destiny. You might not like what you become, but you will be breathing.”

  Is that what I want? She said I don’t have much choice. If I say no, if I chose to die exactly who I am—and I’m dying, I know that—then will she make the deal anyway? At least, if I agree, it will have been my choice. No matter what face I wear, which I spend more time in, I can help save Wendy from this world. I can find a way to escape it and take her far from this cruel world.

  I try to nod, but I can’t feel the movement, so with a great struggle, I spit out one word, so weak, no one should have been able to hear it, but she does.

  “Deal. . .” />
  “Very good, Crocodile.”

  The light flares and the pain in my body expands as power suddenly fills me, overflowing, until I can’t breathe for fear of losing my lungs. It feels like my insides are melting and compressing, as if something is taking away the control of my body while giving it back. I grunt, grow strong enough to scream as bones began to pop back into place, healing before expanding.

  Lily and I have always been special. My powers allow me to wear the skin of a crocodile, but it’s a choice, and shifting usually leaves me weak for days. But as my bones twist and crack, I feel stronger and stronger, scales rapidly climbing along my skin.

  The light begins to fade.

  “Wait,” I choke. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Follow your instincts, Crocodile,” she whispers and I can just make out features of her face, eyes the color of a sunrise meeting mine so briefly, for the next dozen centuries, I convince myself I’d been seeing things. “Wendy is the key. Your duty is to become the chains.”

  “Who’s the lock?”

  But she’s gone, leaving me standing more beast than man, power trickling into my veins, and every instinct inside me screams for me to draw blood. Peter is out of range. The pirate I despise even further.

  I turn toward the forest and sniff, grinning when I catch scent of some unfortunate creature wandering through the brush. I shoot into the trees, only realizing later, covered in blood, that I still hold Wendy’s crystal tear in my fist.

  Wendy is the key, and I intend to unlock her for myself.

  Chapter Two

  Present Day

  “Well, hello there, Crocodile.”

  I whirl in confusion and nearly stumble backwards.

  “You!”

  The woman that stands behind me elicits familiarity in my mind, though the closer I look, the more different she becomes, until I begin to question the familiarity, at all. With eyes the color of a sunset and a slight green tinge to her skin, the woman is beautiful, enough so that it makes me pause. Dark green curls hang around her face, bringing out the tone on her skin just enough to make her both beautiful and unnerving.

  Immediate guilt fills me at the thoughts that fill my mind. I’ve wanted Wendy for so long, longed for her, and the first woman I run into, I’m attracted to her. The two clashing parts of me, the Crocodile I was forced to become and my own self war with each other, trapped between confusion and indecision.

  “Are you lost?” the woman asks, not even bothering to address my original recognition that fades away. Her voice is tinkling, pretty in itself, as she stands there, staring at me in the middle of the horrifying trees.

  I hesitate. Am I lost? Do I even care to find out where I’ve ended up? When I’d fallen into the darkness just before taking Lily’s hand, I expected death. Two times in my life now, I’ve expected to die, only to wake up something else, somewhere else, confused.

  For the first time since I’d fallen from Neverland, I realize the insistent buzz of power trickling through my mind is no longer there. The Crocodile I’d become under the power of the deal I made was gone, leaving me as I once was, or sort of. I’m still more powerful than I’d been before I was Chosen, but I’m in control. I’m all human, though I still wear my headdress, but the urge to destroy, to escape, is no longer there. I press my hand to my forehead, searching inside myself.

  The woman watches me in amusement, as if it’s entertaining to see my confusion, but I’ve been with the buzz for so long, I hadn’t even realized it wasn’t there anymore, not until the woman appeared. Had it disappeared the moment I fell form Neverland? Or after that?

  “I’m going to assume you’re lost then,” she murmurs. “Come along, Crocodile. I can help you.”

  “How do you know I’m a crocodile?” I rasp, staring after her when she turns and expects me to follow. I shouldn’t trust her. I don’t even know who she is or where I am.

  “Besides the headdress you wear?” She raises her brow higher. “Did you hit your head coming here?”

  “No. . . I don’t know.” Did I hit my head? I can’t remember.

  Her expression eases just a little. “Come.”

