Words that should have made me glad didn’t. They made me sick, angry, violent. My skin prickled. Deadly music was trapped in my throat.
“That’s not possible!” I didn’t know how I was suddenly beside him, with my hands on his chest and shoving him back hard. He fell onto the edge of the bed, not fighting me at all, just staring at me with those eyes, those bloody eyes that made me feel as if I’d just been split open.
Tears slid silently down his cheeks. But his bright gaze was unwavering as he said, “I think I loved you from the moment I spied you feasting on the soul of a dead man laid out before you. But I knew I did the night of your awakening. That first night when you first saw me and said, ‘Hello— ’”
“‘Pirate,’” I whispered along with him. I shuddered. I’d never told anyone how Hook had first seen me. Only he could have known that.
Sickness spread through my stomach, and I pressed a fist against it, moaning from deep inside my chest. “I said goodbye. We said goodbye. You can’t come back. You can’t. Anne should never have done this thing to you. You’ve been brought back by dark means, Hook. You… you must return.”
Pain glittered brightly in his eyes, but he didn’t fight me. My words were true. Bringing back the dead was a power that few possessed. If not done right, if every part of the spell wasn’t spoken correctly, there were always consequences to be had. Because where souls came from, it was darkness. Void. Empty. And if not pulled back by a true and mighty power, the dead always brought that darkness back with them.
But he looked at me like my Hook. He spoke to me like my Hook. I shook as I fought the tears fighting inside of me for release. “The worst days of my life are the ones I’ve been forced to live without you,” I confessed, hating myself the moment I did it.
But like a dam on the verge of bursting, I could no longer contain my pain. Hook’s jaw clenched.
“I hated you for leaving me.”
He grimaced but sat there and said nothing. And I knew I shouldn’t say those things, but they came out of me, anyway.
“I hated you for being so frail, so very human. I hate you.” As I said it, tears finally spilled down my cheeks. I stood before him, as rigid as a statue. Nowhere in my mind or heart had I imagined that I’d say those words to him.
A reunion should have brought me joy. Peace. I felt none of those things, only despair and abandonment.
And that pain was a bottomless wellspring that had no end and no beginning. It simply was.
“Oh, my beautiful lass. I see you, Ellie. Even on the other side of that veil, I never stopped thinking of you. Of us. Hoping. Praying. Dreaming for one more chance to say I— ”
I shot my hand up and held up a finger, my posture rigid. “Don’t say it. Don’t you bloody say it, you damned bloody pirate!”
If I heard those words, if he ever said them to me again with that delicious inflection in his voice and the bright sincerity in his eyes, I would break. And I didn’t want to break. Because we were about to fight for our lives and that was the last distraction I needed.
“This doesn’t make sense!” The dam fissured just a little bit more. “What are you to this? Why are you here? Why did they just abandon you? Don’t you understand, Hook, that this isn’t right? That none of this makes sense? You say Anne wanted me. Is that why she brought you back then? Is this her play? You? Am I supposed to weaken again and fling myself at you then you’ll turn around and— ”
Shoving up from his seat, he rushed me, and this time, I couldn’t stop him. My thoughts were poisoning my mind. Anne hadn’t sent him to me as a gift. He was not that. He was my own personal devil, sent to haunt me, to kill me.
His arms were around me and he was holding me close, and I wanted to fight it. I wanted to fight him. I didn’t want his arms, yet I did. I struggled with my wants and desires, telling myself I was ten times a fool to let him touch me this way, yet all I could do was lean into his strong, towering body. He’d been so broken, so very broken the last time.
But he smelled of Hook, and he murmured to me just like my Hook. And his touch… the way his hand slid up my spine, the grip firm and caressing… it was. All. Him.
