“What the devil?” he muttered, crawling to his knees as he licked the blood off.
It took a moment for him to gather his wits. Rubbing the back of his skull, looking around for whatever may have caused the disturbance, he was wholly unprepared for the sight that met him.
Lying in a small heap not a yard back from his desk was a green tangle of spindly legs and arms. A sliver of blue winked out of existence through the air and immediately he knew what it was—the sealing up of a fae portal.
Lip curling with triumph, he shot to his feet, yanked his sword from the wall, and with sharp, precise movements walked up to the blond haired devil, pointing the tip of his broad sword into the base of the bastard’s neck.
Danika had found Pan for him. She’d told him to wait and not to act rash; she’d had a plan. And it was a bloody brilliant one. She must have convinced Tinker to give the hellion up. Tapping his hook onto his pant leg with anticipation, he licked his teeth.
“Move, and I’ll take your head from your neck, Pan.” He spit, and then laughed as the figure froze, attempting to curl in on himself like the coward that he was.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!” the voice screeched, drawing his arms over his head as he attempted to curl into an even tighter ball. “This isn’t real, this isn’t really happening. Oh. My. God.”
James’ eyes narrowed because that voice was not Pan’s squeaky blustering. That sound belonged to a woman.
Who would dare trespass in his room? He should ask her, but he found he did not care, because she was dressed as one of Pan’s boys and so therefore was his enemy. Raising his sword, he prepared for the downward swing when a brilliant flash of twinkling magenta floated through the air like millions of lightning bugs.
“Stop!” Danika waved her hands, zipping in front of the huddled mass. “James, no…this is Talia. You must stop, you must!”
Everything inside him stilled, the world shifted on its axis, and the sword clattered to the floor. Heart seizing, he dropped to his knees and scooped the trembling woman into his arms.
“Can this be?”
Danika’s lips compressed. “There’s a wee problem. Well…” she chortled, “a big…big problem. You see, Hook—”
He was not listening, his eyes devoured the form in front of him hungrily. Her body was small, and covered in forest green—Pan colors and she wore legs. Talia had always wished for legs, but could never transform. There were so many questions to ask, so much he had to know, but right now the only thing that mattered was tasting her again. It’d been so long, too long and she looked scrumptious. His body flared to life, ready to claim his mate and finally make her his.
“My Talia, my beloved,” his voice broke as he ran his fingers through her thick, golden hair. Even that was different; when last he’d seen her, her hair had been the green of leafy kelp. “Look at me, loveliest, look at me.”
But when she turned to him, he hissed and scooted back, letting her drop like a stone to the floor.
Her eyes were green.
Talia’s had been blue as the sea she’d hailed from. Everything looked different because this wasn’t Talia.
“Who the devil are you?” He swore and yanking up his sword, brought it once more to her neck, then eyed Danika hard. “Tell me who she is, or I’ll kill her, I swear it.”
Chapter 5
First thing Trisha noticed was the eyes. So dark they appeared like liquid ink in the candlelit room. Flecks of silver, like stardust, rimmed the irises. She’d never seen eyes like his before, but beyond their color was their shape and the length of his lashes. Lashes a woman would envy, long and curled at the tips and a shade of black that she could only achieve with mascara.
The second was the set of his broad lips. They weren’t full, or too thin, but just right as Goldilocks might have said.
And the third was that he had a sword pointed at her neck and was pushing in hard enough that she knew blood would spill if she even breathed too hard.
Heart hammering a wild and painful tattoo in her chest, Trisha could hardly think, let alone speak. What had just happened?
Where was she?
Who was he?
And oh my God, he had a hook. A silver, wickedly curved honest-to-goodness hook.
She blinked.
“James, blast and damnation, man,” devil-bug growled, and then shot a spray of pulsing pink energy from the tip of her itty-bitty wand directly over her head—the power that flowed off it rippled like a shimmering heat wave on asphalt.