  I take a step and a twinge of pain shoots through me. Looking down, I realize I’m bleeding from a wound that has yet to heal. In fact, I’m covered in small bleeding slashes and none of them seem to be healing. Anything I might have earned during my fall should have been healed by now. The pain filters in, not debilitating, but annoying.

  “I have some salves in my cottage,” the woman says, interrupting my growing confusion.

  “But I should be healing on my own.”

  “Ah, yes. You’re most likely not healing because the worlds are acting strangely, and healing has never worked so well in Oz.”

  “Oz?”

  She shakes her head. “You poor beast. Follow me and I’ll explain everything.”

  She starts walking down the rust-stained golden road, but I don’t immediately follow. I can feel her power, know by the calm way she carries herself that she’s probably dangerous, but she’s being kind. If she leads me to her cottage to eat me, well, there are probably worse ways to die than that. At this point, maybe it’s a better fate for me, anyway.

  I can’t stop seeing the look in Lily’s eyes, her hesitation, and her decision to reach out for me, to offer to save me at the end. I can’t stop seeing the horror there as I dropped away. It stalls me from following the woman right away.

  “You do not want to linger in the forest of beating hearts,” the woman calls back, glancing over her shoulder at me.

  I move to follow her, jogging a little on my injured leg to catch up. The twinges of pain are uncomfortable but don’t prevent me from moving, thankfully. An injured beast is a vulnerable one. “Why?” I ask, giving the trees a wide berth. The sound of beating hearts around us drumming in my ears makes me cringe.

  “Stay too long in the forest and you become one of the trees.”

  I stare at the trees with new horror at her revelation. Had all the trees once been people?

  We walk for long silent minutes, until the trees change from horrifying, twisted people, to ordinary looking pine trees. Still, I don’t trust them, not with the sap running down the sides that smells sickly sweet. Anything that smells like that is usually dangerous, in one way or the other.

  A cottage comes into view before us, small, quaint, and a little dilapidated. Part of the room looks like it’s crumbling, and one of the windows looks broken. It appears as if no one has lived in it for a long time. I hesitate. This is exactly the sort of cottage you’d murder someone in. Still, I follow her, and when she leads me inside the seemingly tiny cottage, it looks nothing like the outside. It’s large, clean, and appears as whole as any other home.

  “Magic,” she says, wiggling her fingers at me with a grin, knowing what’s in my thought.

  “You’re a witch?”

  She sighs, setting a basket full of plants on a table. “Sure. This land calls me the Wicked Witch, if you want my exact title.” She looks at me again when I hesitate in the doorway, uncertain of any decision I make. “You poor beast. Are you still confused?”

  A growl curls my lips. “Don’t patronize me like a child, witch.”

  “But you were a child not too long ago?”

  I don’t even question how she knows that. Magic always gives the wielder an advantage. She can probably sense it, and don’t witches like children anyways? Every story I remember told to me in Neverland was about how witches lead children to their homes to eat them, but those were just stories, tales told for an adrenaline rush. There were no witches in Neverland, and if there had been, perhaps, things could have been different.

  “Only in body,” I admit. “As you can see, I’m not a child anymore.” Once Neverland started to end, once I’d started the process and reached a certain threshold of power trickling inside my body, the amount had drained into me and everyone had started to age. I’d had as much control over killing Neverland
as my fate, but it’s never an easy thing to explain. I’m still at fault; I still held the reins for the destruction. I could have chosen death, but something in my mind told me whoever the woman I’d made a deal with was, she might have chosen someone else had I not already been weak and vulnerable. Neverland was destined to die, no matter who acted as the chains.

  The witch’s eyes linger on my body, a slow perusal of my bare chest marred by cuts. “Yes, I can see that,” she purrs.

  At least part of my covering is still in place, the leather pants torn and bloody but still intact for the most part. I try to ignore the feeling that look creates in me, but I don’t seem to be able to. Instead of letting it get to my head, I turn away to study the inside of the cottage. I don’t like the warring emotions in me her lingering gaze creates.

  Bottles and all manner of glass containers line shelves on one wall, so many things there, curiosity eats at me to find out what they are. A table set up with a large cauldron and tools sits to one side. A large comfortable looking chair is pushed against another wall, and a staircase leads somewhere out of sight to my right. It’s clean, the slight smell of magic permeating the air, but I don’t feel any threats, as if the persona is an illusion as much as my headdress is. An illusion of safety or an illusion of danger?