Devour the Dark (Devourer #2)

23. Hook

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

HOOK

I watch the Crocodile from across the cab as we make our way to his childhood home.

Is he on the verge of breaking? Is he a second away from shifting and devouring me whole?

It’s not unlike watching an actual crocodile stalking from beneath the surface of dark, murky waters. It’s impossible to know what might trigger him, what small, infinitesimal sign might proceed the destruction of his hunger.

Wendy sits beside him, her arm linked with his. Firecracker is curled up in the small space between them. Roc insisted the cat join us and I didn’t have the heart to argue with him.

His head is lulled back against the wall of the carriage, his eyes closed. I can’t tell if he’s sleeping, focusing, or dreaming.

I don’t like seeing him unwell. He’s immortal. He shouldn’t be sick.

And what if he turns, and it’s the last time?

What if we lose him?

Pocket watch in hand, I watch the minutes tick by. It takes us exactly twenty-three to reach the house.

Wendy fidgets as we wind our way up the drive.

Is he going to be all right? she mouths to me.

“Yes,” Roc answers, his eyes still closed.

Wendy widens her gaze at me and I give her a quick shake of my head.

Even taken hostage by a dark witch, it is impossible to hide anything from him. Will we ever grow accustomed to his supernatural abilities? Wendy and I may share the witch’s original power, but we are not as powerful as the Crocodile. More beast than man. More myth than mortal flesh.

At the manor’s entrance, Roc stumbles out ahead of us. Firecracker darts forward, disappearing into the shadows. This was why I didn’t want to bring him. I’m not chasing a stray cat!

I give Wendy my hand and help her out of the cab, then pay the man with a crumpled bill.

“Roc,” I call. “Crocodile!”

He’s already up the stairs and entering the house.

“He might tell us he is all right,” Wendy says, taking up her skirt so she can race up the stairs beside me, “but he’s not acting all right.”

“I don’t know if this was such a good idea.” We reach the third set of steps. Roc is already out of sight. “He’s unstable. Unpredictable.”

“He needs Vane’s blood.”

“And if we can’t find Vane?”

Up the last flight, we hurry into the house, past the staff.

We stumble into a grand foyer dotted with partygoers.

Down the hall, I spot Roc disappearing to the left, down a hall just before the ballroom.

I race after him, Wendy doing her best to trail after me.

The hall is dark, giving the attendees the indication that it’s supposed to be off limits. Roc slams into a closed door, then rattles the handle finding it locked. He reels back, then rams his shoulder into it, gaining entrance with a split of wood.

“Lainey!” he shouts.

“Bloody hell.”

“That can’t be good.” Wendy charges ahead.

Roc is in a library with a grand piano tucked in the corner beneath a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. Leather-bound books fill the shelves.

“Lainey,” he says, softer now, a little wobbly.

“Roc.” I approach him slowly. He’s at the piano, hand trailing along the closed lid. “Can you hear me?”

He stops, his chin coming to his shoulder as he turns toward me. “Where’s Lainey?”

I swallow. I’m in over my head. Maybe we never should have separated. Only Vane knows how to deal with whatever this is. Only he knows how to stabilize his brother and prevent the worst from happening.

I’ve sailed choppy waters and fought hordes of other pirates, but this, the infamous Crocodile, wounded and broken, this is something I do not know how to handle.

“She isn’t here,” I tell him, keeping my steps slow. “I’m not sure when she’ll be back.”

He curses beneath his breath and bows his head. Moonlight filters in through the closed, gauzy drapes. It paints his dark hair in strokes of silver. “Captain,” he says now, his voice husky.

“Yes. I’m here.”

I come around him. His eyes are squeezed shut.

“I’m having trouble fighting her,” he admits.

The witch.

“She has me chasing ghosts.”

Wendy comes up behind him and slips her arms around his waist, embracing him from behind. “We’re here. We’ll be your anchors.”

He slides his hand over Wendy’s, threading their fingers together.

“I can hear my father’s voice in this room. Do you know his favorite saying?”

We don’t, so we say nothing.

“’ You are the bane of my existence .” He bows his head again. “From the moment I was born, he twisted my name into an insult.”

“Your name?” I ask, desperate to possess it but terrified of the implications. He’s hidden his name for a reason. Because I suspect he doesn’t like it. Possessing it would mean holding a part of him he’d rather not share. The intimacy of that fact is one that cannot be denied.

His eyes pop open and it takes him a beat to focus on me. “Bane,” he answers. “Our mother fancied herself a poet. She loved Edgar Allan Poe. Bane. Vane. And Lane. The rhyming three.” He laughs, but it’s thick with emotion. “Can you take me to my room?”

