Page 47 of Veiled in Stars and Silver
Wendy stood by the window, dagger clasped between her hands. “Leave him.”
Her eyes flashed toward the bedroom door, and he followed her gaze. Ezra had the gun half raised, watching Hook about to kill his father. The fact that he lingered, uncertain, instead of having shot Hook in the face already was a testament to how terrible the man within his grasp truly was.
“James, let’s go,” she said, extending her hand.
He extracted his hook from the man beneath him, wiping blood on the man’s nightshirt. “It's your lucky day,mate,” he said without feeling. He rose and walked to the window, taking Wendy’s hand.
“Ezra,” she said. “You need to leave and not return. You know he won’t let this go.”
Wendy’s cousin didn’t move at first. A darkness lurked in his expression that Hook recognized. Slowly, Ezra met Wendy’s gaze. “He won’t hurt either of us again.”
She nodded, then led Hook out the window and they flew up into the night.
The snow flurried around them, grasping onto their damp clothes. Wendy grasped his fingers tightly, turning to look at him. Her eyes widened and Hook spun only to see a blood covered Reuben standing in the window, shotgun in hand, aimed at them.
Ezra came up behind Reuben, and he shoved the big man over the rail of the window.
As the man fell, the gun ignited.
“Look out!” Wendy barreled into him as the shot rocketed across the sky.
Chapter 18
Wendy
We landed hard on the freezing pavement between two homes, my heart racing. Ezra had pushed Uncle out the window. Was he dead? Injured? Enraged even more than he already was? At least we were out of Uncle's sights. I wanted to know what happened to him, but not badly enough to check.
James jerked up over me, his good hand feeling down my body. “Wendy, are you shot?”
Hell, I liked his touch on me. “I'm fine. You?”
His hand paused on my thigh. Then he withdrew, leaving me feeling empty.
“Good.” He stood and helped me to my feet. “We need to find shelter.”
James's voice was strained from the cold.
I nodded. The frigidity dug into me, too. But this late at night, and dressed as we were, we'd be hard-pressed to find a place to stay. Well, there may be one place. “There are rooms on the outskirtsof town, paid for by the evening. Perhaps they will have something open this late.”
“Lead the way.”
“Let's walk a street or two before we fly.” I wanted to be out of my uncle's range before we rose into the air, to be safe.
“All right, but let's hasten.”
We hurried down the road, the breeze blowing snow into our faces.
“Your uncle is quite the brute,” he growled. Seeing James in that room, his hook ready to rip Uncle open, had left me with a mixture of feelings. Part was surprised that James had responded so strongly to Uncle hitting me. Part of me wanted to let him finish the man for good. But Ezra had been standing there. And I couldn't.
“Right before I came to Neverland, he was about to marry me off to a war buddy. Someone who'd keep me in line.” I spat the last words.
“Ah, that's how you got to Neverland.”
“You can't come unless you are trying to escape something,” I said. “Ivy told me.”
“That's right.”
We reached the end of the second street. “Here, let's fly.”
