Page 74 of Freeing Hook

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re rather intense.”

The captain chuckles, though he does so without smiling. “Iaso and I grew up together. Knew each other since we were children. That’s why I don’t remember meeting her. I don’t remember falling in love with her either. Just the certainty that I would marry her one day. That certainty…it was like walking. I knew I’d learned it somewhere, but couldn’t remember when. Just that it was ingrained within me.”

“What did you love about her?” I can’t help but ask.

The captain stares, not at the wall, but into the distant past. “She was a riot.” His lips quirk into an almost-smile. “Always getting into trouble and dragging me into it. She could make me laugh…Well, she was clever with her words. Witty. Sharp. Quick.”

I try to ignore the way my heart twists in my chest as the captain describes the perfect woman—so unlike myself.

“She knew what she wanted from life. At least, she thought she did. She wanted to be a cartographer—she was a savant with ink and a quill. But then, one day, she cut herself on a splinter jutting out from an abandoned storehouse we liked to play in. Her blood dripped onto my knuckles. They’d dried and cracked from the salt air. And it healed my skin right up. Something changed about her after that. She was still just as boisterous, loved to laugh. But she’d found her purpose, and she gave it to others. Her blood, her smile, her laughter. Her life.”

My back goes rigid, but there’s no anger in the captain’s tone. Just tragic awe for an enchanting girl now dead.

“Why do you really want to know?” he asks.

The words come out before I know I’ve let them. “I wanted to know what kind of woman took my place.”One who’s better than me, is what I don’t say. “It sounds like the world is a worse place without her.”And with me, I neglect to add.

The captain’s gaze flickers over me, and I can’t stand to dwell on the inkling he’s thinking the same thing, so I say, “Did she always love you back?”

His face softens, breaking the tension. “Hardly. She took quite a bit of convincing. For a long while, though I was her closest friend, she thought me too brash to be fit to be a husband.”

“You?” I feign shock. “But you’re so gentle.”

“Yes, if only you could have been around to tell her as much. Lobby on my behalf.”

Judging by the look on his face, it seems the words just slipped out. Like he wishes he could take them back. A shadow falls over his expression, and I expect him to make me leave, but instead he says, “What about you, Darling?”

I wriggle in my chair. “What about me?”

“What did you want from life?”

I blink. “I’m unsure what you mean.”

He shrugs. “I wanted a ship. A name for myself. For others to fear me. Iaso wanted to heal the world of pain and disease. Maddox wants enough gold to retire the crew to his own private island. Charlie wants Maddox, but more than that, to find her place in a world that burned hers down. What I can’t seem to figure out is what Wendy Darling wants.”

I pick at the shoulder sleeves of my dress. “For a long time, all I wanted was not to be taken by the Shadow Keeper.”

Astor cocks his head to the side, like he’s a predator who can sense my fear, my lie.

I sigh. “But that’s not altogether true. Part of me wanted to go with him. Years before it happened.”

“Why?”

I find myself tracing my Mating Mark, the gentle ridges that brand my cheek. “I think the answer to that question is obvious, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You don’t think the fact that he’s my Mate had anything to do with me being drawn to him? Is that truly an argument you want to make?”

“I’m better than you at arguing, Darling. I promise you, I’ll win.”

I can’t help myself. I find myself leaning over the table, elbows digging into the slats in the wood, spine stiff to the challenge. “I thought you didn’t make promises. And besides, I don’t know how you intend to make a stronger argument than the Mating Mark that quite literally binds Peter and me together.”

The captain doesn’t avert his gaze. “Watch me.”

For some reason, the challenge feels like it’s about more than winning an argument. It smells of parchment and melted wax sealing an invitation—one to search his sharp features without shirking back, without the social parameters telling me to avertmy eyes lest I stare too long.Watch me. It’s permission to examine the scythe-like line of his jaw. The ruggedness of his sun-weathered skin. The poison in his green eyes.

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