Tink fluttered off James’s shoulder and flew over the water, scanning for any signs of their enemy. Upon reaching the bank, she grew to her larger size and landed beside James. “I still don’t want to.”

  “Would you rather drown like you nearly did before?”

  “No, but I’m still tired from it.”

  “You slept.”

  “A few nights aren’t enough to recover from a near-fatal incident, captain.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “So you say. But you never sleep anyway.”

  James shrugged. It was true—he was often so involved in planning the next rescue that he rarely slept more than three or four hours a night.

  Tink’s eyebrows contracted into one severe line. “This is what I get for throwing in my lot with a pirate,” she grumbled and dipped a single toe into the water.

  “Your choice, remember?” James unbuckled his sword and unscrewed his hook from the cup around his wrist. “Rust,” he explained as Tink raised an eyebrow.

  “Maybe I will rust.” Her voice was heavy with cynicism.

  James laughed and waded into the water up to his ankles. “You and your withering wit. Come on, it’ll be fine.” When she refused to move, James snatched her wrist, tossed her over his shoulder, and splashed out into the water until he was waist-deep. Tink shrieked and pounded against his back with her fists, legs kicking in the air.

  James took a firmer grip on the back of her thighs and leaned his head away from the pixie’s waving feet. “You’re lucky I don’t have my hook on right now, or your leg would have a polka-dot shadow.” He set Tink down with a splash. “Ready?”

  Tink wrinkled her nose. “As ready as I will ever be, now that I can’t fly.” She swatted at the water’s surface, showering James with droplets.

  After showing her how to do a basic stroke, James had her practice floating on her back. The pirate was careful to keep her afloat by holding her up as the surf rolled in. Tink kept panicking and jerking upright anytime a swell would bob her body in the water, no matter how gently. James continued to reassure her that she was safe, and slowly, she relaxed and allowed her body to drift on top of small waves. James closed his eyes and let his body rise in the water to drift beside hers. The sun warmed their faces and the cool lagoon lapped at their sides.

  Tink’s wild hair fanned out in the water, framing her face in golden locks. “You win, Captain Hook. This is nicer than I thought it would be. You aren’t so bad, for a pirate.”

  James grinned. “If you move your arms like this and paddle your feet, you can swim on your back.”

  Once she got over her fear of the water and saw that she could keep herself up, Tink was a fast learner. She and James continued to swim on their backs, practicing staying afloat and breathing regularly.

  When Tink flipped over to swim on her front, she balked when she saw just how far they were from land. “I can’t touch the bottom!” she gasped, then her head disappeared under the water.

  James calmly tugged her back up to the surface. “We’ll be fine, Tink. Sometimes people drift a little when the waves push them. We’ll swim back.”

  “I can’t shift without my dust!” Tink tried to scramble a little higher, shoving James’s shoulder down in her attempt to get her face fully into the air.

  James expelled a spout of water. “You don’t need to shrink. You need to swim, and preferably not drown me in the process.”

  Tink gave a tiny nod, then screamed as James was suddenly jerked under the water. His head popped back up a second later, and he looked angry. “Tink!” he spat. “I said don’t try to drown me! What’d you do that for?”

  “I didn’t do anything!”

  The two stared at each other, then comprehension dawned on them at the same time. All around them, the water was starting to churn and bubble as creatures from the deep began to swirl about them, trapping them in the center of a revolving whirlpool. James clutched Tink closely into his chest, desperately trying to shield her from what he knew lurked beneath. In his rush to keep her safe, had he endangered her once more?

  A mermaid’s wild head broke the surface of the water. Her powerful tail beat underwater, keeping her entire upper body out of the water. She pointed a lethal-looking spear at James. “Why are you here, human?”

  James flapped his mouth open and closed uselessly. This mermaid was nothing like the stories of sirens he heard from Peter Pan in his youth. Peter had described them as beautiful women with long, elegant fish tails, but he had also warned all the Lost Boys that they were deadly, could hypnotize any man by simply talking, and never showed any mercy. Perhaps mermaids and sirens were not at all the same, or else Peter had fabricated the entire tale.

