Freeing Hook (Lost Girl #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

WENDY

T he best part about flying is the nothingness. Nothing but the weightless hum of the empty air. No ground to tether me. No gravity to shove me downward and chain me to the earth.

The sweet taste of honeysuckle and powdered sugar still lingers on my tongue, sparking in clusters throughout my weightless limbs. The feeling lasts for but a moment before my spine scrapes against something hard. Faintly, I can feel a splinter puncture my shirt, lodging itself into my skin.

A moment later and the faint pain is gone, lost to the vast array of colors speckling my vision.

I’m not sure how long I stay like that. Forever and a second are synonymous when your body obeys the tick of a clock not of another realm, but a different plane of existence entirely.

“Get. Her. Down.” Rage suffuses the growl, making the hairs on my arms prickle. I don’t mind. Even gooseflesh feels pleasant at the moment.

“Captain—”

“I said get her down. Now.”

There’s a shuffling like flapping parchment against my ears. Labored breaths as someone climbs. Perhaps once they reach my heights, they’ll stay up here with me. I’m not sure whether I’d prefer that. On the one hand, I’d love nothing more than for every creature that roams the earth to soak in this pleasure. On the other, part of me worries that having someone else join me in the nothingness will make it…well, less like nothingness and more like somethingness. Cause the pool to overflow at the edges, chase the warmth away.

The skin that grasps my wrist is calloused, but the hand itself is small. Almost like a child’s. My thoughts threaten to go to Michael, but he’s far off, and I don’t want to think of my brother right now. Not when fingers wrap around my wrist like my fingers wrapped around Michael’s throat…

No. No, I’ll just drown in the nothingness for a while longer.

A gentle tug, and my body drifts. Down, down, down. Like a feather freed from a recently shredded pillow.

The hand weighs me down, and I soon worry it’ll steal me from the flecks of riveting color that mask my surroundings. We’re above the clouds, and this hand will drag me through their soft embrace, only to stake me to the ground. To the world below, where death and suffering reign.

I flail, and though my movements are weak, like kicking through sludge, the grip around my wrist loosens.

“Captain.” The voice is both warning and panicked. Female, I think.

“Out of my way.” That one’s the deeper voice, the voice I’m trying to escape. The voice that would tie me down, shear my wings if I had them.

I thrash, digging my fingernails into the nearest flesh they can find, and whoever’s detaining me lets go with a cry.

Finally, I’m free.

I hang suspended in the air, just for a single breath of exhilarating freedom, when another hand fastens around my wrist.

This grip is not so gentle. It digs into my skin like it intends to imprint itself there, and yanks. A whoosh of air, and I find my body pressed against something hard, something warm, something pulsing, no—heaving.

This is not what it feels like to fly. This is what it feels like to be had. Seized. Owned.

I kick at my captor, but each successive blow only strengthens his fortitude. And then he yanks me down.

I wake to the caress of plush bedsheets, my captor’s warm but rough grip replaced by the icy sting of metal around my left wrist. I gasp, flailing, mussing the sheets, but all that serves to do is get my arm tangled up in the chain securing me to the bedpost.

“I see you’ve come back down from your little excursion. Tell me, Darling, did you soar?”

A chill, colder than the shackle’s kiss, trickles down my spine as I turn to face my captor.

Captain Nolan Astor is perched on the bedside facing me, swathed in shadows, though none of them consume him. Not with the lantern sitting atop the bedside table illuminating his harsh features. The sharp slant of his jaw, the black tips of his hair razoring across his forehead. His ivy green eyes glow in the darkness, pinning me to the bed.

When I don’t answer, Astor’s throat bobs. He digs his fingers into the mattress, like he’s restraining himself. “I offered you freedom. I would have thought you clever enough not to toss my generosity overboard.”

The past few days swarm the edges of my memory, but I try to hold them back. Better to keep them from assaulting me all at once. Still, they break through my measly fortifications. Nettle confessing to the murder of three Lost Boys. Captain Astor stealing me from the cave I’d used to imprison him. Peter bargaining me away on the onyx beach in exchange for the Lost Boys’ safety.

I’d thought the captain would throw me in the hull of his ship, but to his credit, he’d been a man of his word. Back in Neverland, he’d told me he wouldn’t stuff me in a barrel when he took me. Instead, he’d provided me with my own room—a small, dingy chamber, but it was mine and it meant there was a lock between me and the rest of the crew.

