Chapter 21
Tink
Storms sucked.
They didn’t have them in the Sylvanna Vale. Not like this. Pleasant rain showers? Sure. Foggy mornings? Those were the best. Rain that stung like needles and seemed to come from every direction at once? Hah, no.
“Eeep!” The drone of wind and pounding rain swallowed up her exclamation as she slipped…again. Her palms splashed into rocky mud. Her knee banged on a root.
If only she could sink into the mud and forget this horrid, desperate flight back to Coconut Cove. Everything was wet. Everything. And muddy. Her legs ached, she’d broken half her nails, and her hair… Durin’s beard, will it ever get untangled?
But all that she could handle, maybe. It was Hook’s stubborn silence and glares fiercer than lightning that were the shit drizzled on top of the rotting pie of a day.
Of course the witch outed her. Bitch. Everyone wanted her dust. Every—
“Come on.” Sage grabbed her, helping her to her feet. “Almost there.”
Okay, maybe not everyone.
She tried to blow the hair out of her face and failed. Tink swiped her muddy hand across her forehead, pushing the wet tendrils clinging to her skin away. What could a little more mud hurt?
“Clear!” Smee hollered, trotting back toward them on the path. He’d run ahead, desperate to check on his sisters. How such a big man had quite so much energy she’d never understand.
“Thank fuck!” Francis exclaimed, picking up speed as he passed her on the path. Or what was left of it.
Blackbeard hadn’t found them. They were safe. For now anyway. The relief she expected didn’t come. If he beat them to the scale, he’d have more power over the seas than ever before. Her way home would be gone. The curse on Hook and his crew would never lift.
She gritted her teeth. One storm—magic or natural—wouldn’t stop her from getting back to the Sylvanna Vale.
The homes dotting the hillside were nearly impossible to see in the storm, especially since night had fallen during their trek.
With shutters closed and braced for the storm, the wind blowing any smoke away, and no moonlight on the water, the homes were just more shadows in the darkness.
She’d have stumbled right past them and into the sea if someone hadn’t thrown open a door and ushered them inside.
Tink made a beeline for the fire. Oh, blessed warmth! She let her pack slide off and thump wetly by her feet. If only she could shed her clothes too. Climb under a blanket…
“We all here?” Hook’s commanding voice echoed through the room, conquering even the raging storm outside.
“Aye,” a chorus of dripping pirates answered him.
“Rest, ready yourselves. First break in this bloody squall, we sail.”
A more muted response greeted him. Rest? As if anyone could in this storm. She squatted on the floor near the fire, her wet clothes already forming a puddle.
“Rell, set a watch. Come straight to me if the storm breaks before dawn.”
“Aye, aye!” the girl responded.
“Out! All of you,” Hook ordered.
Tink groaned, shoving off the floor. She’d just sat down.
“Not you.” Hook pointed in her direction.
A few pirates tossed pitying looks her way before dashing out into the storm. They worried for her when they were the ones braving that squall again, for however brief a time.
Tink dropped back on the ground and faced the fire. He ordered her to stay? Fine. She’d be warm while he yelled at her about the witch.
Something scraped across the ground. A chair? A heavy thump followed.
Her shoulders stiffened. Any moment now…
“I’m sorry.”
“What?” She blinked at the fire. He was talking to himself, wasn’t he? Ridiculous pirate.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
She spun around on the floor to face him. Hook hunched over the table, his head in his hand.
“You tried to warn me about the boy. You wouldn’t have done that if you were working with the witch against us. Whatever she wanted with you, that’s your affair.”
That’s your affair. She mouthed in echo. Did he get knocked with a tree branch on the way back? Drink too much rain?
“And she seemed…upset when you rejected her. Will that come back to hurt us?” He looked up, all the fire he’d shown before his crew gone out of him.
“Shouldn’t.” She crossed her arms. “She wanted my dust. I didn’t think I could make any more outside my home.
Seems I can.” Her wings twitched, wet and miserable as they were bound up and stuck to her back.
“She told me how. It worked. But I’m not selling it to her.
Or anyone else.” Unless I have to. Again.
Her bracelet could only break once. It didn’t break again the more she’d sold her dust, but why add to her sins?
“Pity. It’s the drug of choice all across the seas. Could make us some coin.”
She rolled her eyes. Of course the pirate would bring it back to money. Didn’t he always?
“It was dust she used in her sight spell?”
Her brows arched. Observant pirate. “It was.”
He scratched at the stubble on his chin. “So you can weave some magic.”
Tink huffed. “No, her spells are not…natural.” Not for a pixie, and she couldn’t slide further down the path away from the vale. Their dust was meant to nourish the land, which fed and cared for them in return. The great circle of balance. Humans perverted that use, like so many other things.
He nodded, but his attention lay somewhere else. “And when your wings glow…that makes dust?”
If he hadn’t looked away, he’d have seen her face turn red. Her ears heated. All of her might as well have lit on fire. The raging storm couldn’t break the tense silence that hung between them.
“Pleasure.” Her word was a hoarse whisper.
“Happiness.” When the cares of the world fell away and all that was left was something enjoyable, it could happen.
Or when her body lit on fire, stirred into a kind of pleasure she’d rarely given herself, though not even that had made her wings glow in this human world.
It happened with him. A bloody, filthy, thieving, handsome, loyal, delicious pirate.
