Hook's Pan (Kingdom, #5) by Marie Hall
Chapter 1
James twirled the amber fluid in his tumbler, mesmerized by the golden brown glow. His cabin was alive with the rich scent of whiskey and the snapping crackle of wood smoke. Slumped over his mahogany desk, he shifted the crystal from one end to the other, gazing on as the firelight danced across its corrugated surface, casting prisms of rainbow light around a room that dripped with luxury.
Everything a man could want.
Red velvet curtains tied back with golden tassels, Turkish rugs from the farthest corners of Neverland. Sage and pine laced incense undulated like a snake’s coil around his face, making him dizzy each time he inhaled.
The night was long and the ship asleep, listing softly on the waves. But his mind would not rest, not for the last hundred years.
Not after he’d lost her.
His beautiful, innocent Talia.
Another dram of whiskey burned its way down his throat. He shuddered as it settled like hot lead in his gut, easing the ache in his cold, miserable heart.
He hadn’t deserved her.
But still she’d chosen him.
James toyed with the locket on his desk, clasping and unclasping the lock. Clenching it so hard in his fist for a moment he thought he might bend it. With a start, he released the necklace.
It settled back on his desk with a loud ping in the startling quiet.
He shook himself like a dog as the memories continued to plague him. Her eyes—ice blue and frozen forever with pain and fear—that boy flitting around her, his tiny dagger still deep in her gut.
And what a great actor he’d been, because for a moment James could almost believe Peter hadn’t meant to do it. His face had been so still, so shocked, that it’d scrambled James’ brain.
She’d agreed to marry him—to become his forever and for always, the next day was to be their wedding. They’d been such opposites, he a scurvy pirate, she a docile mermaid. And yet, their souls had connected. He’d given her everything, his oath, his bond, his love…
“I should have known that boy would ruin it all,” he whispered drunkenly as heat beat forceful through his blood. James downed the rest of the liquid, wishing he could just die from alcohol poisoning like a normal man.
But not here, not in Neverland where one could consume copious amounts of liquor and meat and never fatten or get a rancid liver.
Stuck forever in a state of limbo unless skewered like a stuck pig, just like his precious Talia had been.
His nostrils flared as the horror of that night replayed each and every awful minute in slow and exacting detail. They’d planned to meet at dusk. He hadn’t seen her the whole of the day and anticipation had made him antsy, he’d arrived ten minutes earlier than scheduled. And that’s when he’d seen her—laying in the sand, blue eyes wide open and unseeing, blood marring her lily white midriff and her normally shimmering pink tail now dull and lifeless.
He’d roared with a sort of animal cry that had startled the birds in the trees, then, unsheathing his sword, he’d dashed to Peter. But the bastard had flown up into the clouds with a whispered “sorry,” disappearing like the coward that he was.
When James had turned to retrieve her body and return her to the sea, she was gone. Not even a trace of water remained.
He’d wept and cried out to the heavens, cursing the fairy light riding the winds. Screaming to the gods that he would exact his revenge, which he’d done every day since.
His days were filled with making Peter’s life a living hell of torment, but it was the nights that turned on James. The long stretch of darkness that preyed on his sanity, splitting open the careful shell he’d constructed, forcing him to relieve the horror of it all.
Why had Peter done it? Why hadn’t she dived down, escaped him? Or had she not known what Peter had planned all along?
He couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. Could only drown himself in drink and wonder what if…
Chapter 2
“No,” Trishelle whispered as she pushed back on her date’s heavy chest. He was smothering her.
How had she gotten herself into this mess? What the hell had she been thinking letting him into her house? A young, college frat boy? Of course he’d think if she let him in she was wanting sex. But it’d gotten out of hand too quick. Brent was hot in an early twenties, Matthew McConaughey kind of way, and his kisses had been nice at first. They’d helped take the edge off the memories scraping at the back of her skull.