Hook & Jill (The Hook & Jill Saga) (29 page)

Her mouth fell open. “Jill!” Two stories merged.

He smiled, nodding once. “Excellent! Shame cannot satisfy me, nor tutor you. Experience will do that.” He gripped her arm and hooked the shoulder of her gown. Leaning toward her, he searched her eyes with a hunger in his own. “I offer you all the experiences of which you dream, what you have called your adventures. Will you grow up to be a pirate? Will you redden your hand and sail with me, Jill?”

She was relieved, alive, ready to promise anything. Here was a man, waiting to accept her, a ship waiting to sail. She cast about to find the answer, then turned her face to the hook at her shoulder. She laid her hand on its rounded edge. Touching it, her panic leapt up within her, but excitingly so. She ran her fingertips along its curve. She couldn’t close her fingers over the blade of his hook, but she longed to. It had dealt death, she knew it, and she suddenly desired to possess it. It electrified her. She was learning already; she could be ruthless. “Jill killed the beast that stalked her. What must I do?”

The victory that lit his eyes only excited her further. “You are the storyteller. You decide!”

Again, she vowed, not caring whether she meant it. “I will!”

“You will follow your legend?”

“I will color my hand with our lifeblood… mine, and the blood of the ‘beast’ that stalks me!”

He slid his arm down to circle her waist. “There’s my bold Jill.”

She touched his arms. His leather straps were supple, soft over the firmness of his muscle. She grasped him. She raised her chin. “Last night you demanded truth, and again today. I demand nothing less from you. I was half right about your reason for ending the feud. Why else?”

His eyes softened. “Everything I disclosed to you last night was, indeed, truth.” The seductive wave of his voice washed over her. “I am merciful because I desire you.”

“You hated being alone—”

“Do not underestimate yourself.”

“I know because I can feel it. I am more to you than just a desire.”

“
Just
a desire? Desire should be pursued with all our abilities. It is the elixir that brings us life, the muse who inspires our endeavors.” He pulled her closer. “Deny your desire and you end your story.”

Her eyes burned bright. “I came to the Neverland following my desire. I won’t deny you any more.”

His grip on her waist was so tight it pained her. “You declared it when first we met.
We have found each other
.” He bent to kiss her. Her toes dug into the carpet and her hands dug into his hair as she reached up recklessly to join him. She would have him now, she had entered his game, and its risks set her blood to pounding. Just one of his kisses was worth the price she would pay. She thought of the cost, and when he let her go, she was shameless. His half-smile slipped to her lips, taunting him.

“I followed someone else, thinking he was you.”

He matched her. “So now you are playing with your power. Very good! Now you are
my
mistress. What is it like, at last, to taste power?”

“Like your rum, like nothing I’ve ever tasted before.” She was drunk with it. “Like you.”

“Then drink deeply, and savor every drop.”

She did, dragging him toward her, tasting the liquor again on his lips, but she couldn’t get enough. Craving sensation now, her nerves all on edge, she was breathless, and demanding. “Show me how to get my fill.”

“Ah, that is where
my
will comes into play. I want you never to be satisfied.”

“You would have more revenge? More of your exquisite torture?”

“Exactly! And for myself as well. Sweet agony, and may it never cease.”

“I
am
learning. I warn you now, you may get your wish.”

“My mistress grants my wishes. An ideal type of slavery! But are you really ready to take me on? Let us test your mettle again. Since you command it, you shall have the truth. All of it.” Still afflicted, she sobered as he held her at arm’s length, his gaze raking her face. “I have yet another reason to show mercy.” His smile could not contain his satisfaction. “My vengeance on Pan is complete. More than that, I am grateful to him! Very conveniently for me, he tempted you out of your safe little bed behind the window, and seduced you into mine.”

Gazing into his triumphant eyes, she stood engulfed in fever, breathing hard, anchored in his damaged arms while the room pitched and her thoughts careened. He had hunted her, tempted her, and seduced her. And so had Pan. And, in truth, she had tempted each of them, to gain her own desires.

And she regretted none of it. It was all part of her experience. She concentrated and pushed her emotion away, and in its place sprung a new desire. In the end, her nails tearing at his chest and at the strap imprisoning him, one leg winding around his and her body clinging to him, she uttered one brutal fact. “But I didn’t have the strength. I couldn’t open it.” Her eyes challenged him. “I’m not in your bed.”

