Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
HOOK
I’ve been up for hours and am on my fifth cup of coffee when Roc finally makes his way downstairs.
His white button-up is unbuttoned and hanging open, revealing the tightly packed muscle in his stomach.
He hasn’t put his belt on yet so his black trousers hang low on his hips and the deep V cut is on full display.
I’m suddenly thirsty for something not in a cup.
“Stop ogling me, Captain,” he says and picks up a freshly washed apple from the long sideboard. Water is beaded on the waxy skin, and when he sinks his teeth into it, the water and juice dribble down his chin.
Bloody hell.
When I manage to drag my gaze back up to his eyes, he’s smiling at me with teeth and fire.
I scowl at him. “You’re doing that on purpose.”
“Because you’re so easy to bait.”
I join him at the sideboard where our breakfast spread is laid out.
Every morning, it’s full of food. Fresh fruit, fresh-baked raisin bread, hard-boiled eggs, buttered toast, mini tarts, and crispy bacon.
It’s too much food and we never manage to make a dent in it.
Roc ordered the kitchen staff to donate what we don’t eat to the orphanages on Bassal Street.
The kids must be feasting like kings over there.
“Have you seen Wendy?” I ask.
“Mmm.” He swallows a mouthful of apple. “She should be down momentarily.” There’s a secret glimmering in his eyes.
“What is it?”
“Hmm? What do you mean?”
“I know when you’re toying with me.”
“Only when I make it obvious.”
Grabbing a slice of buttered toast, he sits at the head of the long breakfast table where steam rises up from his morning coffee, poured just moments ago by the kitchen staff. Beside it is a ceramic bowl of salted and roasted peanuts.
Now with the Darkland Dark Shadow, he no longer has to feed his supernatural hunger with peanuts, but I suspect he’s addicted to them by now, because he’s yet to give them up.
With a grumble, I decide it’s best to ignore him, because entertaining him only fuels his ego.
Plate in hand, I fill it with bacon, toast, and an egg.
I much prefer duck eggs, but the kitchen staff was vehemently against it, insisting the household of a future king must serve eggs from the royal roost and not some backwater animal.
But duck eggs contain more protein than chicken eggs, which means they are far superior.
But who am I to question the divine qualities of the royal roost?
I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to living in a regal household.
Roc seems to have found his place in it with very little effort.
Though I suppose he was born into it. He might have never expected to inherit the throne, but he was always part of the royal line, even after his father’s actions had their titles stripped.
The full breadth of Roc’s life ruling the Umbrage is still largely unknown to me, but because I know him, I suspect he acted like a king there, too.
And Wendy, having lived as a queen for half her life, seems to feel right at home. She knows how to speak to the staff with authority, but with respect. She knows how to ask for what she wants without worrying about how she will be perceived.
I’m the only outlier. The only one of us who has spent most of his life fighting for scraps amongst pirates and thieves.
The staff of the house conduct themselves with decorum when they’re around us, but it’s easy to let my mind conjure backroom whispers where they’re discussing my rough edges, my lack of etiquette (which bloody spoon do I use?), and my inability to just fucking relax in luxury.
“Captain.”
My gaze snaps up to Roc. Despite the tall, rigid back of our breakfast room dining chairs, he’s languid, stretched out like our fucking cat in the sun.
“What?” I ask when he doesn’t immediately speak.
He nods at my hand, now a fist on the table. And in my fist is the crushed chicken egg.
“Bloody hell.” I toss the egg onto one of the many empty plates on the table. Why are there so many empty plates? The egg is ruined now, with shards of shell wedged into the hard-boiled white.
“There she is,” Roc says.
I glance at the arched doorway to find Wendy in a slant of sunlight. She’s gorgeous as always, like a divine temple statue come to life.
Her dark hair spills over her shoulders in waves. There is a hint of color on her cheeks, and a frenzied energy in her body, like she ran all the way here.
A day dress tailored just for her skims her hips and pools on the floor around her feet.
“Good morning, love.”
She comes over to me and circles me from behind, bending forward to plant a kiss on my cheek.
“You’re tense,” she says.
“You should have seen his face a moment ago,” Roc says.
“What about your face?” she asks me.
“My face was fine.”
