Page 25 of Stalking Wendy Darling

There had to be forty of them, all dressed in sleek black leather with masks over their heads that made them look unsettlingly like jackals.

Wolves, Wynton had warned. Well, here they were.

Chapter Sixteen

WENDY

“Nice doggies,” I tried, holding out my hand, my knife pointing down in what I hoped was a non-threatening move. Clearly these guys were humans in jackal suits; if they were real canines, that remark would have gotten tails wagging and tongues lolling out of their mouths. Instead, they bared sharp, silver teeth, the masks unsettlingly realistic. “We’re not a threat to you. We won’t get in your way.”

The jackals tightened their ring around us, penning us in with the cave at our backs. I tried not to stiffen, keeping my muscles relaxed and ready. I had no idea how to fight jackals, but I was optimistic about our chances. Assuming the others came out of the cave to back us up and didn’t just leave us to be slaughtered. That would be annoying.

The tallest, beefiest jackal flowed forward a step, the motion more feline than I expected. My stomach dropped. A single step, yet it was all I needed to see these weren’t just seasoned fighters but damn good ones.

“The gold is ours.”

“Ah but!” I held up a finger. “Have you by chance heard of the sacred, noble art of finders keepers?”

“The gold isours,”he repeated in a throaty snarl. He didn’t come any closer, but the threat was clear in his voice. Sun baked the top of my head. It would be awful to fight under this brutal sun. “It belongs to the island. You will relinquish it.”

“And then you’ll let us go?” I asked, batting my eyelashes at him to no effect. He didn’t reply, which confirmed what I’d already known. They wouldn’t let us take the gold, and they didn’t plan to let us go. I had forty-something crew members, enough to take these jackals, but as much as I loved1 the Banshee’s crew, I doubted they’d had the same training as these guys.

I sighed, shifting my weight slightly, bracing myself to fight. “I understand stealing is bad and you want to keep your stuff,” I said, glancing at Maceo and Sterling on either side of me, both sizing up the jackals but letting me be the spokesperson. “But see these guys? And the guys in the cave behind me? Theylooovestealing stuff. And we kinda need the gold. So here we are.”

I spread my hands, my grip on my knife loose and easy.

“The gold is ours,” the jackal rumbled.

“You know, I had a record like you when I was little. It kept getting stuck on this one groove and it’d just play the same part over and over.”

“Captain,” Sterling sighed. I rolled my eyes.

“Last chance,” I told the jackals, sweeping my stare over all of us. Our backs were to the cave, but at least we had allies there. Back up should come running the second they heard any noise. “Back off, let us pass with our gold, and we won’t hurt you.”

A low, unnerving rumble went through the ranks of jackals. Laughter, but like none I’d heard before. A little shiver went down my spine.

“Make as much noise as possible,” I said out of the corner of my mouth, drawing a second knife. “We need backup ASAP.”

“We’re screwed,” Maceo muttered.

“Not just yet, my grumpy friend,” I said, watching jackal bodies shift ever so slightly into readiness. “Not just yet.”

There was no obvious signal, no shouted command. The jackals stood in the sand one moment and leapt across the beach towards us in the next.

“Shoot as many as you can,” I yelled, diving right to avoid the path of a broadsword. Damn, where had the jackal been hiding that thing? Their outfits were sleek and unforgiving.2

Maceo whipped out his pistol3 and began firing loud, noisy shots. The scent of gunpowder hit my nose, familiar and reassuring, a moment before a jackal slammed into me, sending me crashing into the sand.

“Oof,” I grunted, driving my knife into the jackal’s arm as he pinned me to the beach floor. A fist crashed into my still-healing ribs. My eyes watered at the pain. “You know, you’d think sand was a softer landing looking at it.”

“What is wrong with you?” the jackal demanded through clenched teeth, drilling his fingers into my sore ribs.

“Lots,” I replied with a tight grin and surged up off the sand. A laugh of disbelief tumbled from my lips when I actually managed to flip the jackal. It died the next second when a blade punctured my shoulder blade, ripping a howl of rage and pain from me.

This wasn’t how I died. No fucking way. I had a pirate ship now; I would go down in a blaze of glory, tentacles, and storm clouds. Maybe cannon fire. Maybe a sprinkling of gunpowder. Not stabbed by jerks in freaky masks on an island I’d never really heard of.

No. Fucking. Way.

Teeth gritted against a scream of pain, I angled my knife, inch by inch, my hand shaking the whole way, into the throat of the asshole below me. I exhaled a rough groan when it punctured skin, quite pleased to find these jackals pumped out arterial spray like any man.

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