Page 42 of Beneath the Starlight and Storms

“Looks like someone new.” The red headed man beside him chuckles as his eyes fill with a twisted eagerness. The sound of it sends an icy shiver down my back.

“Where’s Nova?” He asks the man in front of me.

“Off playing elsewhere,” he grits out with a cold, twisted look in his eyes. A look that’s now completely aimed at me.

“Looks like we need a replacement then,” The red head says, but I try to keep my eyes on those closest to me and figure a way out of here.

“Looks to me like we’ve already found one.” The short, balding man says with a hungry look in his eyes.

On instinct, my power slides up, battling its way to the surface to end this. But I hesitate. If I do use that power, I could end up destroying more than just them and this room and I couldn’t do that.

Before I get the chance to think of a plan, the man in front of me reaches out, grabbing me by the throat before slamming me into the nearest wall.

I try to gasp for air, but his grip tightens, cutting off any chance of it. I claw at his hand, but he uses his grip to push me up the wall until I’m at his eyes level.

He opens his mouth to say something, but the door slams open with a crack, making him pause. With his tight grip not loosening the slightest and a snarl on his face, he whips his head to the intruder.

Dark spots seep into the edge of my vision as the power beneath my skin flutters wildly to be set free.

But that’s when I hear it. A familiar growl that has those flutters slowing down to a flicker as everything inside me eases.

“Who are—” The man grits out just as grunts and screams of pain sound out to the left of me. I catch his eyes widen and his grip on me loosens before he completely releases me and flies backward into the opposite wall with a hard grunt.

I drop to the ground, holding my throat as I draw in gulps of cool air. Glancing up my eyes meet a pair of electric stormy blue eyes that are alight with fury.

“Hook.” He moves quickly, helping me up, the look on his face growing more savage, more ruthless as he stares at my neck.

“I’m fine.” I assure him, having dealt with much worse and knowing it will heal soon. But he ignores me to check for himself.

The warmth from his fingers seep into me, taking away the remnants of cold from my body.

But instead of Hook feeling the relief I do, the spark of fury in his eyes turns to a blaze of rage as he clenches his jaw.

Hook’s eyes flash with thunder and the air charges around us with his power as I feel a trickle of a wet slide down my face. I reach a hand up to the spot on the side of my head and wince when I touch it.

An inhuman sound, closer to that of a beast, rumbles from his chest as he turns to the man that inflicted the wound.

Before I get the chance to ask him what he’s going to do, another man slams down beside him just as Cash appears beside us.

“Cash. Take Tink home. I have some unfinished business here,” Hook says in a controlled, dangerous tone as he slides off his coat and rolls up his sleeves. The rest of the men try to make a run for it. But one sharp look from Hook has them flying backward into the room.

“What—?” Before I can stop him from doing something foolish, Cash quickly moves around me, blocking my view of Hook and the men.

“Come on, Tink. You don’t need to see this.” Cash tugs my arm, gently pulling me out of the room.

“See what?” Just before the door closes, I catch the looks of horror from the men as Hook slowly walks towards them.

* * *

It’s been hours since Cash dropped me off. He sent Ryland—the mysterious hooded guy I first saw when Hook brought me here—up with a jar of ointment for the cut on my forehead.

Ryland finally revealed what he looked like beneath his mysterious hood, and it was nothing like what I expected. I thought he was someone that was shy with a quiet nature.

Instead, I found a rugged, pretty boy with a roguish smirk, mischievous green eyes and short, light brown hair. And though he was slightly shorter than Hook, he was just as broad as him with even more inked patterns and designs all over his arms and neck.

But he disappeared just as quickly as he came, leaving me to nothing but my endless thoughts.

I know it was foolish of me to go off on my own. I was in a strange world that I didn’t know that much about. But I never thought something like that would happen.

---