I’d huddled in the small cot, wrapping myself in blankets that smelled of mildew and salt, unable to sleep with how violently my body was shaking from the events of the day.

It soon became evident that terror wasn’t to blame for the shaking.

I’d made it three hours, judging by the clock on the wall, before I tiptoed out of bed and slunk into the belly of the ship. The ship that, according to the captain, was powered by faerie dust on occasions when the wind failed to drive the sails. I’d only meant to take just enough to calm the tremors, to keep the shadows from encroaching on my vision—the same dosage Peter’s been giving me to keep me sane. To prevent me from waking in the middle of the night in a panic and strangling my brothers. Once the faerie dust touched my lips, however, I’d craved more than a disciplined alleviation of my symptoms.

I’d wanted to erase myself from my own body. Just for a while. Or forever. I’m not entirely sure which.

“Do you often call it generosity when you kidnap women?” I ask, deflecting if only because I can’t bear to admit my loss of control to the captain.

Captain Astor turns those piercing green eyes on me, the golden ring looped through the pointed tip of his left ear glinting. “Do you know where we found you? While you were off enjoying your little jaunt?”

“In the rafters of the bunker, I assume.” I clutch the interior of the blanket someone’s wrapped around me, so the captain won’t sense my nerves.

He offers me a close-lipped smile. “If only. No, Darling. We found you tangled up in the anterior moonsail.”

My heart plummets out of my chest, my mouth going dry. “I’m assuming that one’s on top.”

“Very good, Darling.”

“But I took the faerie dust in the bunker.”

“It appears as though someone, in her drugged state, decided on an outing.”

Sweat breaks out on my forehead, though I can’t tell if it’s from fear of the captain, or what could have become of me, or if it’s just the effects of the faerie dust refusing to wear off.

There’s a predatory stillness to the way the captain watches me. An intentionality that betrays a learned restraint. “Tell me, do you enjoy the idea of falling?”

I bite my lip, memories wafting over me. Peter dancing with me through the sky. His challenge to let him drop me. The “yes” escaping like a ravenous plea from my lips. “Only with someone around I trust enough to catch me,” I say, hoping the words will cut. It’s a foolish notion, given I’m the one who’s made myself look like an idiot tonight.

The laugh the captain lets out has to press through his teeth. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be so reliant on the assumption that this someone cares enough to catch you.”

His words twist at the already lodged splinter in my chest, one I’ve tried to claw out, only to snap off the tip instead, leaving my fumbling fingers helpless to remove it. Peter’s voice returns to my mind. What’s in it for me? That’s what he’d asked when the captain wanted to steal me away.

But Peter doesn’t feel pain. I’d realized that was the curse the Sister had placed upon him. So that if he needed to eliminate any of the Lost Boys for going mad, he could kill those he loved without the burden of pain.

“It’s not his fault he’s the way he is,” I whisper under my breath.

I’m not sure the captain would gaze upon a slug with more disgust than he casts at me.

“You’re lucky one of my gunners couldn’t sleep and happened to be on deck at the time. Though you’d have been less lucky if she hadn’t called for help. Couldn’t quite keep a grip on you with you flailing like a surfaced fish. Not when she was trying to hold on to you and sidle down the mast at the same time.”

I roll my eyes, and though the movement is foreign to me, I find it cathartic. “And I suppose I have you to thank for rescuing me.”

Astor shifts on the bed, and I can’t help but notice how my muscles tense when his hip grazes my thigh, even with the blanket separating us. “You do have a tendency to idolize those who put you in harm’s way. So no, I wouldn’t be surprised if thanks found its way out of your lips.”

My stomach curdles, anger threatening to add to my trembling, but I worry the captain will interpret it as fear, so I dig my free hand further into the mattress underneath the sheets to steady myself and say, “I’ll thank your gunner should I get the chance to meet her.”

At that, the captain’s lip twitches upward. “Good. I’m fond of Charlie, though I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention as much to her.”

Something stings in my stomach at his words, but I refuse to acknowledge the implications of such a reaction. Instead, I roll my head toward the chain shackling me to the bed.

“This doesn’t seem necessary now that I’m no longer floating, don’t you think?” I ask.

