Page 63 of Freeing Hook

My cheeks drain of blood, and Astor bites the inside of his cheek. When he speaks again, he’s emptied his voice of malice. “How did Peter know you were here?”

“How am I to know?”

“You gave it away somehow, didn’t you? During your conversation with Lady Carlisle at dinner?”

My cheeks flush at the same moment my blood drains. “Oh.”

From the hall, someone claps. Lord Carlisle steps from the shadows, a smug grin on his face. “I have to say, I’m a tad offended you assumed my wife to be so dull. But people have a tendency to make such assumptions, don’t they? All they see is a petty gossip with a pretty face. But, then again, that’s always served its purpose. My wife has made me rich, you see. Can one really put a value on others underestimating your intelligence?” He cuts his gaze to me. “Though I seem to have overestimated yours, Wendy Darling. That is your name, isn’t it?”

CHAPTER 25

WENDY

Iflinch under Lord Carlisle’s creeping gaze, which isn’t quite so reserved as Captain Astor’s. Even though it’s my secret he’s after, not my flesh, it makes my skin crawl. Like he has his hands all over me.

“You didn’t think my wife would make the connection when you inquired regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of Captain Astor’s wife?” Lord Carlisle asks.

The captain flinches. I can’t bear to look at him.

“We deal in secrets and shame, Miss Darling,” says Lord Carlisle. “You really thought we wouldn’t know about your Mark? We knew who you were as soon as you entered the room. But as for who you were Mated to if not Captain Astor here—now that was a mystery. One that became clear enough when you told my wife of the realm of the Shadow Keeper, of the illness that wreaks havoc in the minds of the murderers he shelters.”

My stomach twists. I’d been so desperate to discover what happened to Iaso, I’d given Lady Carlisle the first secret to come to mind. As I hadn’t told her how to get to Neverland, I assumed the secret would do Peter and the Lost Boys no harm.

“To get the Shadow Keeper himself in our debt, now that was a prize,” Carlisle says. “Thankfully, we have a contact that keepsup with him when he runs his little errands for the Sister. He was all too eager to learn where you were when we informed him you were playing someone else’s wife. Though I’m surprised he didn’t steal you back for himself. What was it he so desperately wanted, Miss Darling?” He poses the question as if my tattered dress doesn’t betray the answer.

Red blotches crop all over my body, which is all the more mortifying given how much skin is exposed. My reaction seems to only encourage Lord Carlisle’s taunts. “I have to say, even my wife didn’t see that coming—your Mate’s, shall we say, insistence? It seems you put up a fight. Tell me, have your allegiances shifted so quickly?”

“Speaking of your lovely wife,” says Captain Astor in a tone that suggests otherwise, “why isn’t she here gloating? The opportunity seems like something she wouldn’t pass up without good reason.”

Carlisle flashes his teeth, the lantern light streaking across his golden, slicked back hair. “My wife is occupied with…” He rolls his tongue like he’s tasting for the right word, searching for a specific note in a fine wine. “Entertaining, at the moment.”

A reedy old man with wandering eyes. Lady Carlisle’s fingers trailing a tad too long on his arm.

I swallow, and I can’t decide whether the bile in my stomach directed toward Lady Carlisle is disgust or pity.

“Well, I’d hate to remain here and distract you from that lovely mental image,” says Astor through his teeth. He strides to the couch and grabs my hand, pulling me to my feet. “Wendy and I will be off now.”

Carlisle offers us a feline smile, then steps into the doorway. “Oh, you know better than that, Captain Astor. With a bounty of six thousand silvers on your head?” He clucks his tongue as he cranes his neck to the side. “You, of all people, can’t blame me for snagging a fly that’s already wandered its way into my web.”

Astor stares the lord down and slides his dagger from its sheath. “You have to the count of three to get out of my way, Carlisle. Before I cut that clever tongue of yours from your mouth.”

“You’ll be doing no such thing.” Carlisle whistles, and the bookcases in the reading room swivel open. Out march a band of guards, six of them. Human, from the looks of their rounded ears, but even with Astor’s fae agility and strength…

“There’s too many of them,” I whisper.

I expect anger from the captain, a biting retort, but he just turns to me, flashes me a conspiratorial grin, and says, “Do try not to challenge me like that, Darling. Unless, that is, you intend to close your eyes.”

The closest guard launches himself at Astor’s back. At first, I think he’ll land his blow, but Astor’s ready for him and snatches his wrist, careening him over his back and slamming him into the coffee table in front of me.

There’s a crack, though I can’t tell if it’s the wood splintering or the man’s skull.

The others aren’t stupid enough to come at Astor one by one. Instead, they congregate around him. Unfortunately for the guards, Astor managed to swipe the sword from the first man’s sheath and is now parrying the attacks of the five men who surround him.

One slashes forward, but Astor is ready. He shoves his sword into his opponent’s weapon before the man lands his step, using the man’s shift in balance to cast him backward into two more guards. The three of them go barreling to the ground in a tangle of flailing limbs.

The next man to take a step toward Astor loses his head.

I’m too slow to look away, and the head lands with a squelch at my bare feet, spattering blood onto my toes as the man’s loose hair tangles around my ankles. Shock sutures me in place,my stomach turning over, but a firm grip lands on my shoulder, leading me out of the room.

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