Devour the Dark (Devourer #2)

21. Roc

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

ROC

He is transfixed by the sight of Captain James Hook lighting a cigarillo, lips wrapping around the end of it, lungs drawing in the hit.

“What is it?” the Captain asks, frowning across the room at him.

Wendy pours them all a drink. She’s chattering on about its recipe, a staple of the Everland Court. Something with rose syrup and gin and lemon juice. She’s busying herself with the task, measuring out each ingredient with the precision of a scientist.

She is nervous to be alone with them again. The first time since they fucked in the Everland Palace.

He is ravenous for them both.

The witch spins beneath the surface like a whirlpool threatening to pull him down.

The Captain tests the gin straight from the bottom and grimaces. “Awful,” he says.

“The rose syrup tempers the gin,” Wendy is saying. “Wait to try the drink before you dismiss it.”

“Very well.”

She opens a drawer, then another. “Where are your spoons?”

She’s looking at us.

Speak .

Say something.

“Roc?”

“Second drawer from the left.”

He wants to throw Wendy on the counter and eat her pussy until she cries. He wants to bend the Captain over the couch and fuck him until he can’t see straight.

And then we will devour them.

He snaps to.

No.

Yes.

“Roc?”

The glass in Wendy’s outstretched hand is filled with bright candy pink liquid. “Are you okay?”

I’m hard and hungry and horrified.

“I can’t stay here.” I lurch out of the chair.

“What?” She sets the glass on the nearest table.

The Captain cuts me off. “What’s wrong?”

I pull in a deep breath and slam my eyes shut. If I look at him too long, too closely, I will fall deeper and deeper and I don’t know if I can climb my way out.

You do not control me.

If you say so, the witch answers.

“I need more blood. I need Vane’s blood.” I step around him for the door.

“Right now?”

“Yes. Now.”

“He made you promise not to leave,” Wendy says.

“He didn’t pinkie promise.”

Wendy snorts. The Captain crosses the room to me and puts his hook above the door handle. “If you insist on going, we’re going with you.”

I glance at them over my shoulder. Wendy, smaller on the other side of the room, looking pale and helpless. The Captain beside me, bigger, but somehow more fragile.

“You will be at risk.”

“So?” the Captain says.

“So. I won’t have it.”

Wendy rushes forward and wraps her hand around my wrist. “You don’t get to tell us when and how we show up for you.”

This is exactly what the witch wants, is what I think. But I can’t say that. I can’t look weak. I can’t look like I care so much it hurts.

“If you insist.”

“Give us ten minutes.” Wendy turns back for the bedroom where her new dress is hanging in the closet. “And then we’ll go. James, can you summon a carriage?”

“Of course.” To me, he says, “Sit down. Smoke a cigarette. Have a drink.”

I close my eyes again. “Yes, Captain.”

He sighs. It comes out through his nose. It makes my insides light up.

Before them, I had one vulnerability: Vane. But he’s nearly invincible. Wendy and the Captain…they are not as impervious. Strong, but not without weakness.

And the thing that poses them the most danger?

It might be me.

With the Captain out hailing a cab, and Wendy now in the bathroom readying herself, I slip into my bedroom. There’s a lamp on the bedside table. I unscrew the bolt at the top and pop off the cloth shade. The outer workings come off with another pop and what remains is the hilt of a blade.

A hidden button on the back of the lamp’s base releases the blade, and the weapon slides free.

It’s about half the length of my forearm, made of a specific kind of metal that does not exist here. The handle is thornewood, weathered now by age and use.

I can recall my uncle’s words when he gave me the blade all those years ago.

Swift and keen, and always ready for service.

Upon first glance, it would be easy to mistake the blade for nothing more than a kitchen knife.

Maybe it was always meant to be overlooked.

Because this blade, in particular, is the only type of blade that can kill Vane and me. The only one capable of killing monsters. Our monsters.

I slide the knife into a sheath strapped to my left forearm and hide it beneath my shirt sleeve.