  This mermaid was far from beautiful. She had mottled green skin, and her hair was matted into thick dreadlocks that looked scaly. It undulated even without a breeze, almost like snakes protruding from her scalp. Her slanted eyes were significantly larger than any human or pixie’s and had a transparent eye covering beneath the green eyelid. The transparent eyelid continually covered and retracted, coating the creature’s eyeball with a thin slime that, when exposed to air, evaporated quickly.

  “Why are you here, human?” the mermaid repeated, jabbing the pointed spear closer to James. Her voice was hoarse and gravelly, not at all the musical, siren-like song he had expected.

  It only took one glance at Tink’s terrified face for James to find his voice. “I was trying to teach my friend to swim. I didn’t realize we had drifted so far. I’m sorry.”

  The mermaid tossed her head and directed her attention to Tink. On his next time spinning around the circulating water, James spotted several purple veins throbbing on the mermaid’s neck underneath some scars where the green skin had faded to a pale yellow. He tried to control his breathing. If he could just find a way to get out of this alive…

  “You’re a pixie,” the mermaid observed, eyeing Tink’s wings, which were plastered, sodden and limp, to her back. The mermaid had no eyebrows, so her facial expression was difficult to read.

  “I am,” Tink confirmed.

  The mermaid tilted her head. “Why are you with this human?” She spat the last word like a foul oath.

  “He saved me from drowning during that storm and was trying to teach me to swim, just like he said.” Tink lifted her chin higher, daring the mermaid to challenge her story.

  The mermaid cast a look around at her fellows, still silently circling around the perimeter of the whirlpool and listening to their conversation. Several hissed and shook their heads, but others beat their tails against the surface of the water, signaling their approval. James hoped that whatever verdict was going to be passed, it would happen soon. The constant spinning in the whirlpool while trying to track the mermaid speaking was making him ill.

  The verdict did not come quickly, and the circulating water continued to keep James and Tinkerbell trapped at the center while the head mermaid conversed with her fellows in low, raspy voices. James couldn’t pick out any of what they were saying; he was too focused on treading water while keeping Tinkerbell aloft. Her brief swimming lesson was fine for still, shallow water, but churning water in the deep was still beyond her ability. She clutched at James, whose legs, still sore from the day of the fire, screamed in protest while he continued to pump them furiously to keep their heads above water.

  James looked below and saw a school of merfolk swimming in a tight circle to keep the whirlpool spinning. He clenched his eyes shut, focusing instead on the feel of Tinkerbell in his arms. She felt so tiny and fragile.

  “You align yourself with Peter Pan, human?” the head mermaid spat.

  “No! He cut off my hand.” To prove his point, James shifted Tinkerbell’s weight into his right arm and held up his left.

  The mermaid’s protuberant eyes scanned the stump James held aloft, absentmindedly stroking the crisscrossing scars on her neck as she did so.

  The head mermaid contemplated for a long time before ducking below the surface. Eerie noises bubbled up, but while his head was above water, James couldn’t understand a word she said. His legs were on fire as he continued to tread water, desperately keeping Tink’s face above the swells in the lagoon. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, and he held her close, determined to keep her safe.

  As soon as the mermaid broke the surface again, the spinning whirlpool stopped. “We have suffered at the hand of Pan as well…more than you could ever know. He stole from the pixies and has stolen from us too. It has been happening more and more often.”

  James’s heart lurched as his sense of foreboding increased. Just as he thought it was impossible for Peter’s crimes to be greater…What had Peter stolen from the mermaids? What was the leader of the Lost Boys doing with increasing frequency? Again, his eyes were drawn to the scars on the mermaid’s neck and flicked to other mermaids, who bore similar disfigurements. Peter, what have you done?

  “We let you pass this once, human, because you’re with a pixie who vouched for you. Never come here again. You have been warned.”