“Ellie, I told you that I was not controlled by the sands as the others were. I couldn’t be. Not if Anne wanted me to be believed. She did send me here to find you. That day, at the gala with your… partner,” he mumbled, and this time he was the one who trembled, and I could no longer keep my hands from touching him. “I was sent for you, Arielle. That venom on my hook, it was meant for you. Stonefish venom wouldn’t have killed you, only incapacitated you long enough for me to take you with me. But I fought her compulsion with everything I had in me. That was why I nearly killed your partner, because if I didn’t do it to him, I’d have done it to you. And I would rather die a thousand deaths than ever hand you over to that monster.”
“Anne?” I breathed.
“Aye.” He looked deep into my eyes, brushing his knuckles down my cheek. “Aye. Anne. She’s mad, Ellie. Mad with a dark power that I’ve never seen before. She controls the waters like only a siren of the deep could. I saw her, every night, in her cabin, candles flickering around her, muttering softly, and I swear that I heard a voice muttering back. Wicked. Unnatural. You’re right, lass—none of this makes sense.”
I shivered, digging my fingers into his spine, our chests pressed so tight to one another, close enough that I felt the beating of his heart move against my flesh.
“What voice? What did it sound like?”
He shook his head, his eyes faraway and haunted by visions I couldn’t see. “I am dead, Ellie. Have been for a while now, and I recognize the dead when I hear them. Whoever she speaks with, whoever she’s gained her twisted powers from, they’re not part of the living, lass.”
I swallowed. “What’s her end game?” I asked into the expectant hush that filled the room.
His jaw flexed. “She didn’t trust me, Arielle. I think she always sensed that I wasn’t fully controlled. I fought her manipulations. It was hells, but I was able to keep a part of me me. And I knew that no matter what, I would find you and I would fight like the damned devil hisself to get back to you. I don’t expect you to trust me, Ellie. I wouldn’t trust me if the boot were on the other foot.”
I sniffed, because how many damned times had I heard him use that ridiculous turn of phrase? Exhaustion clung to my bones, my body. I’d tried so damned hard to prevent it from happening, knowing full well that if I opened myself up to the possibility that my Hook had actually returned, it would not end well for me, that I would find myself falling prey to him once more.
“Why do you say you’re dead?” I asked and brushed my hand up his warm flesh. His skin prickled beneath my touch, and I felt things, things I’d fought so hard to ignore. But he was here. I was here. He was the man I’d once loved with my whole heart and my whole soul. Dead once but alive again.
“You’re not dead, Hook. I feel you, your smell, your touch, your voice. I want to keep lying to myself, but I can’t. You’re here. And I still can’t fathom how this could be.”
His cheek replaced the touch of his hand upon my face. Somehow, we were sharing air, nuzzling and touching more. And that fire, it was spreading like a slowly moving inferno through me, blazing and burning and setting me ablaze with the old feelings, the old desires, rekindling a passion I thought I’d never know again.
“You wondered why Crowley would release me, why no one seems all that bothered by my returning? Have you wondered why I’ve been sent on this mission with you both? Ask yourself, Ellie, why an agency known for handing down severe and swift punishments would dare let me walk so freely.”
I frowned, hearing the bitterness creep into his voice. Leaning back in the circle of his arms, I shook my head. “What?”
I knew that if I could think rationally, I would already know the answer to these questions, but my head was full of too much—worry about the case, worry for Hook, even worry for Maddox still, knowing that he, too,
must be worrying for me back in Grimm, sick about his visions, wondering what might become of our partnership.
His eyes squeezed shut for half a moment before reopening and looking at me with something a lot like agony. “Ellie, I’m not meant to walk away from this. I broke away from Anne’s manipulations, but Matilda didn’t break Anne’s hold on me completely.”
I froze. “What are you saying?”
He pulled his bottom lip into his mouth and worried it with his blunt teeth. I’d seen him do that a thousand times before. Whenever he was stressed, whenever he felt too much, he would hurt himself, give himself bruises even. I touched the corner of his jaw. Since I’d given myself permission to touch him, it seemed so normal again, so right, so damned easy.
“You will make yourself bleed, my…” I couldn’t finish the words, because they still didn’t quite seem mine to say.
His anguished dark eyes held me spellbound. “They kept the tether in place, Ellie.”