He laughed, leisurely, and the dark, sculpted posts and woven tapestries of his bunk loomed behind him. “You think not?” He closed his hand over hers, over the clip. “Yet again, vixen, you tempt me from my purpose.”

She was ruthless. She sneered in his face, and hissed at him, “It is just as well, if your purpose is to murder Wendy!”

He stiffened, but she ignored the warning. Filled with a barbarism she didn’t understand, she thrust again, “Will you flinch when I pursue
my
purpose? When I draw your blood to stain my hand?”

But he read her heart, again. “You’re feeling it already, aren’t you, Jill? It’s the blood-rage. But we will kill your Wendy with kindness.” He shoved her away from him, snatched her bodily into his arms, and strode across his cabin. He flung her onto his bunk.

“Now you’re in my bed. Have your fill of
that
. Alone!” He turned his back as she rolled over and raised herself up to crouch catlike on her hands and hip, spitting fire.

“But I want you to—”

“Smee,” he interrupted, calling coolly toward the door. Mr. Smee entered immediately.

“Aye, Sir.”

“Fetch me a shirt.” Hook turned to her, stone-faced once more. “The ‘lady’ in my bed needs to sharpen her new claws.” Hook lowered his chin to stare at her, darkly. “And gather her strength.”

It was not long after they left her there that the lady, her features wild, prowling the cabin on silent cat feet, noticed the bottle. It had tipped over, rolled on the runner, and spilled most of its not make-believe but very real contents onto the swirling patterns and varied colors of the exotic Orient.

She closed her eyes, tense. The design was too detailed to remember perfectly.

And she didn’t care. She picked up the bottle and toasted the door, staring at it. Darkly. “To your good health!” Then she snatched her dagger from the desk and took the bottle to bed. She could use a good, strong drink while she designed the details of her first kill.

Chapter 24

All or Nothing

Peter yanked the curtain open again. “Tink! Tink, where are you?” He knew she couldn’t hear him, but it felt good to hear a voice. A good, strong one. A wonderful voice, belonging to a wonderful boy.

He had heard another voice today that he hadn’t expected to hear ever again. A young man’s. Slightly, returned from his final adventure. And he had called not for Peter, but for Wendy. Well, she wasn’t here. Peter had pitched Slightly’s acorn into the fire. Now he rubbed his sore head and stepped over the broken shards of the medicine bottle to throw himself into his chair. All alone.

Slightly lost, then found, and grown away. The Twins at the clearing. Wendy’s brothers and Curly flown back through the window. He’d bring them back soon, and a dress for Wendy, one of her mother’s. She’d like that. She’d say it was lovely. And he would bring back a new medicine bottle. But Nibs and Tootles… his green eyes smoldered. She had given his best fighters to the pirates! Probably in a silly effort to save himself in some kind of accord. And she gave herself up, too, as she promised Hook that day. Only now she couldn’t fly away from Hook.

It would make her rescue more difficult; he’d have to get more dust. “Tink!” He jumped up and circled the room, then stopped by the tree trunk. Placing his hands on its bark, he slid them around the back. In the shadows behind the tree his fingers bumped along until they found the crack. His nails pried at it. With a groan, the hidden panel fell open. Peter grabbed up a candle and smiled to himself. He had something even better than fairy dust. His secret cache. His armory.

Here amid the stockpile, Peter hoarded his most prized trophy. It shone in the glare as it had shone that day in the sunlight, when it blinded the tyrant of the
Jolly Roger
, just long enough for Peter to mutilate him… the rapier he took from Hook along with his hand. And here were knives, many knives. All belonging to Lost Boys, truly lost now. But the two boys Wendy gave to Hook were worse than lost. Peter swore to himself that in his bold attack tomorrow he would win them back, and their loyalty too, along with their boots. He smiled. He had always promised them boots, and he’d kept his word. And he had promised Wendy the
Roger
. She would own it by tomorrow!

