Trapped by Neverland

Chapter One

Which Involves Running, Sneaking, and Thinking Aloud

Peter Pan just had to be evil. Jerk. Wendy mentally recited every horrible imprecation she had ever heard, cranky about running for her life before breakfast. A low-hanging branch had her ducking to follow the sheerie that was supposed to be leading her to safety. The ball of blue-and-white flames was harder to make out in the light of mid-morning.

“Wendy!” The plaintive cry from the boyish voice spurred her legs to move faster.

“Oh no you don’t,” she muttered under her breath.

“Come back! I want to talk to you!”

“Ha!” The harsh laugh came out at full volume, but fortunately for Wendy, her lack of available breath kept it from being too loud. If I stop, you’ll “talk” me right off a cliff.

She cringed when the sheerie swooped into an opening in the jungle floor. Her whole body flinched when she followed it and felt her hand brush against something unpleasantly moist and viscous as she squeezed through the narrow gap. The sound of parrots being disturbed somewhere close above her prevented an immediate retreat. The eternally adolescent Peter could cover more terrain with his flying, but the dense foliage interfered with his ability to track prey across the island. Wendy suspected she would have already been caught if Peter’s shadow wasn’t on a scouting trip to the mainland.

Disa, the sheerie, popped into his humanoid shape to land on her hand. He tipped his head in question, and she nodded to assure him that she was fine. Disa jumped off her hand and resumed his flame form to lead her farther into the dark.

The dank, rocky hole turned into a tunnel that dripped unidentifiable wetness onto her hair and person. Disa had an advantage as he bobbed ahead: He didn’t have to slip and slam into moist, dirty walls like Wendy did. Roots hung from the low ceiling and sent shivers down her spine as they brushed across her face, but she pressed forward. If Peter caught her, there was no hope for her brothers.

Eventually, the tunnel widened into a path that a grown man or two could traverse. Wendy couldn’t see much in the faint glow from her sheerie, but once or twice, she saw a deeper darkness that suggested multiple tunnel offshoots. By the time she was sure her heart would give out from fear and repeated startles every time her foot slipped, a hint of daylight created a line that marked a turn in the passageway. That, plus the sound of water lapping against rock, sent a surge of hope-fueled energy.

Almost ignoring Disa, she scurried toward the light and its promise of open space. Turning the corner, she discovered a broad cave that boasted plenty of seawater. The ocean entering the cave must have been decently deep, because a largeish ship floated near a rocky outcropping. The natural harbor bore evidence of human tinkering. The slope had a series of gentle steps chipped into it.

Wendy took a hasty step back to tuck herself against the wall she had rounded. No one was visible on the ship, nor could she hear any voices. A single burning lamp near the gangplank reassured her that it wasn’t abandoned.

“Should I risk it?” she whispered to Disa.

He bobbed up and down rapidly, then became solid. “Escape,” he announced.

That was what she had asked him to lead her to. She scrunched her nose and scanned the space with misgiving. “Someone has to be on watch.”

Disa’s incongruously deep voice promised to “fix ’em!”

“Distraction only,” Wendy admonished.

He solemnly nodded, then disappeared from sight entirely.

A sigh leaked out as Wendy eyed the path she needed to take. Her sheeries were brighter than most of their kind (intellectually speaking), but that wasn’t saying a lot. She made it down to the ship in one piece with no mishaps and very little noise. The parts of her pale-blue nightgown that weren’t caked in mud practically glowed in the dark, but there wasn’t much she could do about that beyond hoping the lookout was feeling lazy.

At the gangplank, Wendy both blessed and cursed the lantern that illuminated her path. Being on the opposite side of the cave opening, it would be ridiculously easy to walk off the wooden board and fall into the water without the light. It was also ridiculously easy to see anyone walking up it. With a prayer to either Cosmas or Fortuna—whichever deity felt like listening—Wendy took a deep breath and hurried up the gangplank as fast and silently as she could.