Roc pops a shelled peanut into his mouth. “Tell that to the egg.”
I’m not going to admit to them that I feel like an impostor, like a common thief who picked the lock to smuggle his way in.
“I’m fine,” I say and squeeze Wendy’s hand. “Truly.”
I can feel Roc’s gaze on me. He knows I’m lying. But this is mine to bear. I don’t need him pitying the poor pirate who has now found himself in the lap of luxury, fucking a king and queen.
I just…I need time to adjust.
I will.
Eventually.
Probably.
Sensing Wendy’s arrival, the faremaid enters the room with the sterling silver coffee carafe and fills Wendy’s mug. Wendy goes to the sideboard and fills a plate with bread and fruit.
She takes the chair across from me, but squirms on the seat.
“Is something wrong?” I ask her. “Is it the chair? Roc, I told you the chairs in here are abhorrently uncomfortable.”
Roc chuckles to himself and cracks open another peanut.
Wendy’s face turns bright red.
“What?” I ask, clearly having missed something.
Wendy adds a splash of cream to her coffee and twirls the spoon around, waiting for the faremaid to leave the room.
Once we’re alone, Wendy leans in and lowers her voice. “There’s a…plug…in…” She swallows. Roc tosses back another peanut. “I’m wearing a plug,” she says quickly.
“What? What the bloody hell for?” I shift to Roc. “Is this your idea?”
The amusement slips from his face. “Yes. I don’t want to take turns anymore. She’ll take us both and this is the best way to prepare her.”
“She doesn’t have to. Wendy, love, you don’t have to.”
“I want to.”
“But…”
“Captain.” Roc has abandoned the peanuts and is now sitting straight up, the line of his shoulders straight and rigid. “What are you worried about?”
Wendy shifts again on the edge of her seat.
“She’s clearly uncomfortable.”
“Yes, Captain. Because there is a plug in her ass.”
Wendy nearly spits out her mouthful of coffee.
“She shouldn’t endure for us. She doesn’t have to pretend to be a whore to appease you or I.”
The room goes silent and my voice seems to ring out all around us like a ripple in water.
“James,” Wendy starts but Roc cuts her off.
“No, Darling.” Roc pushes away from the table. “Don’t save him. Let him sit with that.” He goes over to Wendy and offers his hand. “I’d like you to accompany me to the high chamber today.”
“Me? For what purpose?”
“We’re discussing charity work today.”
It’s immediately apparent in the way Wendy perks up that this interests her more than breakfast.
Taking Roc’s hand, she stands. “Let me change.”
“I’ll have the staff pack your breakfast.”
She nods and glances quickly at me, but I can’t face her now, can I?
When she’s gone, Roc stands there behind her empty chair for a beat.
The quiet is disconcerting. Now that Roc has claimed the Darkland Dark Shadow, his presence in any room is different than it was before.
Like sharing space with a black hole. You are at once in awe of the raw power and terrified of disappearing inside of it.
The hair lifts on the back of my neck.
I can’t seem to look at him. I can’t seem to do anything other than sit here in my chair like a wounded animal.
“Why are you coddling her?” he finally says.
I know the answer.
It’s trembling on the back of my tongue. Churning in the pit of my stomach.
Roc has always existed in both of these worlds—royal elegance and filthy, dark depravity.
And every day of my life, I’ve tried to push down my darker urges.
The entire time I hunted Peter Pan, I told myself it was for the greater good when deep down I knew there was more to it than that.
I just wanted to best him. I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat and watch the life drain out of him, the great, indomitable Peter Pan.
And I’m worried if I continue to give in to my dark side here, everyone will know that the pirate Captain James Hook doesn’t belong. And I would never want that for Wendy.
Bloody hell.
“I want to be good for her,” I finally say, my voice barely above a whisper. “And you.”
He comes around the table and puts a hand on my shoulder. He just stands there for a handful of heartbeats. We say nothing and everything.
Then, “Do you think she needs you to be good?” He doesn’t wait for my answer. “Your need for perfection will eventually eat you from the inside, Captain. Until there’s nothing left.”
He runs his fingers through my hair in a way that is both endearing and admonishing and then leaves me to fester in my own gloom.