“No, I’ve got this.” Her wings fluttered. She stretched and rolled her shoulders.
He’d argue against it. She’d told him how weak her wings were outside the vale. Yesterday it’d taken all she had to haul him up the cliffside in the pounding rain. Dust had returned. So much of it, more than she dared hope, and she hadn’t shed a bit of it to use for other purposes. It was because of him, their time together. Despite the hardships, she was happy in his arms, his presence. Each smile…
His jaw shifted, and she rushed to explain. “I can—” she began.
“I trust you.”
Her eyes widened. “You…”
“I trust you,” he repeated.
“All right. I can do it,” she added, more for herself than him. “I’ll just, um…” She stretched on her tiptoes, lacing her arms around his neck. “Lift me—oh!”
James palmed her ass, lifting her up and pressing her tight against him as she wrapped her legs around his waist. He tipped his forehead against hers. “You have my life in your hands again, love.”
No pressure or anything. One deep breath filled her lungs, then another. “Back to the edge of the cliff.”
One careful step after the other, he complied.
Wings, don’t fail me now.
Lifting them was easy. There was solid ground below their feet. Flying out over the gorge, breeze battling against her wings, was another story. Each beat and flutter ached. Pain raced down her back. James was utterly still in her arms. She didn’t dare look at him. Or speak. Her heart thundered in her chest. Sweat broke out on her neck.
Almost there. Almost…
Tink cried out in a mix of pain and relief as James’s boots touched the other side. Immediately he leaped back from theedge and spun her around to safety. She sagged against him, her feet sliding to the ground and her wings folding against her back. They’d made it.Thank all the holy elders.
James tilted her face up as she heaved in one breath after another. “Brilliant, love.”
A humorless laugh bubbled out. She could do without trying to lift her lover over another deadly drop. “Let’s go.” She turned away, unwilling to confess how hard the flight had been. “They’ve got to be close.”
Twenty minutes of stumbling down the rough pathway, and they’d seen nothing more than a scrap of cloth on a branch—which could have come from their trek up.
Tink halted. “Maybe we should go back.”
“Smee!” Hook called. Only the birds answered. “You’re right, let’s—” He turned, his eyes widening.
A beefy hand clamped over her mouth.
Chapter 31
Tink
Blood raced in her ears. She kicked, hit, cried as the man—it had to be a man—crushed her wings against his body. “Too late now,Captain,” the deep voice rumbled from behind her.
James pulled his sword. “Let her go.”
The man raised his own blade to Tink’s neck. She went utterly still, frozen by fear. “Think not.”
That voice. She knew that voice. James’s eyes locked with hers across the space between them. Raw fear lingered there.
Captain Blackbeard. Her stomach plummeted, her knees shook dangerously. Other men emerged from the dense jungle, their own blades raised.
“What do you want?” James demanded, ignoring the others.
“Ta take ya to yer crew, of course.” He chuckled. The edge of the thick, curved blade nearly scraped her skin. Her vision blurred, but she could swear he gripped a handle wrapped in some kind of reptilian skin.
“What have you done with them?”