  James bobbed his head in agreement. It must be a record, to have met a mermaid or siren or whatever this creature was and not be drowned. He placed his hand and forearm on Tink’s waist and gave her a small launch back toward shore to help her start swimming again. He followed, beyond exhausted, and the circle of mermaids parted to let them pass.

  “Let’s never do that again.” Tink pulled herself onto the beach, trembling all over.

  “Agreed.” James collapsed next to her, his chest heaving from the residual terror of the experience coupled with the physical drain his body had endured over the last few days. Why had he thought teaching Tink to swim would be a good idea? She had never needed to before now, and had he imagined that when they left the safety of their ship, they would somehow bring any lingering protection with them? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  His only saving grace had been the protection afforded by Tinkerbell’s heritage. James didn’t know why mermaids were so willing to make allowances for pixies, but he was too grateful to care. He turned his head sideways to examine Tink for any injuries.

  She was flat on her stomach to expose her delicate wings to the sun’s warming rays, her face tilted to avoid full contact with the sand as she gasped for air. Little puffs of sand flew up every time she exhaled, blowing grains into James’s soaked hair, but he didn’t mind.

  The blonde strands that framed Tink’s face were sopping wet and stuck to her forehead. Her eyes were closed as she fought for breath, and James’s eyes roved down to examine Tink’s face more closely. As had happened with increasing frequency lately, he found it difficult to stop staring at her.

  The pixie, so unlike her timid fellows, was fiery and spunky and never afraid to speak her mind. Her form-fitting clothing didn’t help things, either, and if he didn’t control his eyes every second he was around her, he could get distracted by strange things like the curviness of her figure or how blue her eyes were. He hadn’t noticed such features when he first met her, but aging brought on a funny effect in relation to his opinion about women, and this woman in particular—though, granted, she was the only one he knew well.

  But losing his one contact who was able to spy on the Lost Boys’ camp was something he couldn’t afford. He could never let Tink know that he found her attractive. She would be repulsed by him, he knew it. Besides, what ridiculousness was he thinking? Their near drowning and interaction with the merfolk had undoubtedly addled his brains. It would be impossible for a human and a pixie to ever be together, and he was not going to do anything to make Tink feel uncomfortable.

  “I’m flying everywhere from now on,” Tink declared, and James’s thoughts were pulled back to the present with a harsh bump. “You can swim if you want to, you pirate.”

  “I’ve had enough swimming to last me a while, actually.” James dragged himself to his feet and held out his hand to Tinkerbell, trying to ignore the way his skin tingled when she held on to him to stand.

  With her fingers still on his, Tinkerbell tried to flutter her wings, which sagged limply down her back. James found his eyes drawn again and again to her bare back, where her wings attached. More than anything, he wanted to stretch out his hand and stroke her back. The thought of touching her in such a way sent thrilling waves rushing through his body and, before he realized it, his fingers acted of their own accord and ran the length of her spine.

  Eager to cover up his momentary lapse in judgment, James contorted his face into an expression of deep concern. “How…how long will your wings take to dry?”

  A curious light danced in Tinkerbell’s eyes, and James quickly withdrew his hand. “About an hour,” she predicted. “We can walk back to the boat, and I should be dry enough to fly over.”

  James nodded. As they hiked back through Woodland Pixie Hollow, Tinkerbell’s fingers brushed against James’s. He monitored his breathing carefully, determined not to betray any sense of nervousness. Tinkerbell…beautiful, energetic, driven Tinkerbell would never be interested in him, would she?

  His steps slowed as he walked beside her, furiously trying to think of something clever to say and wondering if he dared to nudge her hand back. The idea of even holding her hand caused his vision to blur.

  “Tink?” The thin, chittering voice of another pixie broke through James’s musings. A pixie, who was a head shorter than Tinkerbell, swung out of a tree and landed cat-like on the ground.

  “Hello, Tiger Lily,” Tink said.

  The woodland pixie had darker skin than Tinkerbell and a wilder look about her. She threw James a dirty look, then cupped her hand to her mouth and stage-whispered, “What are you doing with this human?”

