Page 43 of Stalking Wendy Darling

HOOK

THE SUMMER ISLE

Three days of hollow, aching numbness gave way to an inferno of rage that burned so hot it would turn sand to diamonds. I left my cabin as wreckage and strode up the tight hallway for the stairs, breathing so hard I expected to exhale fire. My chest was no longer empty but full of boiling, incandescent fury. I couldn’t unleash it on the god who deserved it until that bastard came for the next Feeding Day, but that wouldn’t stop me purging this conflagration inside me.

“Out of the way,” I snarled at Rolando. The man scurried out of my path, flattening his back to the wall. I took the steps up to deck two at a time, my heartbeat loud in my ears.

“Maceo!” I yelled when cold air slapped my face, damp with salt and sea. It hissed against my skin, clashing with the fire inside me.

“Captain,” Maceo said with clear surprise, straightening his back where he stood at the helm, guiding us fuck knows where. “How do you fare?”

“Do you enjoy breathing?” I asked with my last scrap of control. “Would you like to continue?”

“Ideally, captain.”

“Then don’t ask stupid questions. Get us docked at the nearest island. Somewhere we don’t like preferably.”

He showed no surprise, no reaction. Smart man. “We’re still slowly headed for the Summer Isle. We have no allies or suppliers there. Will that suit?”

I revealed in his fear, enjoyed his extreme politeness when the man was normally so uncouth. The Summer Isle. Home of the woman who killed Wendy’s little sister. A woman who deserved my rage unleashed upon her. A smile spread across my face, slow and sharp.

“Yes, Maceo. That will do nicely.”

“Take that schooner,” I ordered Sterling, my eyes sharp on the Summer Isle as we made port. “Get it stripped of what we need for repairs. Leave whatever’s left in pieces.”

“Seems a bit harsh, captain,” Sterling replied, a furrow in his dark brow. The warning I shot him, the molten wrath on my face, seemed to halt any further comments. Good.

“Maceo,”I barked, the sailing master immediately scurrying over, his big shoulders thrown back. “Get us ready to sail the moment the village burns.”

His eyes widened a fraction. “Didn’t know we were burning the village, sir. I’m almost sad I’m staying aboard.”

“There’ll be other villages,” I replied with a grim frown. Good people might have exacted vengeance on the single person deserving of it, instead of burning the whole place. But we weren’t good people. We were pirates.

The second the gangway lowered, I led the way in long strides, the flames of my rage spreading to every part of me. Giselle had hurt the woman I loved, and she would suffer for it. She would die screaming. But first, she would know pain intimately, and for hours. With any luck, she’d endure all night. I had a heart full of fury to purge.

By the time the crew followed me down the dock and into the streets of the Summer Isle, people began running, choking down screams of panic, too afraid to even let the sound fly.

I knew our reputation, knew that black sails spelled murder in these seas. I knew their little rules.

Never draw my attention. When black sails stain the skies, keep your head down. Andrun.

People obeyed those rules now as we stormed down cobbled streets, searching small, bowing buildings for the pub Wendy told me of. Fearful faces peered through the warped glass of a bakery, the door of a tanner’s shop slammed firmly shut, and three women frantically ducked inside the leaning entryway of a tailor’s.

I should have felt something, some inkling of guilt that I would watch every one of these buildings burn, but all I felt was wrath. Endless wrath. Maybe some of those faces watching us would manage to escape. Maybe some would make it to boats in time. I didn’t particularly care. Why should they survive when Wendy had been taken from me?

“It’s around the corner,” Joanna said, falling into step with me, the same rage written across her dark features. I ignored the grief I also saw there. I didn’t want to examine my own grief andlooking at her was like looking into a mirror. “Are we cutting off the back exits? Giselle’s a slippery bitch; she’ll try to run.”

“She won’t get far. Sterling, Rolando, go around the back. Break her kneecaps if she tries to run.”

I expected censure in Joanna’s eyes, but there was only grim satisfaction as I kicked in the door of the Drunken Squid.

People leapt back as we entered. I watched them scatter, trying to put tables and chairs between us.

“Bring me Giselle, or I’ll slaughter every last one of you.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

WENDY

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