“Of course,” I say, trying not to react to the fact that he’s shared his true name. The thing he’s protected above all else. “Which way?”

“There’s a back staircase just beyond this hallway.”

“Come.” I gesture for him to put his arm around me, and Wendy positions herself on the other side. His weight is heavy on us both, but we move forward, desperate for something that will help him.

Out of the library, the noise of the party filters down the hall.

“Left,” Roc says and we move, the din fading as we slip further into the house.

We find the stairwell tucked between a pantry and a storeroom. It’s narrow, unadorned, meant for servants. We make our way up the first flight, unsteady, bumping into one another. We readjust on the first landing, then make our way up the second.

“Here,” Roc says. “To the right.”

The scones have been lit on the second floor, but only every other, making the hall dim, just enough to see our steps.

It’s quieter up here, colder even. Roc directs us down the hall, then down another, until we’re in the back of the house and approaching a set of closed double doors.

Roc pulls away from us and pushes the doors in.

I’m greeted with the overwhelming smell of him.

Spice and musk and bourbon.

I didn’t realize it until this moment just how much the presence of him, the sight and smells and touch of him, has embedded itself into my skin.

I’m covered in goosebumps, and it’s not the cold.

He goes to the barren fireplace. It’s a monstrous thing, as tall as he is and twice as wide, the mantle a carved piece of marble depicting a raven’s head, the beak wide open, cawing at those who stand before it.

Roc moves around the fireplace like he knows what he’s doing, making a pile of kindling on the grate. He strikes a long match, the end wicking to life. The kindling catches easily, and then he’s stacking logs around it, nurturing the flame until the fire burns to life.

Heat immediately fills the room.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his back still to us.

“For what?” Wendy asks.

“I shouldn’t have brought you both here. This is my mess to clean up.”

I’ve never heard him sound so… defeated .

I want to do something. I want to reassure him. I want to fix him.

But all of this is so new, still so raw. I don’t know how to care for anyone, most of all myself.

Poor form, Captain.

I am failing him.

I only know how to bark orders, how to organize things into precise lines, how to test the wind and choose a direction.

Wendy and I lock eyes. Any words exchanged between us would immediately be decoded by the Crocodile.

And yet, I think there is understanding. I see my doubt and apprehension mirrored on her face. It strikes me for the first time that she and I may be experiencing some of the same things: the constant shock of being here with Roc, the fear of being denied by him, and the all-consuming need for him.

We are the kindling hungry for his flame. There is only one way to burn, and that’s beneath his attention.

I see the moment Wendy makes her decision. Her jaw sets, her nostrils flare.

I may be a pirate captain, but Wendy was always the one who knew how to take charge.

The fact that she went from prisoner to queen should surprise no one, though I think most days it still surprises her.

Another likeness between her and I: we are always doubting our agency, our own power.

She goes to him at the fireplace mantle.

In the flickering light, her dress glitters and shines like twilight.

“I’m glad we’re here,” she tells him. “Because all three of us…we are all stained by trauma and regrets. We understand one another in a way no one else can.”

Roc huffs out a laugh. “You tell a beast that you understand it?”

“Even a monster has a heart.”

His arm propped up on the mantle, he looks over at her. “Yes, but does the monster know how to use it?”

“If he doesn’t, he can learn.”

I can practically hear his smile. “I’m curious how these lessons would go.”

Without missing a beat, Wendy slips in beneath his arm, runs her fingers back through his hair, dragging his mouth down to hers.

I can tell by the tension in Roc’s back that he’s caught off guard. It takes him a few seconds to catch up, to fall into the rhythm of being kissed.

His arm drops from the mantle and wraps around Wendy, pulling her into him.

It’s silent in the room save for the crackling of the fire, so it’s impossible for me to miss the wet press of their lips, the slide of their tongues, and watching it, hearing it, has my stomach tightening, my cock hardening.

Roc turns them, then walks Wendy back, dropping them both into a nearby chair. He spreads his legs out, sinking into the seat, positioning Wendy in his lap so that she’s straddling him. His hands disappear into her hair, wrapping it around his fist, taking charge even though it was Wendy who initiated it.

My mouth goes dry.

I don’t know what to do with myself.

Leave them?

Just sit and watch?

This must have been how Wendy felt when she stumbled in on us in the Everland palace. Out of place. An outsider. And yet wanting to join, not knowing how.

Thankfully, Roc knows how to lead a threesome. Because while his tongue is deep in Wendy’s mouth, he still manages to snap his fingers at me, coaxing me over.

I jump at the command without even thinking.

I’m chair-side in a second, gazing down at them, both of them perfect in their own way.

Roc pulls Wendy back. Her lips are swollen and red and wet.