The captain snorts, crossing his arms and revealing a muscled divot in his forearms, bare up to the cuff where he’s rolled his sleeves. “I gave you a chance to walk freely about my ship, and look how that turned out.”

“I won’t do it again. Believe it or not, the idea of floating away and finding myself tumbling into the depths of the ocean isn’t exactly palatable.”

“Is it not? I wasn’t sure, given your affinity for danger.”

The curve of my rounded ears heat, which the captain must notice, because he offers me a smirk.

“The point is, I’ve learned my lesson,” I say, settling numbly against the headboard of the bed. “I won’t be taking more of the faerie dust, I promise.”

“You’re such a terrible liar.”

I go to protest, but even now, my tongue is parched, the memory of faerie dust still fresh on my tongue. My body craves it like it should crave water.

“If you keep the faerie dust locked up with a guard, I won’t be able to get to the lock,” I admit, shame that such measures are even necessary warming my cheeks, the back of my neck.

Captain Astor shakes his head, and when he speaks, I can’t tell if it’s annoyance or admiration tinging his voice. “Something tells me you’d find a way.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you believed me brave enough to go after what I want. Always letting life happen to me and all.” The immediate urge to swallow my words overcomes me when the captain raises a thick, black brow. I wait for him to mock me for keeping his insult—the one he tossed at me so haphazardly the night of the masquerade—so close to my already bruised heart. I’m sure to him it’s a sign of weakness, allowing his words to linger in my head. The captain had likely forgotten them as soon as they reached my ears.

But Astor doesn’t mock me. He doesn’t even address the insult. “Is this what you want, Darling? Never to feel?”

The words are almost tender, and I might believe them if I weren’t so used to him setting me up for cruelty. But we’re no longer in the cave. He’s no longer my prisoner. There’s no reason to disarm me, to rile me, so I’ll forget to drug him.

“What I want is to go back to Peter.”

I wait for the captain’s lips to break into a mocking smirk, for his sharp laughter to clang against my ears. Instead, he just stares at me, a blankness in his expression, then stands from the bed. “I have business to return to on deck. Believe it or not, commanding this ship demands too much attention for me to be wasting my time trying to talk an addict out of her vices. Don’t bother missing me. I always retire to bed by ten.”

My body freezes in place, and I inspect the room. I’d been so caught up in my conversation with Astor and the dread of what could have happened if I hadn’t been snagged by the sails that I hadn’t noted my surroundings.

The cabin is dark, but it’s much larger than the one the captain initially gave me. It’s more decorated too. There’s a finely carved desk in the corner, one with mermaids carved into the legs. In the center of the room is a broad table with maps spread about it. Trunks and wardrobes line the sides of the rooms, and there are more well-preserved maps hanging on the walls.

The rug on the floor is ornate. Kruschian, probably—the type even my parents, with all their wealth, would have struggled to get their hands on.

I wonder if the captain stole it, or if he simply has that kind of money at his disposal.

“This is your room,” I whisper, then grasp at the sheets, recognizing for the first time that rather than mildew, they smell of teakwood and pipe tobacco… just like the captain. “And this is—” I hate the way my voice goes high, betrays my panic, but I can’t help it. Instinctively, I tug at the cuff shackling me to the bedpost, but even if my limbs weren’t weary from the faerie dust, I’d still be too weak to do any damage.

“Astute observation,” the captain says dryly.

“I’m not sleeping in the same bed with you,” I cry, my voice scaling the mast itself.

The captain whips around, and it’s the first time I’ve seen him lose his composure. “Then,” he says through gritted teeth, “you might have considered that before you broke into my bunker, drowned yourself in faerie dust, and almost killed yourself for good measure.”

“So what?” I say, panic amplifying my voice so that I’m almost screaming. “I thought you said what my mother did to me by making me…” I trail off, my mouth going dry as the incense of the parlor wafts into my nose from the past. “I thought you said that alone excused you for her murder. I thought you said I shouldn’t let men touch me,” I say, feeling the ghost of hands on me, remembering the slimy Lord Credence who danced with me at my masquerade.

The captain is facing away from me now, but I glimpse his shoulders lift, then settle as he lets out a deep exhale.

“Sleep well, Darling,” he says, before slamming the door behind him.