Chapter 36
Hook
The last time Hook lay in the Kraken’s cell, he’d vowed revenge.
Over and over, he’d visualized the day he’d repay that bloody crocodile Blackbeard for taking his hand and delaying his journey home.
He’d fought the duel a hundred times in his mind, seen himself stab Blackbeard through the chest with his blade, toss him from a cliff, drown him in the sea.
For a few weeks, his fantasies of revenge had involved the creative use of a cannon.
For years he’d worked to build his crew, hone his skills, grow his reputation. Anything to dethrone Captain Blackbeard as the most notorious pirate on the seas. He’d take his title, beat him at his own game. And then, only then, would he challenge him to that fateful duel.
But now…
Now…
What did revenge matter when he’d lost everyone he ever loved?
Emptiness consumed him. Tink’s final scream haunted him, echoing in his ears as if it would continue forever. Smee had looked to him before he was pushed off the plank, giving him one last wobbling smile.
One by one, over and over, he watched as those he loved were bound hand and foot and sent to the depths—laid to rest with the Jolly Roger.
He stared at his hook, no longer bound behind him.
Who needed bindings when locked behind iron bars?
More than that, though, it was a mockery of the last time he was here.
Personal. Intimate. Blackbeard gave him that hook to end himself.
It was tempting. Perhaps that’s what he wanted—why he’d left him untied.
Hook pressed the pad of his thumb against the point, watching blood well and drip down his hand.
All those years, he worked toward his revenge, only to end up right back where he started.
Perhaps this was the end.
Even if he got his revenge, what did it matter anymore?
A door slammed open.
Lantern light flooded the dim room, illuminating the soiled hay and refuse lingering in the other cells—and his.
“Capt’n wants to see you,” one of the men slurred through his missing teeth. “Yer ta come with us.”
He narrowed his eyes at the men. “Or what?” What more could they do to him?
The two men looked between one another. “Er…well...”
Idiots. Hook looked at the crimson painting the tip of his hook. He’d plunge it into Blackbeard’s neck before the night was done. Even if it cost his own life—and part of him prayed it did—that bastard would get what was coming to him.
He raised his brows and held his hands out in front of them. “Better be about then.”
They looked between one another again, as if having a silent argument about who would venture into the cell first. They were of similar height and coloring. Brothers? Cousins? Not that it mattered.
The loser of their silent challenge clasped iron shackles on Hook’s wrist and led him, smashed between himself and his likely relative, to Blackbeard’s cabin.
The room was a gaudy affair of crimson, black, and gold. Velvet, jewels, and carved mahogany adorned the space. It was all too like his own if he were telling the truth—not that he would admit it. Another reason the bastard deserved to die.
Blackbeard sat with his legs propped up on his desk while he toyed with a braided section of his beard. With a wave of his hand, he dismissed his men, leaving Hook shackled in the center of the room.
He slid his boots from the top of his desk and stood.
The croc had a satchel clenched in his fist—Hook’s.
They’d wasted no time going through his crew’s things, the ones they’d stripped off them when they’d been brought onboard, or the ones on the Jolly Roger.
Hook bit the inside of his mouth as he spied a stunningly crafted clock that used to reside in his cabin…
right next to the bed he’d shared with Tink.
The invisible knife lodged in his chest twisted.
Blackbeard upended the satchel and spilled its contents across his desk. Small, smooth rocks tumbled out in a heap.
“Which one’s tha scale?”
He nearly laughed. He’d fallen for his ruse, assuming one of the other clever rocks to be the scale, not that it mattered now. “None of them.”
The other captain crooked one bushy, dark brow. “Tha pixie lied?”
“No.” He swallowed the tightness in his throat. “You sent it to the depths with her,” he grated, barely getting the words out.
“Ah.” Blackbeard rounded his desk. “Ya did love her.”
Hook snarled.
“Or ya lie?” He drummed on the hilt of his sword.
Always with the insults. “Ask the witch.”
Blackbeard narrowed his gaze.
“Seems you two are on good terms,” Hook needled. “Had one of those boys working for her after all.” Or didn’t he know?
Gold teeth glimmered in the gap of his beard. “That witch—” He may as well have said a different word “—charges ta much.”
“Afraid of the truth?” he goaded, anything to get him to take a few steps closer.
Alas, Blackbeard held his ground. “Never. Mayhaps I will…James.”
His jaw slammed shut as he squared his shoulders. How dare he use his real name?
“Crocodile,” Hook shot back.
“Hah!” His hand fingered the crocodile pommel of his blade. “Still upset about tha hand, eh?”
A snarl ripped from between his gritted teeth. With all the horrible things he’d done that day alone, he thought it was the hand that bothered him?
Blackbeard stepped closer. “I made ya, boy. Yer name.” He pointed to his hook. “Yer reputation. Ya wouldn’ have that without me.”
No. He would not claim that too. He would not take away the very last thing he had. “You gave me this hook to end my life. I used it to forge a new one.”
“Did I then?” His boot slid across the rich carpets.
A few more steps and Hook might be able to reach him. He relaxed his stance and shifted his weight, hard as it was to concentrate with the fury thrumming through his veins.
“I’d call it a mercy. Gave ya a way out. Ya were a weak boy. Simpering. Soft. Knew ya wouldn’t take it. Too much like yer father, ya are.”
“My fath…” He floundered. How would he know? His father had been a simple fisherman. He had died at sea before he was born.
“She never told ya then?” Blackbeard scratched at his beard. “I wondered.”
The pit of his stomach bottomed out completely. Suddenly he was drowning on land. He couldn’t get enough air.
Blackbeard grinned.
