Veiled in Stars and Silver: A Peter Pan Fairy Tale Romance

Chapter 17

His first mate.

His goddamned bloody first mate.

Not to mention the other two lives he had no choice but to end.

He couldn’t get it out of his mind. How Smee had come at him, his eyes dim and devoid of his normal cheeriment with a cleaver, about to take off Hook’s head. Leaving him with no alternative. The rain had washed away the blood on hand and hook, the hot metallic scent of death, and yet the feel of his hook slicing into his first mate remained. One of his oldest friends, who, even on days when he was lost in Pan’s control, still managed a smile or a joke, as if even Pan couldn’t stand to completely wipe the man’s personality from him.

Hook swore on his life. Pan would pay.

He’d been swearing the same thing for years, with every time he’d been forced to gut an ally, a friend. People he knew and cared about. So far, that promise had gone unfulfilled.

Not anymore. He was so close.

Water dripped from Hook’s clothes and Wendy tugged on his hand, urging him along. He gripped it. His lifeline. She’d kept him from getting lost in the darkness. The endless pain of his existence that had stretched on for hundreds of years. And when he’d taken Smee’s life, at the last moment, there had been an odd peaceful look that had come over the man’s face. One that, for the briefest of moments, Hook had envied.

He never knew how long it would take to fly between Neverland and London. And not because there was no way to keep track. Sometimes it felt like a few weeks had passed. Others a few minutes.

Time seemed to rush.

He wished it would crawl.

They came into London, and the darkness of evening surrounded them. It was always night when one arrived, no matter what time of day in Neverland one left. He saw the giant clock tower of Big Ben lit up like a thousand fairies flew about inside. Like how the northern part of the island at Neverland was now lit up with so many fairies that had come within the past few years. Hook wondered if Pan was behind that. There was something even lower about the idea of taking over the mind of a fairy.

Wendy led Hook above the lights of the city to the rooftop of her home. They landed on it, their feet crunching into the pristine snow that coated the surface.

Flakes had gathered in Wendy’s hair, giving it a layer of white. Ice-clouds formed from her breath. Her arms wrapped across her thin dress. “Are you going to be all right?”

He flashed her a reassuring smile. “Aye, love. Don’t worry about me,” he lied.

Put it aside like everything else.Yes, Smee was his friend. But so were so many others he’d killed. His first mate’s death was only another casualty for the cause. He hated thinking that, but there was no other way. If he thought too hard about the horrible things he’d done over the years, he’d sit down on this roof and never get back up.

He blocked it out. Closing himself off. Saving it up for the time when he could rip Pan limb from limb.

He’d enjoy every moment of it.

Wendy clutched her elbows, shaking. Her updo had come undone and her damp hair pressed against her shoulders. Her lips had become blue. The biting cold wrapped its icy tentacles around them. Sopping as they were, it was dangerous. He shrugged out of his damp overcoat, placed it over her trembling form and rubbed her arms. The frigid chill seeped further into Hook’s muscles.

“I h-hate being wet all the time,” Wendy said through chattering teeth. He noted with pleasure how she leaned into his warmth. He’d relished kissing her.

He’d relished it a lot.

Shit, not now, he thought as his body roused. They were in danger of freezing to death. “We need to get indoors,” he said. “We can acquire a change of clothes from your family once we are inside your home, yes?”

She let out a disconcerting laugh. “My uncle has the dagger. If he sees me dressed this way, he’ll shoot me, then you, then me again.”

Hook frowned at that, her words grounding him. “That doesn’t sound like a very loving uncle.”

Her face became serious. “We have to be careful. We must take him by surprise.”

“You’re saying we aren’t going to knock on the door and ask him for the dagger?”

“He took it from me. If we try to retrieve it, he’ll treat us like thieves.” Her voice shook a little. She bit her lip, and she gazed at him with wide, fearful eyes.

Hook’s own worry was building at her response. He’d never seen Wendy truly afraid of anything. “You think he can take both of us?”

She shut her eyes briefly, taking a slow breath. “Uncle Reuben will have the dagger in his room. His window is on the east side of the house. We need to be quick and whatever you do, don’t let him get his hands on a gun.”

She rose into the air, still in his overcoat. He wondered if she was wearing it to hide that outrageous dress, or if it served to warm her a tad. Either way, he enjoyed seeing her in his clothes.

“Right,” he said. “You retrieve the dagger. I’ll distract Uncle.”

He followed her around to what he assumed must be the window to Reuben’s room. Wendy rubbed her hands together, her brows drawing downward, but turned to Hook and nodded. He leaned in, cupping his palms to stare in through the glass. A man sat in his nightcap reading a book.

Hook glanced at Wendy. “Ready?”

Two knives were clutched in her fists and she looked deadly solemn, as if preparing for battle. She nodded again.

He backed up, then sent a flying kick into the window. It gave under his boot and he crashed inward as the glass shattered.

Reuben’s head jerked up, eyes wide and blazing. He rolled and, in one swift movement, yanked a revolver out of his nightstand. Shit. He was fast. Hook lunged as the man turned it on them. He caught the man’s fists with his hook and yanked it toward the ceiling as an explosion sounded. A harsh ringing pierced his ears.

