Page 3 of Freeing Hook

The curve of my rounded ears heat, which the captain must notice, because he offers me a smirk.

“The point is, I’ve learned my lesson,” I say, settling numbly against the headboard of the bed. “I won’t be taking more of the faerie dust, I promise.”

“You’re such a terrible liar.”

I go to protest, but even now, my tongue is parched, the memory of faerie dust still fresh on my tongue. My body craves it like it should crave water.

“If you keep the faerie dust locked up with a guard, I won’t be able to get to the lock,” I admit, shame that such measures are even necessary warming my cheeks, the back of my neck.

Captain Astor shakes his head, and when he speaks, I can’t tell if it’s annoyance or admiration tinging his voice. “Something tells me you’d find a way.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you believed me brave enough to go after what I want. Always letting life happen to me and all.” The immediate urge to swallow my words overcomes me when the captain raises a thick, black brow. I wait for him to mock me for keeping his insult—the one he tossed at me so haphazardly the night of the masquerade—so close to my already bruised heart. I’m sure to him it’s a sign of weakness, allowing his words to linger in my head. The captain had likely forgotten them as soon as they reached my ears.

But Astor doesn’t mock me. He doesn’t even address the insult. “Is this what you want, Darling? Never to feel?”

The words are almost tender, and I might believe them if I weren’t so used to him setting me up for cruelty. But we’re no longer in the cave. He’s no longer my prisoner. There’s no reason to disarm me, to rile me, so I’ll forget to drug him.

“What I want is to go back to Peter.”

I wait for the captain’s lips to break into a mocking smirk, for his sharp laughter to clang against my ears. Instead, he just stares at me, a blankness in his expression, then stands from the bed. “I have business to return to on deck. Believe it or not, commanding this ship demands too much attention for me to be wasting my time trying to talk an addict out of her vices. Don’t bother missing me. I always retire to bed by ten.”

My body freezes in place, and I inspect the room. I’d been so caught up in my conversation with Astor and the dread of what could have happened if I hadn’t been snagged by the sails that I hadn’t noted my surroundings.

The cabin is dark, but it’s much larger than the one the captain initially gave me. It’s more decorated too. There’s a finely carved desk in the corner, one with mermaids carved into the legs. In the center of the room is a broad table with maps spread about it. Trunks and wardrobes line the sides of the rooms, and there are more well-preserved maps hanging on the walls.

The rug on the floor is ornate. Kruschian, probably—the type even my parents, with all their wealth, would have struggled to get their hands on.

I wonder if the captain stole it, or if he simply has that kind of money at his disposal.

“This is your room,” I whisper, then grasp at the sheets, recognizing for the first time that rather than mildew, they smell of teakwood and pipe tobacco… just like the captain. “And thisis—” I hate the way my voice goes high, betrays my panic, but I can’t help it. Instinctively, I tug at the cuff shackling me to the bedpost, but even if my limbs weren’t weary from the faerie dust, I’d still be too weak to do any damage.

“Astute observation,” the captain says dryly.

“I’m not sleeping in the same bed with you,” I cry, my voice scaling the mast itself.

The captain whips around, and it’s the first time I’ve seen him lose his composure. “Then,” he says through gritted teeth, “you might have considered that before you broke into my bunker, drowned yourself in faerie dust, and almost killed yourself for good measure.”

“So what?” I say, panic amplifying my voice so that I’m almost screaming. “I thought you said what my mother did to me by making me…” I trail off, my mouth going dry as the incense of the parlor wafts into my nose from the past. “I thought you said that alone excused you for her murder. I thought you said I shouldn’t let men touch me,” I say, feeling the ghost of hands on me, remembering the slimy Lord Credence who danced with me at my masquerade.

The captain is facing away from me now, but I glimpse his shoulders lift, then settle as he lets out a deep exhale.

“Sleep well, Darling,” he says, before slamming the door behind him.

CHAPTER 2

WENDY

There are certain words the men who drank of my body called me when my mother abandoned me to their whims in the parlor. Nasty, dreadful words that taunted me hours, days, years later. Words I always assumed would feel slimy coming from my lips, should I ever choose to use them.

Over the next few days, I unleash the store of them. I can’t unleash them on Astor, because he hasn’t graced his room again after I first woke chained to his bed. Instead, I fire them at the human woman Astor sends to tend to me.

Charlie is her name, though I’m certain it’s short for something more feminine, certain she curtails it to convince herself she’s more capable of being a pirate than her sex allows.

I hate Charlie, and I let her know as much.

She hates me, too. That’s why she won’t give me any faerie dust, why she looms over me as I writhe in agony, sweat pouring off my forehead as I grapple with death. Because she enjoys watching me suffer.

“He’ll kill you when he knows you’re the one who let me die,” I seethe as Charlie dabs my forehead with a frigid wet cloth, each dab an icepick to my cracking skull. I lunge at her, going for thescarlet claw marks across her neck where I got her this morning. This time, she’s prepared and catches my free wrist just before my fingernails scrape her flesh.

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