“I want to watch you suck the Captain’s cock. Will you do that for me?”

She nods eagerly.

“Get over here, Captain.”

My stomach churns, the tightness sinking to my balls.

“Where…how…” I don’t know what I’m doing. I position myself at the back of the chair, just over Roc’s left shoulder.

“Don’t ask questions,” he tells me, implying that I should take orders instead. “Unzip yourself.”

I fumble with the belt, the metal clattering loudly. Once it’s unlatched, Roc reaches behind him, grabbing the belt by the clasp, yanking it out of the belt loops with one quick pull. The momentum forces my hips forward, knocking me into the chair. Wendy helps, her smaller hands popping open the button.

I can’t hear the rasp of the zipper over the loud beating of my heart. Suddenly, I’m exposed, hitting cool air, then the warmth of her hand.

The relief is an ocean wave.

Roc fists Wendy’s hair, guiding her forward.

“Take him in your mouth,” he tells her and, leaning over his shoulder, teases me first with her tongue, a light trace of her lips over the head.

I hiss out and move closer, desperate for the full heat of her.

Driving her movements, Roc pushes her into me and suddenly I’m sheathed in her. All of her.

I groan out, hips pitching forward.

She sucks eagerly, maybe desperate to perform for Roc, maybe desperate to feel something other than this ever-yawning void.

I know we all feel it.

Her tongue flattens against the underside of my shaft as Roc pulls her back, licking me from base to head.

“Just like that,” Roc says. “Don’t stop.”

With his guidance, she quickens her pace, coaxing me closer to the edge.

I’m so fucking hard, it almost hurts. I chase the feel of her, the wetness of her tongue, the heat of her mouth, the way she pops off my dick with swollen, red lips. And then she’s covering me again, eyes tearing up as I hit the back of her throat, deep, deeper.

“You can take him,” Roc says, his other hand coming to her jaw, fingers pressed into her, commanding every one of her movements. “When he comes, don’t swallow it. Share it with me.”

“Bloody hell,” I huff out, careening closer and closer to the wave crest.

It may be Wendy pleasing me, but it is undeniably both of them, and there’s something dirty and illicit and so fucking right about it.

Wendy finds a rhythm, inhaling deeply through her nose, taking me so deep that my eyes practically roll back. And then I’m breaking. I can’t hold back. I push my hips forward, pursuing the feel of her. She gags. I come, grunting into her. She tries to pull back, but Roc keeps her steady until I’ve emptied myself into her mouth.

Finally, he lets her up and she straightens, cum glistening on her lips. Hair tangled around his hand, he yanks her mouth to him, his tongue darting into her.

I stagger back.

They are lost in the kiss, the deepness of it, the glide of their tongues against one another, my cum glistening between them. Roc groans into her and she mewls, her hips grinding against him.

Fuck.

Fucking bloody fucking hell.

Poor form. Good form? I don’t fucking know.

It’s the most illicit thing I’ve ever witnessed.

When they’ve swallowed back my pleasure, Roc stands, lifting Wendy in his arms. He staggers forward, snaps his fingers at me again, gesturing for me to sit on the bench at the end of his bed.

I do as I’m told.

He sets Wendy on my lap, her back to my chest. Her cheeks are red, her face a sticky mess.

Roc disappears. Wendy wiggles in my lap. I’m not completely useless and instinctively, I know what she wants, what she likes. She likes to be teased, touched, caressed.

I grab a handful of her skirt and pull it up, exposing her. She’s not wearing anything beneath the skirt and when my hand slides down the curve of her hip, down to her center, I find her soaking wet.

One caress has her back arching against me, her breath coming fast.

Roc returns, a glass jar in hand.

I may have come once, but I’m still half hard, instantly ready for more.

Roc quickly liberates me of my pants. Wendy spreads her legs, straddling my thighs. And Roc gets down on his knees between us. He tastes Wendy first, and she squirms on my lap, then he drags his tongue over the length of me, pleasing us both.

He works us into a frenzy until Wendy is begging for release and I’m close to coming again.

And then suddenly he’s gone and I blink up at him, eyes heavy, chest light.

He unscrews the cap on the bottle and covers his hand in a clear liquid that shines in the light. Setting the bottle aside, he strokes himself, the head of his cock swelling in the cup of his hand.

Everything in my body tightens up just thinking about him invading me.

There is something indescribable, watching someone as old, as powerful as Roc chase after the pleasure of me.

Positioning his knee on the bench between our legs, he lines himself up at my hole and my gut fills with an ocean wave.

My cock hardens, sliding up Wendy’s slick center and when the head of my cock hits her clit, she gasps out, pushing her hips forward to reach me again.