  James sighed wearily. First the merfolk and now this. But as Tinkerbell protectively linked her elbow around his arm that ended in a curved hook, all thought of exasperation faded from his mind.

  “This is Captain James Hook. James, this is Tiger Lily.”

  “It’s a pleasure,” James said and extended his hand.

  Tiger Lily examined James as though he were something disgusting on her shoe and didn’t take his hand. Not even bothering to hold up her own hand, she sneered, “Tink, you cannot seriously be spending time with one of the monsters who held you prisoner. He doesn’t even know how to greet a pixie properly.”

  James’s stomach churned and he relaxed his arm, prepared to let Tinkerbell distance herself from him, but she didn’t. She clenched his arm even tighter and lifted her chin. “I can spend time with whomever I choose.”

  The woodland pixie snorted and rose into the air, her green wings fluttering. “Whatever you say. By the way, Terrance wanted to ask you to come to his next tournament, but you flew off from the wedding before we even started the ceremony. I promised I would invite you, but you’ve been spending so much time with others”—she threw James another dirty look—“that you’ve been hard to find.”

  An unpleasant lurch jolted in James’s stomach. Of course there would be other men who were interested in Tinkerbell. Any man in his right mind would be. The thought of holding her hand faded faster than pixie dust washed away by water, and he tugged his arm away from Tinkerbell. She didn’t belong with some human pirate obsessed with revenge and kidnapping children. She deserved more in life, and he couldn’t give that to her.

  Tinkerbell frowned at Tiger Lily. “You go back, James. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  James obeyed, trudging off to let Tinkerbell continue her private conversation. How preposterous that he could ever dream of something as forbidden as a pixie and a human falling for each other. The most he could ever hope for would be to protect her from Peter and watch as she eventually grew tired of his obsessive plans and traps and left him to start a family of her own. The thought pierced his soul like a knife.

  Rowing back to the Hope of London felt like much more of a chore without Tinkerbell beside him. Just before he reached his ship, he saw her fly overhead to land before he did. He watched her graceful arc across the sky and wished he were a pixie too.

  CHAPTER 15

  Every time James climbed aboard the Hope of London, he was reminded of the mysterious way in which it came into his possession. A ship in almost perfect working order floating completely abandoned in the ocean with no sign of a struggle…He still wondered about where it had originated. The few books aboard that hadn’t been ruined were instructional books on sailing, along with several fiction titles that held legends of sirens and krakens, yet no historical texts about where the ship came from.

  True to his word, James had taught Tinkerbell to read, after which she had laid claim to one book that told the sad tale of a siren who gave up her voice in order to save the human she loved. As James had no interest in reading romance novels, he had been more than happy to bequeath it to her, and often saw her re-reading it during the quiet days between their attacks on the Lost Boys, a sappy smile across her face.

  When James climbed aboard after the disastrous swimming lesson, night had fallen, and he found Tinkerbell, still human-sized, waiting for him in his cabin, hip jutted to the side and foot tapping impatiently. He pushed his curiosity from his mind. He would worry about solving the mystery of his ship another day.

  “You taught me to swim, and I want to teach you to fly.”

  “I’ve flown before,” James pointed out.

  “Shut up and follow me.”

  She rose into the air and fluttered her wings rapidly so sprinkles of dust showered over him. James felt the pressure of his body’s weight lift from his feet and spine as he rose into the air and accepted Tink’s hand as they flew across the island, marveling at how much faster he could travel while in the air.

  Within minutes, the pirate ship had faded from sight, Skull Rock and Mermaid’s Lagoon were hidden behind the enormous palm trees that now looked like tiny blades of grass, and they had flown so high that it felt like if only James stretched forth his hand, his fingers could brush the moon. After multiple trips to London to return the Lost Boys he had succeeded in capturing, flying came easily to James, though he still felt guilty for using Tink’s precious pixie dust for anything other than returning kidnapped children to their families as quickly as possible.

 

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