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“We often find our interests are aligned.” Anya gave me a smug look that burned away the nervousness and left me scrambling not to slap that smile clean off her stupid, glittery face.
“What do you want in exchange for information? What would you consider a fair price?” I asked, doing my damnedest to put on a civil front.
“Never, she cannot be trusted.” Hook’s quiet voice was weirdly insistent, pleading even, but I blocked him out.
She gave me another searing assessment, raking me from head to toe with her dark gaze. “A kiss.”
Huh?
Before I could respond, Anya turned those dark eyes on Hook. “From him.”
Something powerful flared in me, a feeling so completely out of place I couldn’t fully admit I’d felt it. Everything in me wanted to shake my head and tell her to go to hell, but he held up a hand.
“One,” he said with a voice so gruff it sounded like a threat. His entire body had gone rigid and the muscles in his neck flexed. In another situation, that would have been undeniably hot. “One kiss and then you tell her everything she wants to know.”
I didn’t like it. Not one bit. I reached out for him, but he pulled away, taking a step toward the pixie as my fingertips brushed his retreating shirt.
“Do you accept, pixie?” he asked.
Realistically, it was a small ask. A kiss? Come on. Who was I to stop a pirate captain from making out with a smoking hot pixie if it meant she would tell me how to find my brother?
The pixie’s wings quivered as he took another step toward her. “Mmm.” She bit her bottom lip and threw me a knowing look. A vindictive look. The little bitch moved around him, tugging at his shirt so I could see his face over her shoulder. “I accept.”
His expression was unreadable, and he kept his gaze focused on her right up until she grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him in for a passionate kiss. She flattened her body against his, putting her all into the moment.
My stomach knotted painfully and when his gaze met mine, I shut my eyes and turned away. I couldn’t watch.
“Nev—” Hook’s voice cut out just before invisible hands cinched around my limbs, my waist, my neck. They tangled in my hair and yanked me off my feet, ripping me backward into the shadows.
The feeling was gone in the next instance, disappearing as quickly as it’d come, and I stumbled fighting to keep my balance. The humid, salty breeze of the forest was replaced by a mustiness that reminded me vaguely of an abandoned basement. Outlines of shapes slowly morphed into focus as my eyes adjusted to the shock of darkness.
I squeezed them shut, trying to force my pupils to react more quickly. When I opened them again, swirling sandstone walls rose up around me, close enough that I could stretch out my arms and touch both sides of the narrow corridor at once. Apparently, that little insect had the power to transport people.
“Awesome,” I muttered.
Even in the dim light I could make out the brilliant streaks of color layering the cave walls, as though the passage was carved through the inside of a petrified rainbow. I reached a hand out to touch the nearest jut of stone, but a muted tinkle of broken glass stopped me and I spun to face Anya. A special kind of hate lit her eyes, the kind that implied she wanted to see me skinned alive and slow-roasted over a pit of coals.
“Where am I?” I gave her back my best hard stare, struggling against the urge to clutch the pendant protectively. “And what did you do with Hook?”
She held a finger to her glittery lips. “Unless you want them all to know we’re here, pipe down, human.” She snuck around a massive boulder and crooked that same finger for me to follow. Her voice was barely a whisper when she spoke again, but still crystal clear in the hushed air. “And Atlas is fine. On his way back to his ship as we speak.”
His name. She’d used his first name. Granted, she’d called him Hook at first, but hadn’t he said only his dearest friends called him Atlas? My stomach flip-flopped for some foolish, idiotic reason that I definitely didn’t want to examine. Then her words sank in.
“He left?”
The gentle light emanating from the pixie dimmed and she tucked her wings behind her back with a smirk. “Heisa pirate, girl. It’s every man for himself in his world.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised, right? It wasn’t like I actually knew the man, not the way Anya clearly did.
“Come along. We shouldn’t tarry here for long.”
She tiptoed down the curved path and I hesitated to follow. I wanted to find Matty. I did. But Hook’s words were still ringing through my mind. What if she was leading me to a trap?
Barely audible footsteps padded through the dirt until the pixie’s irritated frame appeared in front of me again. She jerked her head in the direction she’d come from. “Are you coming or not?”
“Yeah, just give me a minute,” I said quietly. She let out a little huff and a few specks of blue-green glitter drifted from her folded wings. I knelt, pretending to tighten the laces of my boots as I discreetly slid my blade from its leathery hiding place, palming it so the blade rested flat against my wrist. “All better,” I said, getting to my feet.
She pursed her plump lips and headed off again. I gave her a head start, keeping a safe distance between us in case she decided to turn on me in the confines of the passage.
