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“I wonder who she has to thank for that?” Lily mused.
Understanding clicked into place a heartbeat later. I grabbed the pendant and held it away from my chest so I could see it, then I shot a questioning look at Hook. “It was you?” I’d suspected the pendant had something to do with my healing, especially since that first night wasn’t the only night that it woke me up giving off that eerie glow. Now though? “You healed me on your ship, too.”
Jesus. How had I not put any of that together? The healing, the pendant, the high-handed fucking pirate who turned my insides molten. It all tracked. I just needed someone to spell it out for me.
“But you didn’t know, did you?” I asked, now suspicious of, you know, everything.
He shook his head, still giving off that burn-the-world vibe. “All I knew for certain was that you were alive.”
“And how did you know that? Does this thing feed back to you somehow?” What if it was some magical version of a smart watch, reporting that my heart was still beating?
His expression and his stance shifted from possessive to defensive. “No. Nothing like that.”
I waited for more of an explanation, but apparently that was all I was getting. “Cool. Great. Fan-fucking-tastic.” I didn’t know what the hell to do with the information Hook had just given me. “I’m not taking it off.” It might make me more of a target, but letting it out of my sight seemed even riskier.
A satisfied grumble filled the space between me and my broody pirate. “I wouldn’t want you to. You keep it safe.” He motioned to the others. “And we’ll keep you safe.”
“That’s not—”
Leo cut me off. “It’s not up for debate.”
I wheeled on him. “You knew what this was all along. Why the hell didn’t you say something?”
“It wasn’t my place,” he said, sounding moodier than normal.
I could deal with Hook being broody. That was kind of his default. But Leo was my laid back, quippy, relatively light-hearted sidekick. Hearing him sound almost sullen felt a little like a kick in the gut.
“As much as I want to be a pain in the ass right now, I’m going to have to back him up on that one,” Lily added. “I mean, imagine having a piece of your heart carved out only to discover the girl you hooked up with needed that piece of you to return to her world. It’s kind of a big deal.”
No shit.And putting it like that kind of had all the air leaking out of my lungs. He’d given me a piece of himself knowing full well he’d never get it back. There was no way to repay a debt like that. Then the selfless ass had to go and do it without telling me.
What kind of person did that?
Oh right, Hook wasn’t a person. He was a demigod.
14
HOOK
Never’s fingers trembled as they hovered over the necklace, not quite touching the pendant. I’d always seen the thing as grotesque, a sick trophy carved out by a mad pixie. Until Never told me it was her way home.
Just knowing that it was something she needed transformed that petrified piece of me into something worthy.
Worthy of a woman who deserved so much more in life. Her apartment was a disgrace. Not for lack of upkeep. It simply wasn’t good enough. Yes, her foul mouth would almost certainly land her in hot water for the rest of her life, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t deserving of the finer things.
If I could convince her to return with me, I would build her a castle on her own private island with my own hands, if that was what she wanted.
But would she live long enough to see it? That was one of the many questions about the woman that plagued me.
I closed the distance between us, grabbing her hand and gently closing her fingers around the pendant. “Nothing about what you hold in your hand has changed, only your understanding of its origin has.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.” Fear and panic darkened her eyes, and her breathing became alarmingly erratic.
She stepped back and yanked, snapping the chain and tossing the necklace at me. Then she kept backing up until she ran herself right into the wall. A wall she looked like she might try to climb with bare hands and fingernails to get away from me.
Instead, she started to fold over on herself, hinging at the waist as she dragged in increasingly shallow and panicked breaths. “Can’t.” She braced her hands on her knees and let her head fall. “Breathe.”
Lily was there by her side before I could wrap my head around what was happening. “What the hell, kid? You haven’t had a panic attack in forever.” She cast an apologetic look my way. “Telling her about the pendant might have been a mistake.” She motioned to the kitchen table. “Grab me a chair?”
