Chapter 9
Hook
Saltwater dripped off Hook’s face and slid down into his boots as he stood before the queen of the merfolk.
Given her reputation, she’d probably splashed them on purpose.
Tink released her hold on his coat and stepped out from behind him.
She’d had no trouble letting him take the brunt of the wave.
The petite pixie gave a wobbling curtsy, her boots sinking into the wet sand.
Even with her wings bound, it seemed the queen recognized her.
Hook removed his hat and swept a bow. “Queen Titania.”
“Captain,” she replied, her tone flat.
Bad sign. Best get to it. “I’ve come to ask you to remove your curses.”
She crossed her arms, brows rising. “You waste my time, Captain.”
He swallowed. Of all the times not to be able to lie and charm her.
Cressida’s crew in port only complicated things.
They were friendly—most of the time—but further angering the merfolk wouldn’t do any favors for him with them either.
If the laughter and frolicking on the beach were any indication, the merfolk were quite enamored with Cressida’s crew.
“It was my error,” Tink said, stepping closer to the queen. Hook shot her a sharp look, but she ignored it. “I heard him boasting of the theft, and I believed he stole it from you, but that was wrong. Captain Blackbeard stole the Heart of Fire from you. Captain Hook took it from him.”
Titania slid her sapphire gaze to Hook. “Still a thief.”
He should have known Tink wouldn’t keep quiet.
Did she have no idea how thin the queen’s patience was?
“Tink stole the necklace from me shortly after I acquired it.” Hook straightened, doing his best to keep his tone calm and easy.
“I couldn’t return something no longer in my possession.
” Not that he would have, but she didn’t need to know that.
Tink’s cheeks flamed. “And if not for me stealing it from him,” she accented the word, “I could not have returned it to you as you asked of me.”
Titania tilted her head this way and that. “Whatever shall I do with you two thieves? Both of you ask favors of me.”
Both of them? Hook glanced at Tink from the corner of his eye. She’d said she traded the necklace for their trust. What could a pixie want from the merfolk so badly?
The queen’s tail flicked an arc of water toward their boots.
“And yet, you both made offenses against me. You,” she said as her sparky gaze slid to Hook, “boasted of your theft instead of vowing to return our sacred treasure. And you, little pixie, caused us to turn the sea against the wrong pirate.”
Tink stiffened next to him. “We beg your forgiveness for our errors. What can we—”
Hook grabbed her hand and squeezed. Offering anything to a mermaid was risky. The queen already had her decision. He could see it in the glimmer of her eyes and the hint of a grin on her lips. How had Tink survived a prior encounter with this vicious queen?
The queen’s attention slid to their joined hands. Hook released Tink, lest the mermaid get the wrong idea. It took everything he had not to wipe his hand on his coat. Though even that might not remove the memory of her soft skin against his.
“I would ask a favor of you both,” the queen said. “Do what I ask, and I will reward each of you. For the pirate, the sea will no longer rage against you. For the pixie, you will have the pearl you seek, with no further payment required.”
A pearl? All this nonsense for a bloody pearl? He had at least a dozen of them somewhere in his cabin, not to mention the long necklaces he’d acquired years ago. She could have taken those. They would look stunning draped around her neck.
Tink swayed on her feet. Whatever it was, it was valuable enough that not even the Heart of Fire had been sufficient payment. Or Queen Titania was taking advantage of her naivety, as she was known to do. Still, it couldn’t be any normal pearl, but he’d get to the bottom of that—later.
“What favor?” Hook asked. To offer such a prize, it wouldn’t be simple. No, the queen was crafty as a pirate. Craftier.
Titania’s fangs glinted in her serpentine smile. “I want the scale of Leviathan returned to me.”
Bloody hell. The thing was no more than a legend.
A myth. The dragon god Leviathan was said to be so large it could swallow a ship whole or stir up a tidal wave with a flick of its tail.
Hook had lived on the sea most of his life and never seen anything like it or met anyone who had.
There were worse monsters on the sea that occupied his thoughts—namely the old, bastard crocodile who’d taken his hand.
“I already vowed to return it to you in exchange for the pearl,” Tink protested, her voice cracking.
His head snapped her way. This pixie planned to find a mythical treasure. He nearly laughed. She was bold, all right. And desperate. So very desperate to attempt something like that. If he hadn’t known her, he’d say daft, but there was too much cunning behind her crystal blue eyes for that.
A pixie in human lands, alone, desperate for help from the merfolk… There was much to her story he didn’t know and couldn’t guess at. Curiosity tugged at him like a pulled thread. Something else too: an ache in his chest he studiously ignored.
“And now you’ll have help.” Titania grinned, exposing her fangs.
“Where is this scale?” Hook asked, turning his attention back to the queen.
Water splashed in an arc from a flick of her tail. “If I knew, I’d have it already.”
So, it existed after all. Hook rubbed his jaw. All he had to do was find something most of Neverland didn’t believe existed. But just as Titania could taste a lie in the air, she couldn’t utter one herself. No merfolk could.
Legend said that long ago the dragon god Leviathan had come to Neverland.
There, it fell in love with a human woman—or a mermaid, as the merfolk liked to claim.
Duty called the god away, but it left behind with its beloved a scale from its body, a way to call it to aid if ever she or her descendants needed.