I shook my head. “Why? That would mean she can still take you back, make you hers once more. Why would they do that?”
He shook his head slowly. His hook was warm from touching my back for so long. Using just the tip of it, he gently rubbed at my spine, breaking me out in a heated wash of desire.
He’d always known just how to touch me, how to hold me that would make me sing for him.
“Because with that tether there, I can still find her. I feel her, Ellie.” He patted his chest. His long fingers brushed against my breasts and though my soul was sick with grief and worry, my body yearned for more of him.
“In here,” he said softly as he tapped at his chest. “And she feels me too. She knows I’m coming. In the end, I think it’s what she wanted and why she won’t fight our going. I vowed to never bring you harm, Arielle, and I’m taking you to the one place where—”He shuddered.
I shook my head, finally starting to make sense of the missing pieces. It was amazing how much you could still feel pain, how it could literally seem to cleave you in two like a knife through hot butter, even when you thought you could never feel such agony like that again. I chuckled darkly. “You are all using me as bait, aren’t you? You suspected this all along. It’s what the godsdamned tête-à-tête was about, wasn’t it? You told them exactly this, didn’t you?” I hissed softly, but when he didn’t answer, I banged my fists on his chest and snapped, “Didn’t you? ”
His eyes squeezed shut, and his jaw worked furiously as he repeatedly swallowed, as though he were tamping down the words that were desperate to break free.
My laughter grew wilder, and I froze in his arms, needing to get away from him.
You fecking pirate bastard,” I hissed. “You all played me for a godsdamned fool, and I—” I was like a deranged madwoman, tears spilled down my cheeks unchecked as my laughter grew deeper and harder.
He yanked on my flailing wrist, holding me tight, squeezing so hard that the flash of pain snapped through my insanity.
“Let me go,” I snarled quietly, “or by the gods, I swear I’ll rip your other hand off too.”
“No!” he barked. “No! I will not have you believing that I don’t care. I promised you no harm would ever come to you, Ellie, and godsdamnit it, I mean it. I will lay my life down for yours. You must know this. You already know this!”
I gasped, remembering why he’d gotten one of my father’s bolts through his side. That bolt hadn’t been meant for him at all, but for me.
His touch gentled as I stilled, but only a very little. I could break free, but I was bolted in place, unable to turn or to leave.
I was breathing hard, and so was he. The whites of his eyes were large and wild, frantic.
“I have loved you and only you all my life and now into death. Yes, I suspect this is why she left me there at that gala, why she never fought to claim me fully. Because of my dark and constant craving for you. Ultimately, I think we played right into the bitch’s wee hands. But I won’t let her kill you, Ellie. Because I’ll— ”
“Stop saying that!” I snapped. I was still pissed at him, but I didn’t want to hear him speak of death, especially not his.
His nostrils flared, and his handsome face turned severe as he said, “I can’t. Because I’m not meant to walk away from this, lass. This is why Crowley released me to you. I’m meant to return to the veil in Nowhere. The second he kills her, I cease to be. This ship will only return with two.”
“No,” I whispered passionately.
His face crumbled. “Ellie, stop this. Accept reality, lass. Understand that if there were another way, I’d never leave ye. Ever. I was brought because my tether to Anne means we can find her in the vast void that is Nowhere. And once I do, have no doubts that I won’t take breath for much longer.”
“No! No! I won’t let him. I won’t let Crowley destroy you. I’ll kill him. I’ll— ”
“Arielle, listen to me!” He shook me fiercely, rattling my teeth, his panic for me to understand and accept feeding mine that I would do anything, even break the very laws I’d vowed to uphold to keep his heart beating. “Even if Crowley doesn’t pull the trigger, once they hang Anne for her crimes, anything she’s reanimated, it’s all gone. We’re all gone.” He slapped at his chest. “Returned to the dust from whence we came. I was never going to survive this, Ellie. We only have this. We only have now.”
The terrible visions of his last moments came surging out of me like hot vomit, and I didn’t realize I’d fallen to my knees on the floor until I heard my broken wails.