Once she hit the deck, she dove behind the first refuge she saw: a thick canvas loosely covering a crate. Her pounding heartbeat filled her ears. She drew slow, deliberate breaths. About the time her breath settled into a rhythm less frantic than hummingbird wingbeats, voices became audible from farther out. This sent her heart into another tizzy and made it difficult to hear what they were saying.

A few grunts and a muttered curse trickled through her fear-addled thoughts. She shrank deeper into her meager shelter.

“Get them water barrels down below,” a raspy voice ordered in a low tone that didn’t echo as much as the loud thud that had preceded the cursing.

Nobody answered verbally, but Wendy heard the sound of multiple bodies moving up the gangplank.

“This is the last of the water, then we need to rearrange some of the crates on deck for the rest of the stuff,” a different, younger speaker said softly.

“Aye,” returned the first.

If they were going to move crates around, Wendy’s sanctuary was in jeopardy.

“Oi, Phillip!” the second voice called quietly. When his words echoed, he whispered with more care. “We don’t need you in the crow’s nest anymore. Come help.”

Apparently Phillip obeyed, because Wendy heard the creaking of ropes, followed by a loud thud as two boots met the deck. She could see the worn edges of what looked like riding boots under the narrow gap where her tarp didn’t quite meet the deck.

“Quiet, man,” the first man admonished.

“Sorry,” a new voice apologized with a squeak.

The sounds from the gangplank shifted to another part of the ship, presumably toward the cargo area. Wendy held her breath for a count of ten, then slowly pulled back the tarp to peer out. The air left her in a jolting gasp as she came face-to-face with a cat. The feline’s coloring was hard to make out in the dim light, but the eyes glowed a yellowy-orange. Wendy quelled her instinct to scold and met the creature’s impassive stare with a warning look of her own.

When the cat did nothing more than twitch the very tip of its tail against the wooden deck, she poked her head farther out to check her surroundings. Nobody else was visible from her angle, so she crawled forward to scan the whole deck. A door stood ajar under the quarterdeck at the back of the ship, and a flash of someone’s white shirt moved past it.

Grabbing her courage with both hands, she scooted past the cat and took the opportunity the empty deck provided to sprint forward on silent feet toward the rigging. Her ascent toward the crow’s nest was awkward even with her skirt pulled up to her knees. She lacked experience climbing ropes, no matter how ladder-like the arrangement, and her bare feet objected to more abuse. After an excruciatingly long climb where every fumbling lurch upwards reminded her that there were men who could reappear at any second, she made it to the top and tumbled over the wall onto the round platform.

Not a moment too soon, either. As Wendy lay flat against the cool wood, trying to catch her breath, the sound of footsteps assaulted her ears. Soon, the noises of shifting crates and the occasional low voice filled the cavern. Knowing it would be foolhardy to peek over the edge, Wendy blew on her rope-irritated hands and resigned herself to listening with ever-growing dread. Before she knew it, the subtle rocking of the ship turned to more purposeful movements, and the rock ceiling of the cave started sliding past. Wendy squinted against the harsh light of the sun as the vessel exited its hidden harbor. The morning had slipped into midday during her journey through the tunnels and fraught game of hide-and-seek to get aboard. With the addition of the wind and the filling sails, the subdued voices of the crew became indistinguishable, and she turned her thoughts to wondering how the ship had come to be here. In her two months on the island, she had never seen a single ship anchored this close. At one point, she had joked to her brother John that it must be called Neverland because ships never land here.

Her breath hitched. “John!” Then she gasped. “Shut up, Wendy,” she muttered. Her habit of talking to herself would only serve to harm her now.

She pushed her weary self into a seated position leaning against the crow’s–nest wall, careful to avoid using her scuffed palms. Her thoughts circled back to her brothers as she absently scratched at a drying patch of mud near her knee. John and Micheal were still in the clutches of an unfeeling murderer.