I don’t know if there is any greater feeling than sharing in this, all three of us together. As much as I enjoy being a captain of my own ship, I don’t know that I ever truly wanted to be alone.

Roc tests my opening, nudging himself inside and I hiss out.

He leans forward, capturing Wendy’s breast in his mouth, her nipple between his teeth.

The way he handles us both at once is something of a talent.

He sinks in another half inch and my cock throbs for something, anything, any kind of touch.

Taking myself in the cuff of my hand, I slowly stroke upward, and because I’m nestled against Wendy, the rise of my knuckles drags over her pussy, then her clit and she moans out in response, hooking her arm up and around my neck.

Roc runs the tip of his tongue over Wendy’s bright red peak, watching me as he does.

Every time his eyes land on me, I’m like a powder keg ready to burst. I can’t quite contain the heat of his attention, the way it makes me feel seen but stripped bare.

He’s sunk halfway inside of me now and my pace quickens, stroking myself, chasing another orgasm.

Wendy is panting in my lap, writhing against me, her fingernails digging into the back of my neck.

“Don’t come without me,” he chides us, a smirk on his face. He sinks in another inch, then another, until I’m full of him. And then he’s fucking me, Wendy sandwiched between us.

As his hips drive forward, he props his hands on the bed on either side of me, caging us in, and sinks into me, kissing me, then Wendy and as he kisses Wendy, I pepper her neck with the heat of my mouth.

“Blood hell,” I mumble, so fucking close to coming again.

“Not yet, Captain.”

“I can’t…” I exhale, slow my frenzied pace. Wendy moans, drags her fingernails across my face.

“I’m so close,” she says.

Roc leans forward again and devours her mouth. The wetness of their tongues meeting burns heat through my abdomen, sinking lower and lower.

It almost hurts, how badly I want to come.

I lean my head back against the bed and breathe out at the ceiling, squeezing my cock as cum leaks out.

“Make our Darling come, Captain,” Roc orders. “While I fill you up.”

That’s all I needed to hear.

I fist myself, stroking fast, hitting Wendy’s clit with every pump.

Her breathing quickens, her body tensing up and then?—

She lets out a loud, shrill moan, trembling on top of me.

I can’t hold on any longer. I pump hard and fast and blow all over her pussy, making a complete mess of her.

Roc’s rhythm grows more frenzied and he pulls back, looming over us both as he comes inside of me.

I can’t see Wendy’s face, but I imagine it’s no different than mine—reverence, awe, pride in having him and giving him pleasure.

When the Crocodile comes, everything that makes him terrifying fades away, replaced by the unguarded pleasure of being a man.

He stays inside of me for several beats, his breathing labored, his chest glistening, his hair damp and unkempt. His tattoos, dark against his skin, slick with sweat.

Finally, he pulls out and stumbles back. He disappears into an attached room, returning with a warm, wet cloth. He cleans Wendy first, then me, and I can’t help but flush.

No one has ever… he’s never …

I must show my dismay because he grabs me by the wrist, just below my hook, and says, “Stop fidgeting and let me take care of you.”

Wendy and I are both still, letting him clean us.

When he’s done, Wendy climbs off my lap, stumbles around the bed, and collapses into it. She breathes at the ceiling. I tuck myself into my trousers and button up my pants.

Wendy props herself up on her elbows and looks between us. “I enjoyed that. The three of us.”

“Are we…” I can’t seem to say it. I want to say it. I want confirmation. And maybe, like Wendy, I want reassurance. “Are we...the three of us…”

I steal a glance at Roc.

He’s still shirtless, but his pants are on, and he’s threading his belt through the loops on his pants.

“Do we have to put a label to it?” he asks.

My heart drops.

He’s avoiding looking at us now.

How can he give us aftercare one minute and then pretend we’re just hooking up the next?

“And if I said yes?” Wendy counters.

She’s braver than I am.

I might be afraid of what label he’d give us if pressed to give one.

Fuck partners? Just friends? I couldn’t bear it. To come this far, only to realize I meant so little…

Roc pulls on his shirt just as his eyes burn to bright yellow-gold.

“Are you okay?” I ask him.

“I’m… yes . I’m fine.”

“Your eyes?—”

“Both of you stay here while I go find Vane. Don’t leave this room.”

“You shouldn’t be alone.” Wendy slips off the bed. “We can come with you?—”

“No.” He turns for the door. “Do not leave. Understood?” He looks at me, waiting for my acknowledgment.

“Very well.”

He turns to Wendy next. She’s standing by the bedside, arms crossed over her chest. She tells him nothing.

To me, he says, “Don’t let her leave.” Then he pulls open the doors and shuts them quickly behind him.