But he was right there, and he was grabbing me, holding me so tight, patting my hair, my cheek, my body, making me tremble and yearn and burn and need as I remembered all over again how he felt when we moved as one—how he breathed and smelled.
“Arielle. Ellie. Please, luv. Don’t do this. Don’t do this. I… I can’t bear this.”
“Then… then we don’t let her die. Because this can’t… this can’t happen again, Hook. This can’t happen again. And I’ll be damned if Crowley kills you. I vow it to the sun, moon, and stars that I will end anyone who dares take you from me again.”
His eyes shone brightly in the moonlight.
“Oh, my lass. My beautiful siren.” He framed my face in his one warm and one cold hands. His eyes pierced straight through my soul. “You know very well we cannot stop the hand of justice. Not this time. Anne will swing by the neck for what she’s done, if not by Grimm justice, then by vigilante. What she did to Black Angus—you can’t stop this, Ellie. And that’s not why I’m here. I’m here so that we can have our goodbye, the way it should have been, how it was meant to be. A good one this time, my sweet girl.”
I hiccupped, then I stopped fighting it. Because there would never, ever come a moment in my long life when I would not want, need, or love this man.
With hunger that had been suppressed for far too long, we attacked each other. Our lovemaking wasn’t sweet or sensual. It was raw and wild and even cruel. So much pain for us both, it came pouring out of us. But we could handle it. Because we always had.
His kisses were drugging, like wine laced with crystals, making us high and crazed, wild and frenzied. I ripped at his clothes, and he shoved at my skirt. Fumbling with his pants, I was less than patient as I helped claw them out of the way.
And when his hard, steely thickness slid deep into my warm wetness I shuddered, and so did he.
“I love you, my girl. I love you. Always will I love you,” he murmured over and over and over.
All I could say was, “Don’t die again, Hook. Don’t die.”
I came, and so did he, like a blaze. Tears blinded my eyes, and he held me so tenderly, cradling me in his strong arms.
I would never be the same again. I wasn’t even sure I could ever love again. Being with Hook reminded why we’d worked for so long, why I’d loved him as fiercely, wildly, and passionately as I had.
And when we were done and all I wanted was to marvel in the fact that I had the love of my life back in my arms, all
we could do was sleep. His big, strong arms wrapped snugly around me. My legs slipped between his. We must have looked like mating octopi. And though it was as uncomfortable as all hells, neither one of us wanted to move.
I sighed. He kissed the crown of my head. I traced the S curve of his hook, and before we knew it, we were both gone to the world.
The next thing I knew was that the ship gave a great shudder, and I heard Crowley’s raspy voice call out, “We’re here.”
CHAPTER 35
DETECTIVE ELLE
WHEN HOOK and I stepped out of my cabin, Crowley looked us both up and down, saying nothing and with no emotion on his face.
Hook clearly hadn’t lied when he said that Crowley had released him. A part of me wondered if it had been some kind of olive branch for how he’d lashed out at me the night before, but I wouldn’t ask because I knew he’d never admit it. Also, I hated him. More than ever.
And I let that hate simmer in my eyes, let him know it, see it. I would be damned if BS thought for one second that they could take Hook from me. I curled my hands into fists, glaring death up at him.
I expected that same fire to be back in his eyes, but it wasn’t. He simply looked at me for several moments. Then he turned on his heel and walked swiftly up the ladder steps to the deck.
Hook reached for the ladder, but again that same feeling of disquietude I’d been wrestling with for days came over me. I grabbed his elbow, stopping him.
“Ellie, what— ”
With a hungry growl, I leaned up and stole his lips, kissing him passionately, giving him all of me in that one kiss.
When I pulled back, we were both breathing heavily.
“Don’t die,” I whispered.
He reached over and very gently brushed my cheek with his knuckles. A multitude of words were spoken between us in silence, said in a nanosecond of infinite time. Then he turned back once more and was gone. Finding my center wasn’t easy, but there was still a job to do.
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