“How did we get into this mess?” she whispered a moment later. Old habits die hard. But since she could barely hear her own words over the wind and the sails, it was probably fine. Her position would be in greater danger when the next lookout reported to duty.

“And why did I choose the crow’s nest? Someone is bound to find me sooner or later.”

Wendy made a fist and bonked it against her thigh, wincing when a ripped and jagged fingernail pressed against her still-raw palm. Moving had been necessary, but her panic hadn’t allowed for much strategy. Maybe she wouldn’t be discovered until they were close to another island and she could plead to be let off there. Depending on where that was, she might find help to save her brothers.

A light tug on the scraggly remains of this morning’s braid brought Disa to her attention. The sheerie blinked into view.

“Where have you been?”

“Played with the lookout,” he boasted.

“Ah.” Wendy realized that must have been how she got onboard safely. “Thank you.”

Disa beamed, then patted his head before settling on her lap.

The motion reminded Wendy that her own hair had been subjected to all manner of dirt and a headlong flight. She reluctantly reached up to feel the honey-colored waves. Her pale fingers had taken on a distinctly grubby hue, but she plunged them into her locks anyway. As she tentatively finger-combed her hair into some semblance of order, she let herself think aloud.

“Micheal worships Peter Pan, and John is canny enough not to reveal what I told him,” she mused. “I think they’ll be safe for a while.” The knot that had been forming in her gut for the last day twisted tighter. “I hope.”

Disa nodded dutifully from his position on her lap.

“Micheal is only ten. Plus he acts younger, so that should help, right?”

Again, Disa nodded his support, followed by an enormous yawn.

“But John is twelve, and his acting may not be enough,” she fretted. Her fingers caught on a snarl and yanked her head to the side.

The sheerie in her lap stopped nodding as he fell back with his arms stretched above his head. Wendy didn’t waste any concern on the mini faery, as she had observed on many occasions the way they often fell asleep mid-thought.

Using a ribbon she ruthlessly ripped off her sleeve, she tied back her partially tamed coiffure and continued to speak aloud in a quiet voice. “I have to find help. The naval police would have jurisdiction, I think. Pretty sure they patrol all the islands in the bay and beyond.”

Apart from running away to Neverland, Wendy had little experience with travel, even in her home country of Jocestria. Her father and mother kept a happy home, but their funds hadn’t stretched to trips. And when her mother married George Darling after her first husband’s death, she and Wendy moved to the Darling estate and stayed there.

Another sigh gusted over Wendy’s lips. She couldn’t really blame her father for passing away, but a great many things in her life would have been different if he’d stuck around.

Padrig Maddox had been a good man. Her golden-brown hair had come from him. He moved to Jocestria from Brulark and immediately charmed Wendy’s mother, the alluring Arina. After marrying his gentle bride and adding Wendy to the family within a year, the happy trio spent their days in idyllic comfort.

“Fine,” Wendy blew a raspberry. “That is an overly nostalgic view of my childhood,” she confessed to the sleeping sheerie.

She frowned and scratched at a bug bite near her elbow. No doubt her memories were colored by the sharp differences that came with the second decade of her life. She tugged at the sleeve of her nightgown in a futile attempt to protect the bite from her absentminded, and filthy, fingernails.

A furry head appeared over the wall, causing her to jump. Disa bounced a little on her skirt but slept on. The same cat that had terrified Wendy earlier pulled itself to the top of the crow’s nest railing. As it arranged itself in a loaf shape, she examined the unusual gray-and-orange coloring. Darker- and lighter-gray stripes made a pleasing contrast amidst the pale orange, and Wendy found herself wanting to pet the soft-looking fur.

“I was just reminiscing about my tragic childhood,” Wendy drawled. “Wanna play confidant?”

The feline finished tucking its paws away, then twitched its tail without looking at her again.

