The setting sun shoots beams of light across the portside sitting room on the ship. It’s not the same ship I arrived on, but it’s from a royal fleet and that’s really all that matters.
The steward brings me a fresh bowl of roasted peanuts and sets them on the table beside me. “Anything else, sir?” she asks.
I’m going to need blood soon according to my new pocket watch, but that can wait.
“This will do for now…” I pause for her name.
She blushes, hands clasped behind her back as she answers, “Miera.”
“Gorgeous name. Can I request you personally should I need something?”
“Of course.”
“Leave my servants be,” a voice says, carrying in from the portside balcony.
I flick my wrist, dismissing the steward, and she scurries off.
Taking a fistful of nuts, I make my way through the open breezeway and join the former fae queen at the railing. The setting sun has burnished her in gold. Her eyes are closed and the wind lifts a lock of her black hair that’s escaped the long braid hanging over her shoulder.
“Stop staring at me,” she says, eyes still closed.
“Can’t help it. Your face is full of ecstasy right now and I enjoy it very much.”
“I’m not sleeping with you, Roc.”
“Silly girl. As if I have offered it.”
She peeks at me and then laughs. This is the third time I’ve heard the sound. Being on the ship, sailing off into the unknown has relaxed Tilly. And even if I haven’t offered to fuck her, I think she desperately needs to expend some pent-up energy.
“How long does it take to get to Everland?” she asks.
“You have a captain sailing this vessel to ask these tedious questions.”
She leans a hip into the railing and crosses her arms over her chest. “Must I remind you this is my ship? I could have you thrown overboard for your insolence.”
“And then who would entertain you?”
The former queen rolls her eyes.
I crack a peanut and toss the shell into the whitecaps far below the ship’s railing. “We should be there by this time tomorrow.”
“Are you excited?”
Am I? I don’t know. I do like to hunt for things that have been lost, but I’m a little concerned with what I may find left of Wendy Darling.
“I will be excited as soon as you put your talent to good use and dig inside someone’s head to find me the answers I seek.”
This is our tradeoff, one she promised me as repayment for roping me into the Neverland war in the first place.
“What about Captain Hook?” she asks.
I bite into a nut. “What about him?”
“Are you excited to see him too?”
I snort and press into another shell, breaking it open. But I don’t answer the question. I can’t.
Because there is one thing troubling me most of all: I am excited to find Wendy, yes, but there is one person I am more excited to see.
A pirate with a fuckable mouth and an attitude I’d love to break.
I’m coming for you, Captain.
I hope you’re ready to be devoured by a Crocodile.
