Page 36 of Stalking Wendy Darling

“I’m only telling you this because you opened up about your sister,” he said, meeting my stare, holding eye contact. “But you repeat this to anyone, and I’ll kill you instantly. Understood?”

“I won’t tell anyone,” I said seriously. “You keep my secrets, I keep yours.”

He nodded, his eyes unfocused again. “My father sold me when I was fourteen. I only got out when I was eighteen because I made a deal with the sea god. Otherwise, I’d still be there now. Or I’d be sold to somewhere worse.”

“There aren’t many worse places,” I murmured.

“No,” he agreed, his throat rising and falling with a hard swallow.

“Four years,” I said, trying to imagine being kept in one of those places for even a week, let alone four years. “What kind of training takes that long?”

“It didn’t take that long. They were waiting for me to be of age so they could legally sell me.”

I gnashed my teeth. There was nothing legal about selling a person, no matter what the laws said.

“Plus,” he added, “I gave them too much enjoyment by fighting constantly. The trainers liked breaking people.”

“Children,” I corrected. “You were a child. They liked breaking children.”

Darkness filled Hook’s eyes. Not the darkness that happened when he exploded into tentacles. The same darkness that probably filled my eyes when I thought about Aymee.

I got out of my chair, walking carefully around the desk, slow enough that he could stop me if he really wanted to.

“What are you doing, mutineer?”

“In the Silver Isle they call this hugging, captain,” I informed him, bending to put my arms around his shoulders. “It’s a strange human gesture meant to convey sympathy and support.”

“It’s despicable.”

I squeezed him tighter. “You’ll live.”

The breath he let out this time sounded like a laugh. It was confirmed when he rested his hand on my arm, just a hand but enough to acknowledge the embrace.

“You can sleep in my quarters,” he said after a prolonged moment. “But you’re on the floor. The bed is mine. And you are strictly forbidden from joining me in it.”

I finally released him from the hug, stepping back. “So,” I said, a strangely welcome comfort between us now, none of the animosity from earlier. “Summer Isle?”

The smile that settled on his face was malicious, like he was already thinking about serving justice to Giselle. “Summer Isle it is.”

Chapter Twenty

WENDY

The blankets I’d spread out on the floor of Hook’s chambers did very little to cushion the hard floor. A single hour trying to sleep and my back already hurt. My bruised ribs had taken to reminding me of the precise location of every last smudge of blue and black on my body. To add insult to injury, Princess Hook was snoring away in his bed, perfectly content on the plush mattress with his feather pillow and downy blanket. He’d deigned to give me a pillow, but I hadn’t missed the fact it was the thinnest one on the bed. God forbid his comfort be compromised in any way.

I rolled over again, slitting my eyes open to glare at the room in the moonlight sifting through the windows behind his desk. The ship rocked and creaked and grumbled as usual, but for once it wasn’t the noise keeping me awake. I couldn’t relax on this damn floor, and I was contemplating ignoring his orders and climbing into the bed.

From my week-long stint as captain, I knew it was toasty andsosoft, the mattress like a cloud. I rolled over to glare at theshadow of the captain, most of him smothered by the blanket. It wouldn’t have killed him to let me share the bed.

“Selfish bastard,” I grumbled, my scowl deepening.

As if he heard me, he muttered in his sleep, the words not loud enough to carry to me.

“The least you can do is let me curl up on the end of the bed like a dog,” I huffed.

Because I was glaring at him, I saw him move under the covers, his body jerking like he’d been shot. I frowned, my brow bunching when he repeated the movement, and then again. It only took me a moment to realise he was being tormented in his sleep and I froze, an awkward spectator to his torture as he began to thrash.

When he gasped out a plea, I pushed up off the floor, taking a moment to find my balance on the swaying ship. A tight pain nipped just behind my ribs. I wasn’t a stranger to nightmares. They were nasty fuckers, relentless in their desire to break you, and there was no trauma or horror left untouched.

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