Wendy waited a beat, then decided to take that as acceptance. “My dad loved books, the Verified Histories especially. We used to pour over the historical accounts for hours.” Faithfully recorded by the Editors, each yellow volume contained the true story of an amazing thing that had happened in another part of the continent.

The cat yawned, revealing needle-sharp teeth.

“His favorites were The Golden Goose, Rumpelstiltskin, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and the newest one: Peter Pan. Bah!” Wendy resisted the urge to spit.

Her furry companion turned uncanny eyes toward her. Wendy barely noticed, as she was remembering that Peter Pan—both the story and the man-child—were the reasons she was in this mess. A few slow, deep breaths calmed her.

“It’s all his fault, really.”

That wretched creature disguised as a hero certainly held all the blame for her current position (and who knew how many murders), but none of this would have happened if her father hadn’t died.

“Or, more accurately, if my beautiful, spineless mother hadn’t remarried,” she said, not bothering to connect the dots for her listener.

She eyed the fluffy white clouds as they drifted past with a lack of urgency. The ship clipped along at a steady pace, and Wendy could have been lulled into a nap if not for her fear of being discovered. The green-eyed stare boring into the side of her head helped, too.

“That might not be fair, either,” she admitted, gently lifting Disa so she could shift her legs. He slept through the removal and replacement. “But it probably is.”

No doubt finding her conversation lacking, the cat faced forward once more and closed its eyes.

Arina Maddox had captured George Darling’s eye less than two years after the death of her first husband. She married the assertive man within days of Wendy’s twelfth birthday.

Wendy honestly hadn’t minded the change much. George moved his new family to his modest estate along the coast and promptly ignored his stepdaughter. She returned the favor by staying away from him whenever possible. She had never been sure if his distaste for her person stemmed from the fact that she was a girl or the fact that she wasn’t his offspring like John and Michael. Sure, she bore his name now, but that was probably her mother’s doing.

“George hates his nephews, too, so that’s probably it. Can’t you tell from the beautiful outfit I’m wearing?” She gestured to the hand-me-down nightgown that had belonged to George’s mother once upon a time. Her stepfather was ever so economical when it came to providing for her.

Neither the cat nor Disa responded to her non sequitur.

The Darling grounds occupied a less desirable portion of land nestled between the bay and the swamps. Depending on the weather, Wendy would set out with her lunch and a stack of books to either a sheltered bit of beach or a dry patch of land on the edge of the murky waters. The sea breeze kept the swamp from being too malodorous and encouraged the biting insects to seek prey farther in.

A grunt of frustration escaped as she realized she was scratching her elbow again. She slapped the offending welt in a futile attempt to alleviate the itch. The noise was louder than she intended, and for a tense moment, she froze, worried that her safety had been compromised. When the cat didn’t flinch and nothing else changed, she relaxed against the curved wooden wall again.

Disa sneezed in his sleep, drawing her attention and a genuine smile. The swamp also hosted a colony of sheeries. Some of the blame for her predicament could arguably be laid at their feet. Or a lot of the blame, technically. But Disa had led her safely off the island, and their actions toward her had never been malicious.

Sheeries were a type of faery that seemed to exist purely to promote mischief. Sometimes called will-o’-the-wisps, the small, glowing creatures frequently led lone travelers astray. Sure, there were stories of them helping lost children find a way home, but everyone in Jocestria knew to be on their guard when one of the blue-and-white balls of flame beckoned.

Wendy’s experience had been somewhat different. One cool morning, when her mother and stepfather were entertaining a house party of adults who “did not care to be bothered by children,” according to George, she had slipped away to her refuge under a weeping willow at the swamp’s edge. The beach was off-limits because the party attendees had plans there later. Tucked against the trunk with a blanket across her lap and her father’s favorite, Peter Pan, at hand, Wendy had decided to read aloud. Nobody but the fish and frogs could hear her, and none of them cared.