The legend was true, it seemed, or at least part of it.
Tink looked between the two of them and swallowed. “I was told it’s hidden in a cave, somewhere normal folk don’t go.”
“Determined.” Titania leaned back on the rock, her breasts proudly displayed in the sunlight that glimmered across her pearlescent skin. “And bolder now. You should have asked me more about it the last time we met.”
Tink’s cheeks flushed.
“I see why you like her,” Titania said to Hook.
He stiffened. The comment knocked him off-balance worse than her request. But Tink didn’t notice. Instead, she hung on the queen’s word.
“The Shrouded Isles.” The mermaid’s gaze turned dark as the misty cluster of islands themselves. “I can feel it. My ancestor’s treasure calls to me, but the water there is…unpleasant.”
This was bad. Hook turned, his boots squishing in the sand, and stared past the sandy beach to the surrounding forest: inviting, lively, colorful, full of trees laden with ripe fruit. Paradise, his crew called it. Everything the Shrouded Isles weren’t.
“The Shrouded Isles,” Tink repeated, as if committing it to memory. “We’ll find the scale. I’ll make sure of it.”
Hook whirled around. “Wait one minute.” He waved his hook at the women.
The queen’s gaze narrowed at him. “You’re a pair, and she has agreed.” Another flick of the tail. “I look forward to having the scale in our possession once more, where it belongs. Do this for me and you’ll have what you asked for.”
Bloody pixie was going to get him killed, literally. First stealing from him, then cursing him, now agreeing to find an item no one knew the exact location of in a place everyone avoided. Worst of all, she haunted his every thought, another curse he needed to rid himself of. Immediately.
“If we’re done…” Titania said, sounding bored.
“Wait,” Hook said.
The queen grinned. She knew, blast her. What would she demand to remove his second curse, his other hand?
He turned to Tink. “I need to speak with the queen. Alone.”
“You’re not worried I’ll fly away?” She balled her hands on her hips.
He glanced at the horizon and raised his brows. “In this storm?”
She only shrugged before turning back to the mermaid. “Queen Titania.” She curtsied before walking down the beach.
“You desire my company, Captain?” The queen leaned forward, her long claws adding ripples to the rolling tide.
To say no would offend her, but yes would be a lie.
There was a reason he avoided these shores.
The lusty merfolk sought to seduce any who ventured near, but only if one impressed them, made them feel desired.
They couldn’t be courted with pretty words.
His best compliments earned him only scorn and dismissal, shunned for the lies they were.
It wasn’t his fault he favored the feel of a woman’s legs wrapped around him, holding him tight.
“I want the second curse on me removed.”
A lavender brow lifted. “Oh? And why do you think you’re twice cursed?”
He flicked a half-glance toward Tink. Sage wrapped an arm around the pixie’s shoulders, leading her over to where a few merfolk lounged on the beach with members of Cressida’s crew. His heel ground into the sand. “There’s a woman. Can’t get her out of my head.”
Titania laughed. “That’s not a curse. It’s called infatuation. Some might even call it…love?”
Hook ground his teeth. A thieving pixie who got the sea turned against him? Not a bloody chance. He might call her “love”—hell, he called a lot of women that—but it didn’t mean he was in love with her.
The queen hummed. “No, not yet. But maybe someday? It’s certainly lust.”
“I’m not some green-in-the-gills boy.”
“No.” Sharp fangs peeked out. “You’re not.”
Frustrating mermaid. “Look. The sea is my only wife. I don’t get attached to women.” Lovers came and went. They didn’t linger in his bed, much less his thoughts. There wasn’t time for it, not that any’d caught his eye if there had been.
“You’re lying, Captain.”
“I’m…it’s this bloody curse. What do I have to give for you to get this woman out of my head?”
“So desperate,” she hissed. “Too bad you’re not afflicted by such a curse. Oh, the things I could ask of you if you were.”
Not afflicted? He blinked. It wasn’t possible. “Magic then.”
She shook her head. “None that I can smell. Desire is a natural thing. Give in. Let it sweep you away. Perhaps that will clear your mind of this woman…or is it a pixie?” Her sly gaze slid down the beach.
His fist opened and closed. Bloody merfolk.
“I await my scale, Captain. A scale of the dragon god of the seas should belong with the people of the seas.”
Waves lapped at his boots. “That’s the only reason you want it?” he asked. But he already knew the answer.
“A queen can never have too many weapons at her disposal. Surely you’d agree.” She cocked her head to the side.
Of course he did, which she already knew. Though… “And what’s to stop me using it? Or Tink?”
Titania bared her fangs.
“Accidentally,” he added.
“Do you know how?” she practically snarled.
No, he didn’t.
When he didn’t speak, she responded, “Then you have your answer.”
“You ask too much of her,” he said, refusing to let the queen have the last jab.
Titania glanced down the beach. “So desperate… I couldn’t help myself.” She shrugged. “But now she has help.” A slow, wicked grin spread across her face. “You see, these things have a way of working out.”
His teeth ground together. Bloody mermaid. She had been taking advantage of Tink’s naivety and her desperation. Not that it should bother him.
“Don’t keep me waiting, Captain.” Titania glanced at the storm clouds. “For your sake, if not hers.” Sunlight glinted off navy scales as she flipped off the rock and disappeared below the water.