His knees gave out, sending him crashing to the floor.
“Marianna never could accept tha pirate life.”
“Don’t!” His breath came sharp and ragged. “You don’t get to talk about her.”
He neared, crouching just out of reach. “She was a beaut. Ya got ‘er eyes. But tha pirate in yer blood—that’s all me.”
Everything became hot and cold at once. Chills and sweat beaded on his skin. His vision blurred. “You’re not my… I could never be like you!”
He clucked his tongue. “But ya are.”
No. Fuck. It couldn’t be true. “What proof do you have?” As if that bastard could produce anything to make him believe his filthy lies.
“That ring round yer neck. ’Twas Marianna’s?”
Hook ached to reach for it, to feel the comforting silver slide under his fingertips, as it had a million times.
“I gave it ta ’er. There’s an engraving…”
Blood turned to ice in his veins. His mother’s ring, the one she’d always worn. Not from bloody Blackbeard. It couldn’t have been from him. But there was an engraving, one worn so smooth he could hardly make it out anymore.
“Endless as the seas.” Hook whispered the words in silence as Blackbeard said them aloud. What a joke. As if Blackbeard could love anyone but himself.
“See there. And yer just like me. Proud. Ruthless. Skilled on tha seas. Born leader. Almost good as me.” He stood. “Almost.”
“You cut off my hand.” His head snapped up, staring at the man before him with all the hate he could muster. “Nearly killed me!”
“I killed tha mewling fisher boy,” he sneered. “That weak child couldn’ be part a’ my crew. My heir.”
His eyes widened. “Your—”
“Why did ya think I let ya live? You think I couldn’ a tracked ya down, snuffed out yer little crew before ya became a threat? Really, son, I expected better.”
“Don’t ever call me son.”
“But ya are. Was there tha day ya were born.” He looked away.
The slight gleam in his eye turned Hook’s stomach more than the sea in a squall.
“Planned to raise ya meself. I’d make those royal rats cower on tha seas, become a king over ’em all on the waves, and pass on tha crown to my heir.
They wouldn’t look down on us. Never again.
But no, Marianna wouldn’ have it.” He glanced back at Hook.
“Thought I’d lost ya, ’til ya showed up on that dock.
Knew right away who ya were. Too much like tha face I saw every time I closed my eyes. ”
Blood dripped from his fist. He didn’t even feel the pain. “She’s dead.”
“Aye.”
“Because of you,” Hook snarled.
He had the gall to look shocked, to take a step back in surprise.
Bloody good actor too. “I never saw ‘er after she left. Came lookin’ for ya both a year or abouts later after our little rendezvous. Thought maybe by then she’d a changed her mind.
You too. Heard she’d passed and ya were up and vanished. ”
The tip of his hook slammed into the floorboards.
“When I boarded your ship, I was hunting for violet root. For her! To heal her!” When he didn’t respond, Hook continued.
“You dropped me on that bloody, remote dock, and it took weeks to get back. She died two days before I got back with her medicine. Two. Bloody. Days!” He smashed his hook into the ground again. “She died because of you!”
Blackbeard wouldn’t quite look at him. Kept staring just beyond his head.
“You think I’d ever sail for you? You’ve destroyed everything I loved! First my mother, now my crew, my ship, my…”
My Tink.
Tears hadn’t come. Not when his ship burned. When he watched her fall, or watched his crew, his family, meet their fates. He wouldn’t give Blackbeard that, not when he took everything else. But now. Now… They tingled at the edges of his eyes, forcing their way free.
Fuming silence hung in the air between them. Eventually, Blackbeard broke it. “Good thing I thought ta make a spare. He’s already tough. Harder than ya were years older.”
He... A brother.
When he’d thought the last lash had fallen, there was always another. One more to bring the stinging pain of the others roaring back to life.
“Who?”
He had someone left. Family that might not be dead, or dead to him. He could find him, save him…
The answering smirk told him all he needed to know.
The shape of his face. The calculating twinkle in his eyes.
The boy. “Peter.”
A half nod confirmed his fears. “Just picked him up. He and his…crew. Tough ones ta find, let me tell ya.”
That was why they were here, on this ship, in his service. Blackbeard had found another son. Had he abandoned this one, or had Peter’s mother stolen him away too? Whatever happened, the boy was on his own now with his gaggle of friends. Or he had been.
“Does he know?” Had it gutted Peter the way it did him?
“Not yet. Gotta get a measure of him.”
What he didn’t say spoke volumes. If he didn’t like what he saw, he’d leave him stranded on the docks somewhere, maybe without a hand, or two, or some other grim reminder. And his friends… Hook shuddered. Those boys didn’t deserve that.
“Let the boys go. Safely. On land. At a port.” He couldn’t save the rest of his family—he’d be damned if his request would be misconstrued again.
“You’d deprive them a bed? Food in their bellies? Coin in their pockets?”
“They had all that.” The memory kicked him like a horse. They’d had Tink’s treehouse—for a while. The food she’d no doubt stored. Coin he’d given them.
Blackbeard laughed. “Begger boys they were. But if ya agree ta sail with me…” He twisted his beard.
The mere thought burned his throat like acid.
He neared. So close. Another foot and Hook might be able to snare him. “Well?”
Hook stared him down, daring him to step closer, to demand his answers. But Blackbeard rocked back on his heels with a huff. A moment later, he’d passed him, headed for the door to his cabin. Fuck.
The door swung open with a clatter. “See fisher boy here ta his cell.”
Hook twisted around, peering as the brothers returned for the quarry.
Blackbeard laughed. “In a few days, maybe he’ll be Captain Hooks.”