As she read, flickers of light danced at the edge of her vision. Eventually, she paused and looked up to discover no fewer than four sheeries hovering within earshot. Curious and polite, Wendy had greeted the faeries and was surprised to learn two things: First, the sheeries could speak her language. Second, they had another form.

A very dumb or very brave seagull landed on the railing of the crow’s nest not far from the dozing cat’s back. Wendy silently waved her hands under the intruder, careful not to dislodge Disa. Wearing her nightgown was bad enough; adding droppings to the outfit was a step too far, thank you very much.

The gull relocated with an indignant squawk. Wendy brushed her too-long fringe out of her eyes and wondered where her other sheeries had disappeared to.

She didn’t know if her discoveries about the faeries were common knowledge or not, as she had never shared them with anybody. Not only did the sheeries speak and have a tiny human-shaped form, they could also turn completely invisible and had a hankering for human stories. That day at the swamp, Wendy had learned that the sheeries especially loved stories about Peter Pan. This had predisposed her to fondness right from the start. By the end of the day, Wendy had met and read to ten different sheeries. Over the next thirteen years, she became something of an expert through a mix of research and her own observations.

Eventually, she collected a select few who accompanied her nearly everywhere. Disa, Iniq, Shaye, Leq, and Horas had come to Neverland with her.

Iniq and Shaye’s current whereabouts interested her the most at the moment. The most reliable of the group, they could probably be trusted to stick with her brothers. Except she hadn’t explicitly asked them to do so, as Peter had interrupted her plans this morning. If Horas, or even Leq, popped in to see what she was doing, she would give instructions for the pair to stay with John and Micheal.

“If only Peter had slept in like usual!”

The cat opened its eyes, then moved its head in a weird manner, likely tracking something she couldn’t see. When the feline stared at her, Wendy closed her eyes and dropped her head against the boards behind her.

“Why?”

Half-expecting the new speaker to be the cat, Wendy opened her eyes to find Leq hovering at the end of her nose. Her instinctive flinch backward was thwarted by the wood against her hair. “Where have you been?” she demanded.

“Zippin’,” Leq answered blandly.

She let out a breath that pushed him back a bit. That hadn’t been her intention, but as her faeries often failed to understand personal space, she wasn’t upset by the result, either. Leq flicked the long hair that helped differentiate him from the others over his shoulder. Wendy had long suspected that the sheerie kept it that length because his preference for speed meant the locks flowed behind him dramatically when he was visible.

“Have you seen John and Michael today? Or Shaye and Iniq?”

“Nope.” Leq executed a tidy backflip.

Wendy pinched the bridge of her nose. “I need you to tell them to stay with John and Michael. One of them can come get me if something bad happens.”

“Why?” he asked without concern.

“Because the boys are in danger.”

“Why?”

“Because Peter Pan is a killer.”

“Why?”

She threw her hands in the air, her voice loud with frustration. “I don’t know why he chooses to murder people!”

Realizing she had endangered them with her volume, she placed a gentle finger over Leq’s mouth to prevent the next question. The cat was not impressed with her outburst. Leq let her listen for shouts of discovery, which never came, then pushed her finger aside to demand she tell him a story.

“You want a story? Fine. I’ll tell you the story of how Peter Pan killed a child in cold blood,” Wendy hissed. She paused to order her thoughts into simpler sentences the sheerie was likely to understand.

As soon as she agreed to regale him with a tale, Leq plummeted to her lap and jostled the sleeping Disa. Disa shoved his fellow faery away until Leq said the magic word. When Disa heard “story,” he sat up and wrapped his arms around his legs. Both sheeries stared at Wendy with anticipation.

“This is not a good story,” she warned the pair. She glanced at the cat. “You may not like it, either.”

The cat blinked once.

“Yesterday, I left John and Michael shelling peas at the Home Underground.”

