Devourer of Men: A Captain Hook, Crocodile, and Wendy Darling Reimagining
Chapter 31

What am I to do with the Crocodile’s confession?

What am I to make of myself now that I’ve had him, that he’s shared his regrets?

He still took my hand and made a mockery of me all those years ago.

And I am still a disappointment to my father.

There was nothing the Commander held in higher regard than an upstanding man who did not cavort, who built a legacy with heirs to be proud of to continue on the illustrious Hook name.

I am none of those things. I am no upstanding man. I’m just a pirate with a legacy of a useless war against Peter Pan, and a family line that is now intertwined with him.

I keep giving in to my enemies. And I know what the Commander would think about it: weak, you are weak and lacking fortitude.

I stop in a rose garden planted in a half moon shape around a burbling fountain.

Hands on my hips, I look up at the stars.

I’m so bloody fucking confused.

All of my life, I have wanted to be what Commander William H. Hook wanted me to be. A good man. A father. A Hook with a legacy. But how can I build a legacy when I am chasing a married woman and an immortal beast who took my hand?

Shame churns in my gut.

As I stand there alone in the garden contemplating the wreckage of my life, bells toll through the castle.

It’s such an odd sound in the dead of night that it raises the hair along my arms.

That surely cannot be good.

Shadows flit back and forth in front of the castle windows, the frenzy of the figures matching the loud clattering of the bells.

I hurry through the hedged path and return to the castle through a double door on the garden dining hall. There’s no one here. Not that I’d expect it at this unholy hour. But I can hear footfalls and shouting coming from the grand foyer.

I make my way there and replace the castle in chaos. Soldiers march through. Courtesans are in their robes, some of them crying. Servants are dashing up the stairs.

“What’s happened?” I ask a woman shrouded in yards of red silk.

“A dreadful thing!” She clutches at my arm. “The king is dead!”

I follow another line of guards as they make their way up the grand staircase with the prince at the head.

“Bloody hell,” I mutter.

The woman drops her mouth open, clearly offended at my language. Everland has become a kingdom of fucking prudes.

I need to get back to Wendy and Roc, but the main staircase is flooded with people. There’s a back staircase—Roc and I were led up it after the prince invited us to stay, but I was exhausted and in shock. I can’t remember how to reach it.

“Which way is the back staircase?” I ask the woman.

She frowns at me. “For illicit proceedings?”

“What? No. I…never mind.” I’ll replace it myself.

I’ve been in enough grand houses to know that the back staircase is usually tucked in the back of the house near the kitchen. I turn into a dimly lit hallway that runs behind the grand staircase and run smack into a small, dark figure.

There is a bite across my arm, a sharp slicing motion.

“Oh gods!” a small voice says. “I’m so sorry.”

When the woman comes into a circle of light cast from the wall sconce, I recognize her to be the prince’s bride-to-be. She’s clutching a bronze sacrée, the supposed weapon used to slaughter the malum vermes hundreds of years ago. It was crudely made, likely to look authentic to its medieval era. But that also means the end is sharp like a dagger.

And I think it’s cut me.

“Many apologies, sir,” she says again and grabs hold of my arm to inspect the damage. “My betrothed told me to escape to the safe room and this was the only weapon we had and⁠—”

She’s caught sight of the wound.

I know what she sees but I dare not look.

I am bleeding and I am bleeding black.

She gasps and staggers back two steps, then makes the mark of the X across her chest to ward off the dark spirits.

Meaning me.

“Homme maléfique,” she hisses.

Evil man.

Fuck.

Of course I always knew this, didn’t I? That I was made of dark things and darker urges. Especially true right now because I’m considering what it might take to kill her. Because now I’ve endangered Wendy. And Roc. With rumors already swirling in the castle about it being overrun by dark magic and dark witches, and with the prince already scheming against Wendy, his betrothed has been handed a golden arrow. I came here for Wendy and I am clearly cursed.

“There you are, Your Grace.” A guard comes around the corner, spotting the bride-to-be. He senses the tension between us, sees the wide eyes of the girl and the way she’s clutching the sacrée to her chest.

I shouldn’t be here.

“Seize him!” she shouts.

I turn around and run.