Hook's Pan (Kingdom, #5)

But she felt something else too. The tingling ripple of fairy energy. A second before her body disintegrated into the water it once was a tiny hand reached inside her and pulled her out.

After that, there was no more….

Suddenly the vision blurred and tears choked Trisha’s vision. She needed a second. Now she knew the truth, what’d really happened to Talia, what Peter had actually done and why Hook hated him so much.

Lifting her hand, she handed the worm back to its rock.

The memory might be gone, but not the overwhelming, all-encompassing warmth of Talia’s love for James. It breathed inside Trisha, filled her every pore and crevice, every dark part of her radiated with it.

“What did you see?” Hook asked, touching the small of her back with his big, warm hand.

“You loved her,” she sniffed, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, “and she loved you. I saw her, Hook. I saw, Talia.” She covered her eyes with her hands, feeling suddenly raw and exposed. “I saw what Peter did.”

He went still. “What did he do?”

Looking into his eyes she debated what she should say, how much to reveal. Did he really need to know everything? Should she tell him how cruel her last moments had been, how the terror had engulfed her, made her unable to even defend herself. Was that fair to him? Talia was dead and him knowing all this would never bring her back. Would only enflame the hate worse. Right or wrong, she decided she cared for him too much to share every single, awful detail of Talia’s final seconds.

“It was an accident. He should never have tossed that blade, but he didn’t mean to kill her.”

“I’m glad to hear it. This doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven or forgotten, but it helps to know he hadn’t meant to steal her from me.”

She covered his cheek with her palm and in the stillness she listened to her heart.

From the moment she’d seen Talia, a dam had broken through her soul. What she’d been denying, what others had constantly pointed out. She cared for him.

No, it was more than that.

He’d filled the broken pieces inside, the bond they shared, the past they’d once lived together…she may never remember specifics, but she felt it all. “I…I…love you,” she choked out and then shook her head. “I’m so confused. I feel all these emotions and I’m scared that maybe they aren’t mine. That they belong to her.”

Grabbing her hands, he pressed them tight to his chest. She looked into his face, seeing him as Talia had, big and brawny and so unbelievably beautiful and her heart shattered.

“Little bird.” He leaned in, then pressed a kiss to her temple, the tip of her nose, and finally her lips.

It felt so right; honestly it had from the beginning. She’d fought it because she hadn’t understood it, and still didn’t.

Love was foreign to her, something to fear, not embrace—something to push away and keep at a distance. But Talia had reveled in it and now she realized, so had she. When he’d kissed her, moved inside her, touched her body…he’d been talking, speaking the words her heart had feared to recognize.

She sighed into his mouth as he gently pulled back.

“I did love her. Do still. A part of me always will, because she taught me how to love. I was a cold man, Trishelle. Before I met her there was nothing but boozing and fighting and women, she taught me it was okay to be more. That loving someone didn’t mean you had to lose yourself. And since she’s been gone, I’ve not felt that kind of passion for another.”

She clenched her jaw, nodding, refusing to accept the fact that his words actually stung. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not in three days, it was impossible. Improbable. Absurd. Ridiculous. And yet…it had happened. Sometime between the first denial and the tenth, she’d fallen as hard for this man as the mermaid had, and the worst of it was, it’d happened so slowly she hadn’t even recognized the symptoms for what they were until it was too late.

Refusing to let him see how those words hurt, she smiled. He wiped the tears from her eyes with his thumb and said, “Until you. I knew the moment I’d set eyes on Talia that she’d be mine and I knew it with you.”

Trembling with joy, with confusion, she clenched his hand. “What if this isn’t real? What if I wake up tomorrow and everything changes? It’s only been three days, Hook. It doesn’t happen, this doesn’t happen.”

“Doesn’t it? Even in your world, are there not stories of lovers marrying after only knowing one another for a few days?”

She laughed, not worrying about wiping the tears up anymore. There were too many to check. “Yes, but…those are fairytales.”

His smile was sure and deep. “And are we not in one now? Someday, Trishelle, there will be a story written about us. This is the land of stories. Stay with me.”