Leq blew a raspberry. Wendy privately agreed, while wondering who had taught whom that rude gesture. She had left her brothers and a couple of the Lost Boys to the dull task while she went exploring. Two months on the island had given her a fairly solid grasp of the general location of everything, but she wanted to see more of the wonders for herself.

“Have you two been to the Singing Rocks?”

“Just mermaids there,” Leq pooh-poohed. Disa made a face.

“True, but I wanted to see them.”

The Singing Rocks weren’t musical in and of themselves. Instead, they were a convenient location for the local mermaid population to practice their songs. Something of a sheltered lagoon, the dark walls that ringed the inlet provided flattering acoustics for the vain water-dwelling faeries who sunned themselves on the protruding boulders.

Wendy had already encountered the mermaids during her short time on Neverland. The exclusively female creatures seemed to view her as a rival for Peter’s affections and had taken exception to her presence. Fortunately, she had survived that encounter with no more than sodden clothes. Peter had laughed off her dire prediction that the wretches would have happily drowned her given the chance.

“I hid near the edge of the cliff that circles their concert space so I could listen and watch without being seen.” The sheeries missed the sarcasm, but the cat twitched a whisker or two.

“Why not be invisible?” Leq questioned, baffled that she hadn’t utilized the obvious solution.

Disa answered before she could. “Wenny can’t do that.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Wendy bit back the brief smile. For some reason, the sheeries didn’t pronounce the “d” in her name. They could make the sound—no other words suffered from that particular lack—but her name got special treatment.

“Anyway, I was hidden and waiting for the mermaids to start practicing their songs when Peter and Sadiq appeared on the other side of the bushes.” Some instinct had prevented her from calling out to the boys. She hadn’t understood her gut feeling at the time, but she was grateful to have obeyed it.

“Peter was asking Sadiq how much Sadiq loved him. Our oldest Lost Boy assured him that he would do anything for Peter.” Wendy stopped speaking to frown. Peter had been rather pleased with that statement. She hadn’t understood at the time, but his giant smile had felt weird to her.

“They talked a little longer.” She doubted the sheeries would grasp the nuances of the conversation, and boiled it down to, “Then Peter asked Sadiq to put a knife through his own heart.”

Identical expressions of outrage adorned the mini faces perched in her lap. The cat pinned its ears back for a moment.

“At first, I thought Sadiq was going to do it.” A full-body shudder interrupted her narrative. The sheeries rode the wave, still upset on Sadiq’s behalf. “But at the last second, he couldn’t.”

Two mini cheers floated up to her ears. A sad smile crossed Wendy’s lips. If only the story ended there. Instead, Peter had sighed and said the words that were now engraved in her memory. “He said, ‘I was hoping for a full boost, but it still works this way.’ Then Peter grabbed the knife from Sadiq and stabbed him in the heart.”

Both sheeries gasped. She thought the cat might have growled, but it was difficult to tell over the gust of wind that puffed up the fur along its back.

“Sadiq looked so surprised.” Wendy shook her head. “Then Peter pulled out the knife and just . . . kicked him off the cliff.” Her voice trembled at the end. The mermaids had thanked Peter for their new treasure and pulled Sadiq’s body under the water.

Wendy had stayed frozen in place for quite some time. When her shock-stilled limbs decided to obey her again, Peter had been long gone and the mermaids had left to find sunnier waters. Without their new toy.

A seagull, maybe the same foolhardy one from before, squawked from the railing opposite her. She took a breath and pulled herself back to her situation, curious if the cat would finally chase off the featherbrain. The sheeries, who had been arguing about something she couldn’t make out, stopped talking and stared over her shoulder. A sense of dread washed over Wendy. She turned her head to find a sun-grizzled older man watching her.

With effort, she successfully quelled her first inclination to punch him in the nose. She had been well and truly caught; causing her discoverer to fall to the deck and possibly die would do nothing good for her situation. He might not even deserve that, anyway.

She heaved a gusting sigh, then addressed the man. “I suppose you want me to climb down now.”