Peter tucked the best of the knives in his belt and gripped the rapier. He would wield this one in place of the old sword plundered by Nibs and Tootles. Falling back, he swung it, making it sing in the air. His arm felt fine, the scar didn’t trouble him. It was another trophy, like a tattoo! He danced with the sword, feeling its power, getting to know it. He thrust his way across the room, and then he spied the golden lion skin on the bed. “Dark and sinister man, have at thee!” And he pierced it, dragged it up on the sword, and drove it into the wall. The hide hung there, the firelight casting its massive shadow over the bed. He had brought this lion down; he would bring down the lion of the sea, too! Bunching his fists, Peter punched the air. He felt his muscles swelling, pulsing with strength, and he filled his lungs and crowed. The sound of his voice crowded the underground cavern, and then it was gone. Like his boys.

There was only one way. A duel. Kill the captain, and the crew would be his to command. Tamed at last! Wendy would look at him with stars in her eyes, as she did the night he first awakened her. She would be grateful to him for ridding the boys of the pirate threat. He would rescue Wendy. He would save them all. He couldn’t wait for the Indians, nor for the croc. He would challenge Hook in the morning, when the sun was blind-bright again, and the next sword he won he would cross with this one, and Wendy would see them every day over the mantel and know that Peter Pan was far more clever than any pirate king. She had asked for a weapon. He might even present the new sword to her. But not for keeps.

Peter took up a stick and poked the fire until it crackled, then he shoved the fairy gauze into the flame, to blacken. He had unknotted it from his neck, but only after Tootles held him at sword point while Nibs looted his trophies. The two of them— the traitors— had stuffed his treasures in a bag and struggled up the shaft. The mantel was nearly bare now, and his sheath was empty. Wendy had borrowed his dagger! Angrily, Peter sprang up to search the shelf again. The acorn was there. Nibs had left that, and the jar with its hawk and crocodile design. Peter grabbed the acorn, rubbed his finger along its scar, and tossed it in the fire to roast with Slightly’s. He had given Wendy real kisses this morning. That was enough. He watched her green strip of gauze as it shrank back and curled, a viper in the nest.

Beside the hearth, he spied her workbasket. He opened it and scrabbled through its contents until he found it, the thimble with which she had kissed him. He slipped it on his finger, as he had watched her do countless times in the evening in front of the hearth. Settling in his chair, he stared at the fire, his eyes and his hair glowing in its light, and tapped the shiny thimble on his chin.

Thimbles and acorns. Kisses and swords. He shook his head.

Girls were so hard to understand.

* * *

She heard him calling her. It broke her heart, again. Peter needed her. He needed her now! Jewel perched, a twinkle on the dusty bark of the tree, and she covered her ears and dimmed. He had a wonderful voice, although nothing like her master’s. She had followed the instructions her master’s voice outlined, guiding the three boys to London and watching the window close, and on her return she was commanded to watch the hideout, yet had nothing to report except his crowing.

She would slip down in the night, when the crickets chirped above and he slept below, and she would nestle in his hair. That was allowed. But Peter mustn’t see her and he mustn’t feel her; she must be just another cricket. The time wasn’t right. She trusted her master to tell her when. He knew best. Stretching her wings, she sighed. Until then, she would carry out her orders, hungry and hopeful.

But the Wendy was taken at last! She was a prisoner aboard the ship. It wouldn’t be long now. Once the Wendy turned pirate and became his slave, too, he wouldn’t need Jewel so often. But Jewel’s light sharpened as a familiar pang of jealousy pierced her soul. She wished she knew. Why did her master want that Wendy? Why did Peter want her? She shook her head.

Girls were so hard to understand.

* * *

The monster dragged itself forward, strangely alone. The companion tick was absent now, and prey was easier to trap. Having gorged its purged and empty belly on waterfowl, the crocodile had turned its lumbering steps toward the forest. Victims were readily snapped up here, too, and the Island was fast becoming Paradise for this reptile that had been so long the victim of its enemy’s cunning.

It had been far too dependent for its meals on the quick creature with the low whistle and the shining blade. The larger prey had not been impossible to snatch, but required much stealth. Only the unwary— the fledglings, cubs, and children— had been easily snared. But the constant smile on the animal’s face assumed meaning now that the tick had been exorcized. The green hide slithered along the floor of the forest, in a direct line to the last place it had scented out and confronted its favored meat. The beach on the bay. Insofar as this beast could think, its thoughts were very pleasant.