Holy revered elders, I am in trouble.
Back home in the vale, dust came naturally. Her wings had been laden with it when she and Lily snuck into this world. But after she shed that at Blackbeard’s command, little had come back. Then, none at all. Nothing about her wings worked right outside of the vale.
“I…um…I should find a place to sleep.” She leaped to her feet and wrung water out of her hair, letting it splatter on the floorboards.
Smee’s sisters had practically carried her off into their house when they’d pulled up to the dock—had that been only two days ago?
That night she’d been so miserable among their happiness.
It was great the way they invited her in, gave her a place to sleep, food, drink.
They’d offered her clothes too, but their pretty dresses would’ve made her stand out too much in Rochland and wouldn’t suit a trek to the Shrouded Isles.
But watching the crew and their loved ones celebrate, the way they were so comfortable with one another like one large family, it wrecked her.
It was too much like home, too much like the family and friends she’d lost. They even worked toward a common good for their community, sharing the work, the food, their treasures—just like pixies—rather than for themselves like many of the other humans she’d observed.
The joy of it all had choked her until she’d fled into the night to be alone.
But even that joyful misery would be better than lingering with this man who infuriated her in so many ways.
“Stay here.” His gaze caught hers. “You can, I mean. There’s an extra bed.”
For the first time, she looked around the room, catching sight of the sparse furnishings: a table and chairs of simple wood, a few cabinets and shelves bearing books, trinkets, and small paintings, a cook pot resting on its stand near the fire.
A home. Though not the lavish one she expected for such a man. “Your home?”
He rubbed the ring around his neck. When had he pulled it from under his shirt? “It was my mother’s.”
A thought struck her like lightning. “That ring…it was hers?” She’d been too afraid to ask before, too nervous he’d say it belonged to a lover he cherished, one who might be waiting for him in some port.
“It was.” His attention dipped to the puddle forming on the wooden floor. “You’ll need something dry.” Without another word, he crossed the room to the narrow stairs and disappeared into the darkness.
His mother’s ring. Knowledge slammed her in the chest. She’d pulled away before because she thought he loved another and carried her token around. But all that time, it was his mother’s.
Idiot, idiot, idiot.
And so was this house. She swallowed, suddenly ashamed for dripping on her floor. Not that she was here to be upset about it, but still…
She twisted the end of her sodden braid.
Gone? Dead? She didn’t have the heart to ask.
It couldn’t be easy having a pirate as a son, no matter how well he provided for his crew.
Smee’s house had all the trappings of a fine manor—not that she’d seen many others, and even then only through windows.
One couldn’t tell it from the outside, not with the simple facades half-hidden in the forest. This house, though…
She ran her finger along the mantelpiece.
Rustic, old, efficient, but not grand. A far cry from Hook’s cabin on the Jolly Roger.
A faded painting stared back at her from a small frame, no larger than her palm.
A young woman sat holding a little boy, their bodies stiff and straight despite the smiles painted on their features.
She squinted, leaning in closer. They shared the same dark hair, hers bound in a bun, little tendrils escaping, the boy’s a little too long, touching his ears and just aching to be brushed behind them.
Tink jumped away from the portrait as the steps creaked, alerting her to Hook’s return.
Her mouth dried as she took in the man warmed by the fire’s glow.
He’d discarded much of his clothing, leaving just that ring shining against the smattering of dark hair on his bare chest. Barefoot, standing there in just his wet breeches with clothing thrown over his arm, he could have been anyone…
if she ignored the hook. Not that she minded.
It only added to his persona, gave him that fierce, sharp edge that she shouldn’t want but couldn’t help craving.
Her tongue flicked out over her lips. Damn, she really did want him. There wasn’t any ale to blame it on this time either.
“Enjoying the view?”
She flushed, ready to join the puddle at her feet. That devilish smirk on his face was a taunt and a tease all at once. He’d come down like that on purpose. Bastard.
“In fact, I am.” Why deny it? He already knew the answer.
His eyes widened.
“But if you give me the things you brought and point me to the spare room…” She placed her hands on her hips. “I’ll happily look away.”
“Well,” he dragged the word out, letting it play across his tongue.
Tink stared him down as he strode across the room with slow, deliberate purpose, a slight swagger to his step.
He didn’t stop until he stood at the edge of her puddle, forcing her to gaze up into his smirking face.
“If you’re happy to leave, the bedroom is through that door. ” He bobbed his head backward.
“No father or siblings I’m going to interrupt?” She arched one careful brow.
Hook shook his head. “My da was claimed by the sea before I was born. Or so ma said. It’s just me.”
Just them, alone in this house. Together. Her nose wrinkled as she snatched the clothes off his arm.
He pulled his arm away in a flash, almost spilling some of the fabric into the wetness. Was he so self-conscious about the straps attaching his hook to his arm? She was intrigued, the desire to inspect it—all of him—pulling her a step closer.
One dark brow arched toward the ceiling as if to say, “Your move.”
“Thank you,” Tink replied, intentionally brushing against him as she aimed for the door. Would he follow? Call after her?
She threw open the door and glanced behind her. The smoldering look on his face knocked the breath from her lungs and fanned the fire burning in her core. One crook of his finger and she’d be his. But he stood still as a statue where she’d left him. His chest didn’t so much as rise and fall.
She grinned. “Good night.” Your move, Captain.