His answering grin wasn’t unfriendly, but the missing teeth added a menace Wendy was all too willing to see. She pulled herself up and peered over the rail. A fair number of crewmen roamed the deck, attending to duties Wendy vaguely understood. In addition to the involuntary sigh working its way up from her toes, a groan of epic proportions rumbled from her empty belly.

“This just isn’t my day,” she muttered as she bent to arrange her skirt in more of a pants configuration. The numerous (and gaudy) ribbons aided her. Much as she didn’t want to be seen by the general populace wearing the secondhand abomination, it would be that much worse if her skirt got caught around her armpits as she climbed down.

As soon as she hooked her leg over the wall, the dark, leathery face dropped out of sight. His sparse, pale-blond curls followed. Another rumble rolled through her middle. With a final glance to ensure the sheeries had disappeared, Wendy hoisted herself up and over the rail.

Nausea surged when she maneuvered her legs into position. The movement of the ship seemed to increase drastically as she worked to release her fingers and grasp the ropes below. Wendy blew out a frustrated breath. Heights had never been an issue before.

“You’ve never climbed out of a crow’s nest and into the jaws of death before, either, ding-a-ling,” she reminded herself. “Left foot, right foot, left hand, right hand.”

The man below was either ignoring her running commentary or didn’t hear it. The shouts from below may have assisted with that. Wendy risked a peek farther down than her next step and saw an unfortunate number of faces pointed her way. Maybe they were friendly merchants who were sneaking in and out of Neverland with the purest intentions and would be delighted to take her to shore.

She snorted. Right. And they’ll feed me and treat me like a pampered pet, ’cause that’s what you do with foreign-looking girls who board your ship without permission.

It didn’t occur to her until she had reached the relative safety of the deck that the old man had almost certainly been moving slowly for her benefit. Cleaning up broken stowaways from the wooden boards was probably annoying. Wendy clung to the ropes for a moment longer, working up the nerve to face her inadvertent captors.

Not entirely sure who she expected the crew to be, the variety of skin tones in the group led credence to her merchant theory. Plenty of folks left their homelands to seek adventure at sea. A couple of the men had the typical Jocestrian dark skin and pale curls the old man possessed, but she saw features and colorings that would fit natives of Desjunon and Fanostrin to the north, and even a few that could have been Pothrynel or Erimevka farther west.

In the jostling bodies before her, she suddenly became aware of a commanding presence. Her eyes latched onto a pair of beautifully deep brown orbs set in a swarthy face. Everyone else fell away as she absorbed the way his coffee-colored hair and trim beard framed his divine features. The crowd parted to allow the dark vision of masculine perfection to step forward unhindered. A dim part of Wendy’s mind told her to stop gushing such romantic nonsense over an unknown entity. The rest of her didn’t care.

“Who are you?”

Even his voice is deliciously deep and mellow. “My name is Wendy.” She thought about dipping into a curtsy but settled for an inclination of her head. Her current attire mocked the idea of social niceties, and she wasn’t sure where he fell in the hierarchy of the ship anyway.

He nodded back, his expression calm but not inviting. “I’m James. Captain of this ship.”

The reality of being caught hiding aboard this man’s boat began overwhelming her awe of his physical presence. Heat rose to her cheeks as she eked out a lame, “Nice to meet you.”

One dark eyebrow arched on the Sharamilan face.

Wendy cleared her throat, now mortified by the exchange.

James lifted his chin a touch. “I’d like to know how this meeting came about.”

“Smee found ’er, Cap’n Hook!” The speaker’s voice broke in the middle, due to either his youth or eagerness.

Dropping her eyes as horror began creeping through her limbs, Wendy noticed James’ Adam’s apple bob, the only outward sign of an emotion she expected to be blasted with at any moment. She pulled her eyes back up to meet his as she tried to keep the apprehension out of her voice. “Hook?”