Page 18 of Stalking Wendy Darling

I was too weak to swim, too pained to pull my bleeding body into any semblance of motion, so I let the current carry me.I’d find my way back to the Banshee. To that vicious, smirking, maddening woman who stabbed me and hauled me overboard.

Wendy. Not Wendell.Wendy.Sister of the sacrifice for Feeding Day. The woman I shot on the dock.

She must have been in pain this whole time, must have been agonised from the wound in her shoulder, but she’d given no sign of it until she almost fell into the ocean during the storm. She’d endured that pain, pushed it down, and schemed the downfall of my crew and ship, and silently, wickedly, planned my murder.

Fuck, that was hot. I might have been leaking blood into the water from half a dozen places but blood still managed to pool in my cock as the current carried me. Unconsciousness began to wrap around me, my eyelids heavy, the pain surging up to smother me.

I didn’t know where the water would carry me, but I would find my way back to the Death’s Right Hand. And to that infernal woman. Wendy might not know it, but she marked herself by killing me. I’d wanted to break her when she was Wendell and a mere nuisance. Now? Now I would take my time breaking her down until she begged for mercy. And she would learn, over long, long days, that the word mercy did not exist in my vocabulary.

Her death belonged to me.

Chapter Eleven

HOOK

SALVATION

Iwashed up on an island that stank of old, rotting fish. The shore teemed with fishermen, ferreting crates to a storehouse that was one hurricane away from collapse, and a dark-skinned woman leaned over me until her afro hair rasped across my face and her tits were in danger of falling out of her bodice.

“Move. Or I’ll rip your intestines out with a shucking knife,” I snarled hoarsely, gritting my teeth against the pounding ache inside my skull. Death always hurt like fuck.

The woman tore away with a gasp, falling onto her ass in the sand beside me. She didn’t need to know I had no idea if I even still possessed a weapon. The sea had a habit of stealing knives from corpses. I certainly didn’t have my pistol; it was in my cabin. Maybe if I’d had it, I might have killed Wendy, kept my ship, and not been cast into the sea like trash.

I thought of the glow of happiness in her storm-blue eyes, the way they lit from within as she watched my life seep out of me. I shook my head hard.Fuck, don’t think about that. Don’t think abouther.Not yet, not until you’re strong.

But that was easier to say than put into practice. It seemed my thoughts now bowed to one woman and one alone.

“What happened to you?” the big-bosomed woman in the sand asked, scrambling a safe distance away. “I found you washed up on the beach.”

“A witch killed me,” I grunted, trying to get my legs under me and ignoring the aches in every limb. My feet slipped in the sand. No boots. Of course. I gnashed my teeth.

“She can’t have killed you,” the woman pointed out, climbing to her feet and watching me warily as she straightened the red bandana keeping her hair from her face. “You’re still alive.”

My laughter was low, rolling like the waves. “You’d be surprised to learn I can be both dead and alive at the same time. What’s your name?”

She hesitated, watching me with eyes too big for her face, a rich chocolate colour like her skin. “Vea.”

“Well, Vea,” I said, brushing sand off my soaked clothes. “How do you fancy earning a few gold coins?” Her eyes darkened instantly, her expression hostile. “Not like that,” I sighed, unwilling to explain the only sexual interest my body was willing to summon right now revolved around the woman who’d stabbed my heart and tossed me into the sea. “I need new clothes, food, and weapons, plus a place to sleep. Secure that for me, and I’ll make sure you’re paid handsomely.”

Her expression brightened instantly. “I can get all those things, no problem at all, sir. But I want to see the coin first.”

I dug into my coat pocket, relieved to find the pouch of coins still present. I flicked a gold coin to Vea, impressed by the way she snatched it out of the air.

“What's your occupation, Vea?” I asked, eyeing the tall, buxom woman. She couldn’t have been older than thirty, maybe not even that age. “Thievery?”

She snorted. “As if I’d have the skill for that. I’m a scavenger. That’s what I’m doing on the beach.” A wild light entered her eyes, reminding me of the infernal woman who plagued me. It bordered obsession. That was worrying. Vea pulled a bundle from under her dress and flashed me a glimpse of silver, gold, and gems. I knew them instantly. My damn knives. “Scavenging,” she chirped, her eyes dancing. “But thanks for the coin, sir.”

I should have killed her, but Vea was already turning away and jerking her chin for me to follow.

“The town’s not too far this way. They have everything you need.”

“I want my weapons,” I said, throwing enough command into my tone that my crew would have baulked.

“That’s nice, sir,” Vea said without breaking her stride. “You can try and win them back, if you’re any good at card games.”

Sand burned the soles of my feet, incensing my anger as I trudged across the beach after the so-called scavenger. I realised all at once she’d been leaning over me to steal the necklace from around my neck, and smiled grimly.

“Any good at card games.I’m a damn pirate captain,” I muttered, batting aside a fern with my stump when Vea plunged into a jungle that bordered the beach, the heat instantly soothed from the top of my head. Great, I’d lost my fucking hat, too. I had a feeling where it would end up; I’d seen Wendell eyeing it more than once.Wendy.

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