Plaster rained down from the gunshot. He managed to get his hook around the trigger guard of the revolver and jerk it from Reuben’s hands. Murder shone in the other man’s glassy eyes. He responded by slamming a fist into Hook’s gut that knocked him to the floor. The world spun and pain rocked Hook’s abdomen, his cheek pressed into the worn carpet, and for a moment, he thought he was going to puke.

Reuben’s raging gaze turned on Wendy, who was crouching next to a safe twisting the dial. She threw the door open and grabbed the dagger out of it.

“So, my niece runs away, then returns to steal from me,” Reuben growled.

She stood, whirling to face him, both hands behind her back. She moved cautiously, as if her uncle were a beast about to charge at any moment. “I only want my dagger, Uncle. Let us go and we won’t bother you again. You have my word.”

“Then who is going to pay for my busted window and clean this wretch’s guts off the floor?” He reached up and pulled down the saber hanging above the headboard of his bed.

Hook tried to rise, but Reuben drove his heel into his stomach, causing him to grunt and fall back. He pressed the blade against Hook’s throat.

Knocking a man down and killing him. That was Hook’s move. He supposed this was the universe catching up with all of his black deeds. He relaxed, accepting this fate.

There was a click, and his eyes jolted over to Wendy in surprise.

She held a revolver to her uncle’s head.

Reuben’s gaze narrowed. “I see you found the one I stored in the top drawer.”

“Let him go or die.”

The older man’s lip curled. “You wouldn’t.”

Wendy’s face was deadly. “You taught me, Uncle. You know I would.”

Reuben’s mouth twisted, his teeth flashing in the dull light.

But he dropped the saber. “Yes. You’ve always been as ruthless as I.”

She didn’t move, her expression dark, cold, like when she first pressed a knife to Hook’s throat, and he’d wondered if she really might end him. He recalled seeing his man, Aaron, lying in the sand. Wendy wasn’t simply capable of killing. She was a killer.

And right now, she looked as if there wasn’t anything she wanted to do more than pull the revolver’s trigger.

“Father?”

Hook turned. A man around Wendy’s age lingered in the doorway. He held a pistol in his hand and had it trained on Wendy. Hook blinked. How many weapons did this man keep in his house?

“Ezra. Shoot them,” Reuben said.

“No, Ezra. It”s not what you think,” Wendy said quickly.

“Do as I say,” her uncle snarled.

“We only want the dagger and then we’ll go.”

Ezra looked between them, uncertain. “Why do you have a gun shoved against his head?”

“Do you really have to ask that?”

Ezra lowered the gun. “I guess not.”

Despite the pain in Hook”s stomach, he pushed himself to his feet. Relief flashed across Wendy’s face, and she turned to Hook.

Reuben moved. He gripped the barrel of the revolver, pushing it up, and backhanded Wendy. Like watching another one of his men go down, horror filled Hook as she fell to the floor, dagger clutched in one hand, the other gripping her cheek. The gun clattered to the carpet, away from both of them. Her uncle lunged onto her, wrapping a fist around her throat, squeezing.

Red flashed before Hook’s vision, an uncontainable fury curling in his chest. He no longer felt any pain.

Reuben was a dead man.

“She finally shows her true colors,” her uncle snarled down at her, as she struggled to breathe. “Tell me. Did you sell your worthless body to this low life, you shitty little whore?”

Hook charged him from the side, his good hand slamming into his face over and over. Blood bloomed across the other man’s skin, splattering as his nose shattered under Hook’s blows. He cocked his arm again but didn’t strike. Reuben lay on the floor, dazed. He dug the tip of his hook into the man’s abdomen, ripping through his nightshirt and drawing blood.

“Hook.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.” Hook’s eyes heated, warming to what he was about to do. It was said by those who’d watched him gut his victims that they swore two red spots appeared in his eyes. He never knew if it was Pan’s doing or his. Right now, he didn’t care.

“Hook.”

He dug deeper, and terror flashed across the man’s face. He wasn’t yet deep enough to cause damage, only deep enough for Reuben to realize what he was about to do. Hook had rarely gutted a man who deserved it, so of all the deaths he had caused, this one he might actually enjoy.

“James.”

He glanced up.

Wendy stood by the window, dagger clasped between her hands. “Leave him.”

Her eyes flashed toward the bedroom door, and he followed her gaze. Ezra had the gun half raised, watching Hook about to kill his father. The fact that he lingered, uncertain, instead of having shot Hook in the face already was a testament to how terrible the man within his grasp truly was.

“James, let’s go,” she said, extending her hand.

He extracted his hook from the man beneath him, wiping blood on the man’s nightshirt. “It”s your lucky day, mate,” he said without feeling. He rose and walked to the window, taking Wendy’s hand.

“Ezra,” she said. “You need to leave and not return. You know he won’t let this go.”

Wendy’s cousin didn’t move at first. A darkness lurked in his expression that Hook recognized. Slowly, Ezra met Wendy’s gaze. “He won’t hurt either of us again.”

She nodded, then led Hook out the window and they flew up into the night.

The snow flurried around them, grasping onto their damp clothes. Wendy grasped his fingers tightly, turning to look at him. Her eyes widened and Hook spun only to see a blood covered Reuben standing in the window, shotgun in hand, aimed at them.

Ezra came up behind Reuben, and he shoved the big man over the rail of the window.

As the man fell, the gun ignited.

“Look out!” Wendy barreled into him as the shot rocketed across the sky.