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“You get that I’m mortal, right? If I’m lucky, and I mean ridiculously lucky, I’ll die a nice, quiet death in like sixty years. Why the fuck would you willing hitch your horse to that doomed wagon?”
Hook took three steps toward me, holding out a hand. “This is what I was trying to tell you earlier.” For every step he took toward me, I backed up one. When he realized he wasn’t closing the distance, he stopped. “You’renotmortal anymore, Never.”
Um, say again?I blinked a few times, but it wasn’t like I had a bunch of random thoughts of my life running through my mind. Really, I was just trying to comprehend the sentence. How could I not be mortal?
“The magic of this place doesn’t work that fast, does it?” That was what William had told me. He’d said it took years for the Nassa to really seep into a person’s bones.
His expression was all the answer I needed, and this time, when he took a cautious step toward me, I held my hand out to stop him.What did Nerebis say? Something about being marked?
“Because you brought me back?” It still sounded like a joke saying it out loud. I didn’t feel like I’d been dead, not that I had any idea what that was supposed to feel like. But still.
He nodded, then shook his head. “It has to do with the way I brought you back.”
I rubbed my lips together, remembering how quickly he’d managed to heal me after my fight with the glitter bitch.
“Back on the island, with Anya. That wasn’t you, was it?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
Before he could answer, and before I could talk myself out it, I knelt, pulled his prized dagger from my boot—yes, I’d filched it from his nightstand, and I wasn’t sorry about it—and sliced a deep cut in the fleshy part of my palm.
“Fuck,” I breathed. That shit hurt.
“Stubborn woman,” Hook said under his breath. He was already at my side and peeling the blade out of my hand before I could fight him off, frustration shining in his amber eyes. “Why would you do that?”
“To test your theory.” Obviously.
Pain radiated through my hand. Blood welled up fast, spilling out of the gash and dripping onto the wooden planks of the deck. The warning that I was a giant fucking idiot blared like an air horn in my head, until a few seconds later when the sensation inside the wound started to change.
It still hurt like a mother, but a foreign tingling sensation was growing. As it did, the corners of the cut started coming together on their own.
35
HOOK
As I watched Never and her fascination with her healing wound, a profound sense of relief came over me. It washed away some of the anxious energy that had embedded itself in my bones since the moment I’d realized she was important to me.
I’d seen her heal on the island, but what that truly meant hadn’t sunk in.
She was safe. Maybe not from the wrath of the gods or the whims of the fates, but from the other things that were far more likely to kill humans: illness, violence, aging. None of those things could touch her anymore.
I stood to face Nerebis, shielding Never’s crouched body with mine. Did he really think I’d let her die? That I would spend the rest of my immortal life with the knowledge that her soul was trapped in the Alius without tearing the universe apart to get her back?
His eyes searched mine silently. Then, with a flick of his wrist, Never disappeared.
I whipped around, drawing my sword as I did. It felt unfamiliar in my hand after the countless years I’d carried my cutlass, but as long as it did its job, I didn’t much care.
A quick glance across the ship revealed that everyone was gone.
It was just me and one of the most influential beings in the universe.
“What did you do with them?” I asked, letting the disdain rising in my blood spill into my voice.
“Not to worry, they’re close by.”
Not good enough. “Bring them back.” The words were barely out of my mouth when a new sound caught my attention. Fists pounding on wood and a level of colorful language that I’d only ever heard from one woman.
I had to fight a smile as I turned to see the solid wooden door to my quarters shaking on its hinges.
“What do you want, Nerebis?” I asked, returning my attention to the fate standing before me.
