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One strong eyebrow lifted. “Careful there, Atlas. I might start thinking you actually care.”
I did, and we both knew it. “Just try not to die.”
He pulled himself up out of his chair with a leisurely, feline grace. “Easy enough.” His attention drifted to Never, and whether he meant to show it or not, the longing in that look was enough to have me swallowing back a possessive growl. “When do you want to put everything in motion?”
“The sooner the better,” I responded.
He pulled in a bracing breath. “Let me know when it’s time. I’ll go help the guys with the box.”
I tipped my head as he made his exit.
The box my men were building would be fashioned from the Jolly Roger itself. After the sea witch’s vague warning about a coming storm, I’d loaded up on extra supplies. But I’d also taken things a step further and had the protective wards on my ship reinforced.
Because a storm could mean weather, or it could mean trouble.
The original warding was only meant to keep Anya away. The new work packed a bit more of a punch. Every plank, board, and brace carried the power of those enhanced wards, and if we played it right, those pieces could be used to contain the demon. At least in theory.
All I would have to do was flash her into the cage. That would be the tricky part.
Well, one of the tricky parts.
Getting my hands on Petra was another. As was sinking the cage in the eddy with the demon trapped inside.
That was another part of the plan where we were working with theory.
The eddy was a void. It was the only area I’d found in the Nassa where magic didn’t work. Whether that magic was absorbed or neutralized was a point of debate, but the result was the same. Healing didn’t work. Flashing didn’t work. And the only way in or out of that slow swirling vortex was in the water.
The cruelty of damning the creature to an eternity trapped at the bottom of the sea was not lost on me.
Would it drown over and over? Or would it be crushed beneath the weight of the water, never to be resurrected again?
There was no way to know.
Either way, if it kept Never safe, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.
“What can I do to help?” she asked.
I caught her by the back of the neck and pulled her close, pressing our foreheads together as I breathed in her heavenly scent. It wasn’t the kind of thing I could make a tangible comparison of because she didn’t smell of strawberries or lilacs or even my own soap. Never’s scent was earthy and raw—rare—and being close to her always evoked a wildness inside me.
I gave into that wildness, our lips crashing together, teeth clashing, tongues tangling. If we could truly do what we were setting out to do, we might just have a future together. Short, though it may be.
Shoving the thought away, I broke our kiss long enough to stride over and kick the door shut. When I turned, it was to find her leaning back against my desk, fingers curled over the lip of polished wood. Clad in a soft t-shirt and blue jeans that hugged her curves, she was a vision unlike any I’d ever expected to fall for. And I had fallen. Hard.
“You can help by letting me back in,” I said, my voice dipping into a lower register.
It wasn’t hard to tell what Never was thinking. Her desire was clear from her heated expression and the way she bit her plump bottom lip, but I wanted to feel what she was feeling.
“You’re going to have to earn it, pirate.”
I’d suspected the truth the very first moment I’d seen her laying on the beach—that this woman was all kinds of trouble. Little did I know just how much I would come to crave her special brand of mischief.
30
NEVER
As I stood on the beach on the far side of the island with my trusty dagger in my hand, I was seriously questioning my logic.
Hook had flashed me here with a disgruntled look on his handsome face. The thing was, as vocal as he’d been about how much he didn’t like this part of the plan, the man said precisely four words before giving me a look I felt all the way to my toes and flashing away.
