Page 40 of Stalking Wendy Darling

HOOK

Fear struck behind my ribcage, but I refused to let even an ounce of unease show as I strode to the edge of the deck to see how close the sea monster was. Water churned around us, battering the ship. We’d sailed through the night, bound for the Summer Isle to find a replacement sacrifice for this damn god. Too late. It had come to exact its price.

“Get the fucking cannons loaded,” Wendy yelled, racing up the stairs after me, exploding onto deck like a force of nature as if she wasn’t injured. “Shoot the damn thing!”

“You heard the woman,” I snapped when no one immediately ran to obey, and a handful of crew abandoned their tasks to race belowdecks. “Fire everything we’ve got at it. Take out its arms.”

My heart quickened at the thought of the damage those things could do. Had done.

“Hoist the sails!” I roared, the wind carrying my voice. “Get us moving. Now!”

We’d been lazily cutting through the waves overnight but now we needed all the power the Banshee had. Every last sailneeded to bulge with wind to carry us through the dark ocean before—

“Watch out!” someone screamed, either Vea or Joanna, and I snapped my body towards the sound of that voice right as a twelve foot tall, sucker-covered limb vaulted from the ocean and smashed right through our bowsprit, taking out three sails. God fucking dammit. I ground my teeth.

“Sails up.Now!”

I heaved on the helm wheel, trying to carve a path away from the monster with the sails we had, and the Banshee began to turn but slowly, too fucking slowly. I dragged my stump through my hair with a growl.

“Anton,” I yelled, but he was already scurrying to the bow to check the damage, barking his own set of orders as he went. I allowed it because the man had a healthy dose of common sense and usually helped in a crisis rather than hindered. Speaking of hindering…

“Get away from the fucking rail, Wendy,” I shouted, my eyes on her when I should have been keeping my attention on the blackness of the ocean, searching for another writhing tentacle.

“I can probably take that thing!” she yelled back, a light in her eyes that sent a ripple of cold down my spine.

“Get over here!” I snarled, wrenching on the wheel, making actual progress when ropes hoisted and a sail snapped taut from the mizzenmast. “I mean it, Wendy.”

But she kept eyeing the sea, like she was measuring up the monster despite knowing it was a sea god.

“Wendalyn,” I growled.

She gave me her middle finger without turning. “I told you that in confidence,Kingston.”

My nostrils flared on a heavy sigh, growing when she wiggled her fingers at the sea like she was greeting the monster.

“Wendy, what the fuck?” Joanna screeched, slapping the deck with rapid footsteps. “Get away from the railing. There are—monsters!”The last word was screamed when three suckered arms exploded from the sea at once, allowing me to finally locate the god. Too fucking close.

I heaved on the wheel, giving it all I had when the wood fought me every second, the muscles in my arms burning with the effort of keeping it there. It was a relief to hear the gunports opening, to taste the first bite of gunpowder in the air.

“Took you long enough,” I muttered to the master gunner.

“It’s coming!” Wendy warned, her voice a strange blend of fear and excitement. “Everyone hold onto something!”

Sterling picked up her shout and repeated it, carrying it down the deck, and my chest filled with a strange, new sense of pride. That was my woman, a force of nature as deadly as any storm, any sea.

“It’s never got this close before,” I heard one of our older crew grumble over the thrash and howl of the ocean. “I told you it was bad luck to keep a woman on board.”

Wendy turned and bared her teeth in a smile. “You must be pissing yourself to havethreewomen aboard.”

“It’s not right,” he declared, apparently decidingnowwas a good time to discuss ship etiquette despite the tentacles waving around us, poised to snap down at any point. I kept my eyes on them, my heart quickening, a shiver racing across my skin. The god had saved me, had led me to this ship, this crew, but I would always be beholden to that bargain. I’d never be more than the scared boy who made a deal with a god to escape his abuse. Every waving limb was a reminder of who I was, those midnight, pitch, and acid green scales a memory I couldn’t run from. A boy so flawed that his own father had sold him.

I shook away the past when the sea lashed the hull, spraying over the deck, drenching my hair to my skull. The cold of it wasa relief, a reminder that I was here, the captain of my own ship, my own fate. I wasn’t a boy now. I wasn’t anyone’s property. Not even this god’s.

“I say we give the thing what it wants—”

I could have warned the old man to quit talking while he was ahead, but Wendy shrugged and moved before I could intervene. The ship pitched, her willing accomplice as she grabbed the old man’s coat and pitched him into the railing.

“You know what?” she said, her voice sharp enough to carry over the wind and sea. “You’resoright.”

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