Page 75 of Freeing Hook

“I think,” he says, and when he locks his stare onto me, I let it land. Soak in his unerring attention rather than shrinking from it. “That you’d been holed up in that manor so long, with nothing to feed that marvelous imagination of yours except your books… I think you wanted out. And I think Peter was the first to offer you his hand. The first to present you with an escape.”

Something like regret creases the corners of the captain’s piercing eyes.

“Well,” I say, cheeks heating, “I don’t see how that’s a more compelling argument than the Mating Bond.”

“Whatever you say, Darling. You didn’t answer my question, though.”

“Which question?”

“What,” he says, his lips careful with the words, “do you want?”

His voice chases a chill down my spine. I play with the ring on my finger, still just a hair too loose. Peter was going to get it altered, but he never got that chance. “Peter and I are going to get married with the Lost Boys as witnesses. Michael’s going to be the ring-bearer, though I imagine that’ll mean one of the other boys will have to make sure he doesn’t go running off to collect seashells. John can’t be the one to do it, because he’s going to give me away. And then we’re going to live where time and society can’t touch us. No more rules, nothing weighing us down. We’re going to fly every night under the stars.”

“Yes, yes, I know that’s what going to happen. But what do you want to happen?”

I blink. “I just told you.”

I expect the captain to cluck his tongue condescendingly, but he doesn’t. He just stares at me, a challenge in his eyes, but his voice is softer than his expression. “What do you want, Darling?”

Stolen glances. Casual brushes. A trail of fire on my jaw.You missed a spot. For a man to speak about me the way the captain speaks about his long-dead wife.

“I’m growing tired,” I say, standing from the table and pushing my chair back into place. The captain rises, but I shake my head and wave him away. “I can see myself out.”

“Wendy.”

I’m fidgeting with my ring, not daring to look at him, when thunder cracks across the sky outside. At the same time, a wave jostles the boat. The jolt is quick, and I’m not prepared. I go careening across the floor, scraping my knees against the floorboards. A splinter lodges itself in my skin. I hardly notice it.

Not when my ring is gone.

I search the cabin frantically, praying it didn’t fall in between the floorboards, down into whatever lies below the captain’s quarters.

Tears spill from my eyes, and I have to catch my sobs in my hand. My ring—the one piece of Peter that hasn’t yet been shattered.

The captain’s face appears before mine. “Sit down. Just for a moment. I’ll find it for you,” he says, and I’m too embarrassed by my outburst to argue. I return to my seat, tapping my shoe against the floorboards as the captain searches the cabin.

Moments later, he plucks something silver and gleaming out of a crack between the floorboards. Relief washes over me as I catch sight of the glimmering object between his fingertips. He’s running his thumb over its ridges, staring down at it contemplatively.

“Give it back,” I say without thinking.

He turns to me, and where I expect anger, hurt sparks in his face. “I am,” he says, striding over to me.

When he reaches me, I stretch out my hand to grab the ring, but the captain catches my hand in his, gently running his thumb over my knuckles, leaving trails of fire in his wake. I’m not sure what he’s about to do.

Then Captain Nolan Astor kneels.

I should be looking at my trembling hand, watching Peter’s ring with the attention of a hawk. Making sure it makes it onto my finger. But all I can see is Astor, kneeling before me, not daring to break eye contact, boring into me with the most beautiful imploring green eyes, burrowing into my soul.

My chest burns. My soul aches.

Cold metal contrasts with warm, calloused skin as the captain slips the ring back onto my finger, never once releasing my gaze.

“There,” he says with a whisper, twisting my ring around my finger one last time, though he remains on his knee before me. “Just like you wanted.”

CHAPTER 30

JOHN

I’m perched on a lone log, long ago carried away by the waves only for the sea to spit it back out, leaving it to petrify on the beach and be used as a bench, when Peter, just returned from his most recent excursion, approaches me.

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