“I see why you like her,” Titania said to Hook.
He stiffened. The comment knocked him off-balance worse than her request. But Tink didn’t notice. Instead, she hung on the queen’s word.
“The Shrouded Isles.” The mermaid’s gaze turned dark as the misty cluster of islands themselves. “I can feel it. My ancestor’s treasure calls to me, but the water there is…unpleasant.”
This was bad. Hook turned, his boots squishing in the sand, and stared past the sandy beach to the surrounding forest: inviting, lively, colorful, full of trees laden with ripe fruit. Paradise, his crew called it. Everything the Shrouded Isles weren’t.
“The Shrouded Isles,” Tink repeated, as if committing it to memory. “We’ll find the scale. I’ll make sure of it.”
Hook whirled around. “Wait one minute.” He waved his hook at the women.
The queen’s gaze narrowed at him. “You’re a pair, and she has agreed.” Another flick of the tail. “I look forward to having the scale in our possession once more, where it belongs. Do this for me and you’ll have what you asked for.”
Bloody pixie was going to get him killed, literally. First stealing from him, then cursing him, now agreeing to find an item no one knew the exact location of in a place everyone avoided. Worst of all, she haunted his every thought, another curse he needed to rid himself of. Immediately.
“If we’re done…” Titania said, sounding bored.
“Wait,” Hook said.
The queen grinned. She knew, blast her. What would she demand to remove his second curse, his other hand?
He turned to Tink. “I need to speak with the queen. Alone.”
“You’re not worried I’ll fly away?” She balled her hands on her hips.
He glanced at the horizon and raised his brows. “In this storm?”
She only shrugged before turning back to the mermaid. “Queen Titania.” She curtsied before walking down the beach.
“You desire my company, Captain?” The queen leaned forward, her long claws adding ripples to the rolling tide.
To say no would offend her, but yes would be a lie. There was a reason he avoided these shores. The lusty merfolk sought to seduce any who ventured near, but only if one impressed them, made them feel desired. They couldn’t be courted with pretty words. His best compliments earned him only scorn and dismissal, shunned for the lies they were. It wasn’t his fault he favored the feel of a woman’s legs wrapped around him, holding him tight. “I want the second curse on me removed.”
A lavender brow lifted. “Oh? And why do you think you’re twice cursed?”
He flicked a half-glance toward Tink. Sage wrapped an arm around the pixie’s shoulders, leading her over to where a few merfolk lounged on the beach with members of Cressida’s crew. His heel ground into the sand. “There’s a woman. Can’t get her out of my head.”
Titania laughed. “That’s not a curse. It’s called infatuation. Some might even call it…love?”
Hook ground his teeth. A thieving pixie who got the sea turned against him? Not a bloody chance. He mightcallher “love”—hell, he called a lot of women that—but it didn’t mean he wasinlove with her.
The queen hummed. “No, not yet. But maybe someday? It’s certainly lust.”
“I’m not some green-in-the-gills boy.”
“No.” Sharp fangs peeked out. “You’re not.”
Frustrating mermaid.“Look. The sea is my only wife. I don’t get attached to women.” Lovers came and went. They didn’t linger in his bed, much less his thoughts. There wasn’t time for it, not that any’d caught his eye if there had been.
“You’re lying, Captain.”
“I’m…it’s this bloody curse. What do I have to give for you to get this woman out of my head?”
“So desperate,” she hissed. “Too bad you’re not afflicted by such a curse. Oh, the things I could ask of you if you were.”
Not afflicted? He blinked. It wasn’t possible. “Magic then.”
She shook her head. “None that I can smell. Desire is a natural thing. Give in. Let it sweep you away. Perhaps that will clear your mind of this woman…or is it a pixie?” Her sly gaze slid down the beach.
