Hook's Pan (Kingdom, #5)

“Well, I guess we do share a soul, maybe parts of her are in me after all.” Tipping her shrimp toward him in a mock salute, she dipped it into her sauce and then took a bite, moaning as the tangy, sweet and buttery flavors rolled across her tongue.

They ate in silence, neither one feeling the need to spoil the moment with too many words. This silence wasn’t awkward or heavy. It was nice, two people simply enjoying being in one another’s company.

By the time she finished her plate, she was stuffed. There had to have been forty shrimp on it, easily. And she’d eaten it all. After that feast with the mermaids, he must think she was a huge pig.

“It was delicious, but my eyeballs are floating,” she chuckled, setting her plate aside.

Hook thumped the table once again and two glasses of wine appeared. His red, hers white.

Laughing, she took her glass by the stem and inhaled the sweet aroma of her drink. It was a fruity blend, smelling like raspberries and apples but with a tart aftertaste. Refreshing and delicious.

“I wish I had one of these at home,” she sighed with a case of table envy. “I hate cooking. Where’d you find this thing?”

“I stole it from a king. He had four, I figured he could afford to lose one.” He said it so casually she expected it to be another one of his jokes, but when he didn’t laugh she realized he must have been telling her the truth.

Tossing her head back she laughed hard. “I do like you, Hook. You’re so deliciously bad.”

His answering grin made her toes curl.

“You never did answer my question earlier, by the way. Where did all your men go?”

Chewing and swallowing the last bite of his potato, he took a sip of his red wine before answering. “I did answer. This ship is magic, but I think perhaps you should see what I mean, to fully understand it.”

Standing, he held his hand out to her. The moment they stood, the table disappeared.

She blinked.

“It knows when it’s no longer needed. It will reappear again when it’s time to sup.” His lips twitched and she knew he was proud of himself, the man was literally peacocking before her eyes and it shouldn’t be, but it was damn sexy.

“Anyone ever tell you have the ego the size of whale?”

“If you are only just figuring this out then I have not done my job well.”

She laughed and wondered that she didn’t have permanent laugh lines etched around her mouth already.

Releasing her hand when they got to the wheel, he grabbed onto it and slowly turned. “While you were dressing, I dropped my men off at the Pink Pearl. A gentleman’s club, if you will.” His eyes twinkled.

“I bet it is.” She tapped his back, then leaned into him. “So how does this ship travel?”

The wind whispered through his hair, causing his shirt to billow and flap and in that second she could totally picture him as one of the male models on a romance cover. He was perfect, this was perfect, and a giant part of her was starting to wonder why she was so intent on going back home.

What was waiting for her?

Bills.

A boring job at the library.

No friends, except for Betty, who visited here all the time.

She had no dog. No boyfriend. And a set of parents more concerned with making each other pay for the loss of their eldest daughter then making time for her.

“Like this,” he said, snapping her back to reality as he rolled the wheel. It rotated swiftly, and her eyes widened as a giant shadow tore through the sky. A big sphere of nothing that they were headed straight for. And when she said nothing, she meant nothing. It was like staring into a bottomless, black hole.

Clutching his back, swallowing hard, she whispered, “Please tell me you’re not taking us into that.”

“When I wish to move quickly between places, this is the only way to travel. Now hang on,” he roared, and then they were swallowed up into the void.

From the outside looking in it’d appeared empty…but moving through it, it was anything but. Lights swirled and danced around them, the smell of brimstone and fire sailed the breeze.

Sci-fi crap, that was Betty’s department. If she’d been here now, she’d probably have told Trisha that this was some sort of time warp thing. But Trishelle didn’t care about science or trying to explain the unknowable. She was a person that moved on emotion, that thought with her heart, not her head and all she knew was this was…fun.

This was the adventure she’d always craved, always wanted to find. When she’d craved leaving Missouri behind it wasn’t for the bright lights of Broadway, or LA. Not like she hadn’t been invited, but more that on some intrinsic level she knew neither of those places would fit the bill. Because she’d wanted more, something the mind—her mind—could never have imagined or fathomed. Something made of magic and fairytales.

The rush of wind and the heady thrill of the man both conspired to make her blood hot and her breathing hard. She was alive. For the first time in years, she felt absolutely, undeniably, alive. She wanted to cry out with joy, but her throat was so clogged with emotion she couldn’t. Instead, she pressed her face to his back and smiled, inhaling his spicy male scent with large, greedy gulps.