Page 49 of Stalking Wendy Darling

I only realised now I said it that every time I used the word home, I wasn’t thinking of the Silver Isle. I was thinking of the Banshee.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

WENDY

It took us six hours, but eventually Laurette and I found the high-ceilinged fortress room where Eldrick had been holding council with five other wrinkly-faced men dressed in unimaginative grey, brown, and black clothes. We had twenty-two others behind us, all fuelled by rage and pain and the blood we’d already drawn from anyone who got in our way. And damn, did people get in our way. I lost track of the amount of people we had to kill just to get here.

Everyone else—too weak or too injured to fight alongside us—had been guided out the side door I was hauled through, to find a cart to transport us to my ship. I hadn’t told anyone that I didn’t technicallyhavea ship yet, but those details could be worked out.

I would commandeer a ship, sail the seas until I found word of the Banshee, and go home with any of these prisoners who wanted to join my crew. But first, I had a table of old men to slaughter.

“Which of you dusty evil relics is Aidan Eldrick?” I asked, tilting my head as I met the stare of each man, letting them see the bloodlust and madness that had taken me. Some held my stare. Others looked away—towards the man who sat at the head of the table, dressed in a padded grey jacket unadorned with gems, jewels, or details.

“Surprising,” I said, walking slowly across the stone-paved floor, not taking my eyes off him. Wrath poured through me like liquid metal, forging a fresh sword of vengeance. *I used the metaphorical sword more to prop myself up when my legs wavered rather than murdering someone, but they didn’t have to know that.* “I would have expected you in finery. Given your ego in calling yourselfthe Collector.”

A man leapt to his feet on Eldrick’s right, his narrow face almost purple with outrage. “I don’t know who you think you are, bitch—”

“The bitch that’s going to kill you,” I replied sweetly, letting my smile sharpen. I’d reached the table now, and stood opposite Eldrick, my heartbeat rapid in my chest. “Be a darling, Jaden, and close the doors,” I said to one of my new allies without turning from the object of my murderous intentions.

“This is absurd,” the man to my left huffed, his jowls juddering as he spoke. “You said they were fully controlled, Aidan. How are there twenty of them standing in this room when you gave us your word the stock was secured?”

“Oh, my captain used that word too,” I told the man, taking my eyes off Eldrick. “I hated it then. I hate it now.”

I’d swapped my prong for a nice, solid long dagger a few kills back. It came in very handy now as it ripped through Mr Jowls’ jugular, basking in the blood that sprayed.

There was a moment of shock, long and sticky.Any moment now…The table erupted into chaos. The screech of chairs thrown back made my teeth clench, but the sight of the menleaping out of their seats was perfection. Even with sweat on my forehead and pain cutting through my adrenaline, I smiled.

Eldrick remained seated, a calculating gleam in his eyes, and his mouth pressed thin. Displeasure.I’ll show you displeasure, you monster.

“I mean, really,” I drawled as Jaden closed the door with a resounding boom. It was a sound of finality, and one that promised death to every last one of these men. “I’m holding this knife and it’s already dripping blood. What did you think was gonna happen?”

Laurette threw herself after one of the men when he made a run for the door, his joints clearly not what they were in his youth. She took him down with a solid kick to his knee. These people had been tortured for weeks, some of them for years, and they might have been as weak as these ancient men, but they werefurious.Their bodies had been broken but their minds had hardened, as honed as any weapon struck against an anvil.

These pathetic, entitled men Eldrick associated with didn’t have that rage driving them. They didn’t have weeks of torture to fuel them. They didn’t have pain blazing through their bodies, didn’t have burnsscreamingat them with every movement, didn’t have welts oozing blood like I did.

We were broken, beaten, and weak. But they were weaker.

“End them all,” I said, looking Eldrick in the eye, my upper lip curling. “But leave dear ol’ Aidan for me. I want to have a little chat with him.”

Eldrick finally stood, holding eye contact with me, not bothering to watch as my new friends killed his council of assholes. I didn’t know what they’d been debating here, didn’t particularly care. Probably a way to make more money to hoard in their manor homes.

“Who are you?” Eldrick asked, his mouth still pressed thin, betraying his annoyance even with his body language relaxed. I hated him on sight.

I twirled the long dagger in my hand, walking around the table, side stepping one of my allies when they ran at a balding man trying to hide under the table. “I’m Wendy Darling. Enforcer of Death’s Right Hand. That won’t mean anything to you, but that’s my ship, and my job is to ensure all our enemies die screaming.”

I walked slowly, allowing my friends to deal with Eldrick’s council, so only he was left when I finally reached the head of the table. I’d chosen the dagger on purpose. I could have had a sword, but I wanted this to be close and personal and messy.

“You’re right. That means nothing to me.” He didn’t take his eyes off me, trying to assess me. “Were you one of my objects? No,” he answered his own question. “I would remember if we’d lost a woman. Only two have escaped my collection and they were both male. Is it the one with both hands, or the one I hacked off?”

I let my smile become a grin, hooking deep into my cheeks. “So you remember the ones who escaped your fucked up collection. Good. Let’s have a little chat about that.”

He backed up a step when I finally reached him, but Laurette was there behind him, her hands latching onto his shoulders, her grip biting deep with rage. Eldrick winced, teeth gritted. There was nothing distinguishing about this man. He had a forgettable face, a shade of skin neither light nor dark, a weak chin, and watery eyes. His build was average, his height neither remarkable or regrettable. A boring, ordinary man who’d become powerful by subjugating others.

“I can get you money,” he said in a rush, spying his death in my eyes.

“I don’t doubt it,” I agreed, pain blurring the room as I drove my dagger into his thigh. I ripped it out again with panache, hiding my suffering. “But I don’t want your blood money, Aidan.”

“Take the fortress,” he panted, struggling against Laurette’s grip. But when her weakness might have given him a chance to squirm free, more hands joined hers, holding him still.

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