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“You knew?” Hook asked.
“She had it on her when we captured her.” Then he laughed. Actually laughed, like any part of my rage and confusion was funny. “She was using it like a torch to light her way.”
Hook’s eyes widened. “What?” His gaze volleyed between us. “How?”
I shrugged stiffly and adjusted my grip on my knife. “I don’t know how. Half the time the damned thing doesn’t work, but it lit up in the woods and I used it to see. Then this big, pretty jerk told me to hide it.” I turned to Leo. “Thanks for your help and all, but I’m just a touch confused right now. Are you on Team Slutty Demon or Team Asshole Pirate?”
Leo’s lips twitched like he was trying to hold back another smile. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better.” His eyes traced a path down and back up my body before he continued. “The answer to your question is neither, though the demon does believe she has my loyalty. That’s why I’m here.”
“Things have changed on the island, Never,” Hook said. His whole demeanor shifted with that sentence, from menacing and possessive to something that could have been mistaken for concern. You know, assuming he wasn’t a conniving, thieving bastard.
“Could you be any more vague?” I snapped.
“Not long after you were… uh, sent away, your brother started talking about going home,” Leo said. “Which means Petra’s chances of winning him over are dwindling. She knows it and she’s not happy.”
I’d gotten through to him?Hope surged, but I reined it in fast. That might not have been the best development for him. Not if Petra was the vindictive type, and she definitely seemed like the type.
“Is she going to throw him down in the caves?” That could work out. It would give me more time to find him and get him out of this god forsaken realm.
Leo leaned back in the plush leather chair and laced his finger behind his head. “Normally, yes. But now, she knows you’re here. And with how much your brother has been talking about you, she knows how much you mean to him.”
Shit. I didn’t like where this was going. “What’s going to happen?”
Leo’s eyes narrowed a bit, studying me. “She plans to use you as leverage.”
“For what?” I knew the answer even before the question slipped through my lips.
“Your brother’s shadow for your life,” Hook said flatly.
He meant his soul. My brother’s soul for my life. And what better way to manipulate a seventeen-year-old kid than by threatening the last real family he had left? Matty wouldn’t hesitate to make that trade.
I shook my head. “Not happening.”
“She’s not planning on givingyouthe choice,” Leo said.
“No shit. But she needs me to make that threat. If she can’t get to me, she can’t have his soul. Right? And she can only get to me if she knows…” A sick feeling washed over me.
She would need to know I was on Hook’s ship.
I held up a hand. “How did you know I was here, Leo?”
“Anya.” When I just raised my eyebrows at him in response, he drew in a deep breath. “Anya told us Atlas had been in contact with you, and that she’d spotted him fishing you out of the sea after she’d sent you away. I came here to warn him, and you.”
“You two are on a first name basis, huh? No captain or sir for you?”
Leo and Hook shared an infuriating look, but neither felt the need to expound on their relationship dynamics, which made them both even bigger assholes in my book. I leveled Hook with a glare. “What’s your price?”
“I beg your pardon?” The look he gave me told me he didn’t misunderstand my question in the slightest. But hey, I could break it down for him third grade style if that was what he needed.
“The slutty demon wants me, and now she knows exactly where to find me. Since you’re obviously not above manipulating me into bed so you can steal from me, what’s your price? What is she going to offer you in exchange for me?”
Hook’s expression had turned dangerously dark, but Leo’s bark of laughter tore my attention away from the brooding pirate. The sound echoed off the walls.
“I knew you were full of fire on the island, but I thought some of that attitude you were hauling around was for show.” He dropped his arms and leaned forward, eyes softening as he took me in. He made zero effort to hide the way he catalogued every visible inch of me. “Clearly, I was wrong.”
He was like a different person compared to the intense, borderline terrifying man I’d met in the woods. The intensity was still there, but he was more laid back in that little office, comfortable, like he knew he didn’t need to be on his guard.
They’re friends.Real friends, the kind who trusted each other implicitly, not just allies. That was the only reasonable explanation for his relaxed demeanor.
