Always with the insults. “Ask the witch.”
Blackbeard narrowed his gaze.
“Seems you two are on good terms,” Hook needled. “Had one of those boys working for her after all.” Or didn’t he know?
Gold teeth glimmered in the gap of his beard. “That witch—” He may as well have said a different word “—charges ta much.”
“Afraid of the truth?” he goaded, anything to get him to take a few steps closer.
Alas, Blackbeard held his ground. “Never. Mayhaps I will…James.”
His jaw slammed shut as he squared his shoulders. How dare he use his real name?
“Crocodile,” Hook shot back.
“Hah!” His hand fingered the crocodile pommel of his blade. “Still upset about tha hand, eh?”
A snarl ripped from between his gritted teeth. With all the horrible things he’d done that day alone, he thought it was the hand that bothered him?
Blackbeard stepped closer. “I made ya, boy. Yer name.” He pointed to his hook. “Yer reputation. Ya wouldn’ have that without me.”
No. He would not claim that too. He would not take away the very last thing he had. “You gave me this hook to end my life. I used it to forge a new one.”
“Did I then?” His boot slid across the rich carpets.
A few more steps and Hook might be able to reach him. He relaxed his stance and shifted his weight, hard as it was to concentrate with the fury thrumming through his veins.
“I’d call it a mercy. Gave ya a way out. Ya were a weak boy. Simpering. Soft. Knew ya wouldn’t take it. Too much like yer father, ya are.”
“My fath…” He floundered. How would he know? His father had been a simple fisherman. He had died at sea before he was born.
“She never told ya then?” Blackbeard scratched at his beard. “I wondered.”
The pit of his stomach bottomed out completely. Suddenly he was drowning on land. He couldn’t get enough air.
Blackbeard grinned.
His knees gave out, sending him crashing to the floor.
“Marianna never could accept tha pirate life.”
“Don’t!” His breath came sharp and ragged. “You don’t get to talk about her.”
He neared, crouching just out of reach. “She was a beaut. Ya got ‘er eyes. But tha pirate in yer blood—that’s all me.”
Everything became hot and cold at once. Chills and sweat beaded on his skin. His vision blurred. “You’re not my… I could never be like you!”
He clucked his tongue. “But ya are.”
No. Fuck.It couldn’t be true. “What proof do you have?” As if that bastard could produce anything to make him believe his filthy lies.
“That ring round yer neck. ’Twas Marianna’s?”
Hook ached to reach for it, to feel the comforting silver slide under his fingertips, as it had a million times.
“I gave it ta ’er. There’s an engraving…”
Blood turned to ice in his veins. His mother’s ring, the one she’d always worn. Not from bloody Blackbeard. It couldn’t have been from him. But there was an engraving, one worn so smooth he could hardly make it out anymore.
