Page 27 of Stalking Wendy Darling

“You’re uh, not going to finish the job? Rip my pretty head off my shoulders?”

Hook’s expression was rife with icy fury, a kind of violence I so rarely saw in anyone. “That’s too easy,” he replied in a voice so gravelly and deep that I shuddered. “I’m going to make you suffer, darling.”

My eyes narrowed at the name, and I opened my mouth to speak when a cheerful voice called across the beach, “Captain!”

“Yes?” I asked, whipping my head around at the same time Hook snapped, “Yes?”

Sterling looked between us, eyes widening.

“He was talking to me,” I bit out, slapping Hook’s tentacle away from me.

He laughed, a low rolling sound that covered my pained body in goosebumps. “He was clearly speaking to me.”

“I’mthe captain,” I argued, anger quickening my heart, or maybe that was a healthy dose of fear from those suckered arms waving around his lower half. I tilted my head, trying to see if he still had legs under there.

Hook snorted, a sound that lit a spark to my anger. “You’ll never be the captain, Wendy.”

“I already am, asshole.” My nostrils flared, anger making blood rush in my ears. I might have only been thinking about how dull the job of captain was minutes ago, and I might havealready been tired of the constant demands on my time, but that wasn’t the point. He was challenging my title. My reign. And I would not stand for it.

“Holy shit,” Joanna cried out, her voice cutting through the tense rumble coming from Hook’s chest. “Who’s the octopus man?”

“That’s our captain,” Wynton replied.

“Hey!” I snarled, flinging a glare in his direction, fully ignoring Hook’s insufferable smirk. “Traitor.”

My moment of distraction cost me. One moment my feet were planted in the sand, the next rough arms4 grabbed my middle and my stomach slammed into hard muscle. Hook threw me over his shoulder and strode for the water.

“Bring the gold,” he barked.

“Hey, put my sister down you slimy mothersucker!” Joanna yelled, her voice surging closer.

“Ha!” I laughed, trying to find her even though the whole cove was blurring and upside down. “Good one, Jo.”

“Grab her,” Hook ordered. “Put them both in the hold.”

“Belay that order!” I yelled, but my crew were mutinous bastards. They did nothing to stop Hook carrying me to the rowboat, hauling me up onto my own ship, and then locking me in my own hold.

“I’m going to kill him,” I promised Joanna.

“Or fuck him,” she remarked, and ignored the death glare I pinned her with.

Chapter Seventeen

WENDY

Water was dripping down the wall somewhere across the low-ceilinged room. Theplop plop, plop, plopof it was driving me mad. I gritted my teeth at anotherplop,insult added to injury when water slid down the back of my neck. It served the bastard right if water got into the seams and his ship fell apart.

“Do you want the bad news or the worse news?” Joanna asked, wincing at me from where she perched on a barrel full of fragrant beer.

“Neither,” I muttered, pacing away from the dripping water, my wounds itching under their starched bandages. I was lucky the mutinous bastards patched me up before throwing me in the brig.

“Well, the door’s barred from the outside, so there’s no getting out even if we take a hairpin to the lock. Also, that’s not water dripping on you. It’s from that guy.”

She pointed upward, and I gnashed my teeth as I tipped my head back and—sighed heavily. “My own success is takingrevenge against me,” I lamented, eyeing the crew member who called me a slut with no captaining prowess to speak of. I’d strung him from the rafters a few days ago and completely forgot about him. He was fully dead now. Oops.

I wiped the blood from the back of my neck and flicked it to the floor, pacing the worn wooden boards, consumed with thoughts of what I’d do to Hook when he eventually came for me. I’d suck his dick off.Cut.I’dcuthis dick off.

I groaned, massaging an ache between my brows. Although a headache was the least of my trouble; my arms stoked pain like fire through me, matched by my throat, my ribs, my ass, and my shoulder. I wanted to scream at the constant torture.

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