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It’s a small foggy inlet along the coast, with rickety docks and even more rickety homes but an altogether rather homey feel. The village is quiet and its people kind, and the only thing that might set the hamlet apart from any weary coastal town in northern Scotland where the whisperings of mystical, wild creatures off its shore. Even then, though, the rumours were hushed. After all, each neighbor was more family than stranger, and one did not share ancestral secrets lightly (in the same way that those more superstitious folk did not spread word of their name among those they did not explicitly trust). So it was a quiet place, a good place, and its inhabitants were blessed for their tact with incomparably good luck and friends who always seemed to be available should any marine or domestic help be needed.
And that is the kind of place that the infamous Captain Hook’s crew stumbled upon. A vicious storm had blown from bough to stern, ripping sails from their place and heaping saltwater onto its deck. It was a fight between man and Triton himself, to keep their souls and their vessel from his blue depths, and it was a battle that these pirates had won (one in a series that made up a centuries-long war. Sailors and the sea that could not be tamed). So, after such a brawl, the crew laid anchor and let down the rowboats at the first sight of a friendly shore. Those young ones, ones that still had pep in their step and vigor in their bones even after such a hard-won scuffle, scrambled into said boats and rowed toward the lit coast, pockets weighed down with stolen gold to spend and hearts buoyed by the idea of strong drink, warm beds, and maybe even some company to go along with it.
It was a quiet town, as said before, but as the sailors three (a man strong of brawn but light of mind and bold of heart. A woman with a temper like the sea itself, beauty like its entrancing depths and ambition enough to make her queen of it. And a pirate, through and through, with menace in his blood and charm on his lips and maybe even sin in eyes that promised to drag those trapped in his gaze down, down, down past their smooth surface.) made their way up the main streets, their path was made light by the warm glow of a tavern up ahead, practically thrumming with good cheer and the aura of brothers in arms all sharing a good time. At its door, one could hear the amiable din inside it already, but as they stepped through the threshold, a quiet lull rocked the building.
This was not a town used to outsiders, to sassenach and invaders and swashbucklers most of all. This was a town of comfort and quiet and maybe even song when its people had enough of the bawdy drink. In this tavern, each customer was known by name, had been known by name since the lads and lasses could talk, and to see three marauders come swaggering through their door (Well, it was mostly the raven-haired lad and obsidian-eyed lass who did the swaggering. The blonde more so lumbered, in a kind of endearing way that would have had him swallowed up in eager invitation by the bar had he meandered in by himself. It was surely the other two that gave the townspeople pause.) set them ill at ease. Eyes followed the pirate with a cruel, curved metal hook in his hand as he stalked forward, no uncertainty in each step and a sort of self-satisfied manner that their discomfort only seemed to encourage.
Was a young bonnie lass, the same age as the intruders, that broke their spell, a clear of a fine throat drawing all gazes back to her.
“Dougal, pet, I do think it’s time for a top up,” comes a voice like velvet past lips as red as the rose. Nimble fingers nudge a pint glass toward the elderly barkeep, and her smile catches him bone deep with it’s pull. It dampens only a touch as her eyes flash to the newcomers, but there is still something inviting in it as she fixes the three with a look. As if released from a trance, the revelers regain their cheer, and backs turn to the pirates as all talk returns to the idle chatter drink brings with it.
The young woman and the lad so strong of stature slip among the revelers, her fingers laced with his as she leads, and they settle at an empty table littered with empty tankards. There is nothing lost between them as they face each other, nothing except for perhaps any roughness the Jolly Roger might have brought out of them, as dark eyes meet lighter, tawnier hues that soften at just the sight of her. Now, kohl-rimmed eyes of the lad swathed in crimson coast the room, but there really is no other distraction he finds near as tantalizing as the lass just receiving a full tankard of something at the bar.
“Evaine,” the bartender addresses her as the rogue approaches, fondness and an almost reverent quality laying in each crinkle of wrinkled skin around his eyes as he smiles to match hers. Wizened and worn hands offer her the glass. “Did no’ mean tae keep ye waiting.”
The lass hums a chuckle, shifts ever so slightly in her seat as a masculine form insinuates itself rather closely between her and the woman she’d been sitting next to. She doesn’t look to him, though, instead flicks a tendril of midnight hair over her shoulder (just catching against his chest in its path. It brings with it a smell of---- something citrus and heady and near as intoxicating as the cider she seems to be nursing) and offers a brighter grin to the old man. “There’s no such thing in a pub like yours. I’d stay even if you never refilled my glass.”
“Speaking of glasses,” comes a brogue that would envy any other in the town. The sound reverberates in his chest and with his proximity, nearly catches in the lass’s rib cage, too. Finally he catches both their attentions again, the barkeep narrowing brows bleached by age at him. Where Evaine may have distracted the loiterers from their distrust, the chatter around him did nothing to hide their lasting wariness. A cocky smirk catches at his wind-chapped lips as he braces an elbow along the bar top, leaning in as if to order while also again subtracting from what little space he had left between he and her. “Two fingers o’ rum, if ye have it. Whiskey if ye don’nae. I’ll pay for the bird’s as well.”
A giggle, not from him, punctuates his offer, and if possible the elder’s brow furrows further. “Evaine drinks on the house,” the man informs him sourly, shaking his head as he shuffles off to the liquors, plucking a rocks glass from below the bar, muttering in exasperation something on the subject of ‘ rum ! ’. With a roll of his own eyes, the pirate cocks his head to the source of that tinkling, infuriating noise. A second, lower giggle is stifled from behind a fan of manicured fingers, but there is such a knowing mirth in her expression he’s caught between wanting to wipe it away and languish in it. An odd pondering, but she pipes up before he may dwell too long on it.
“You don’t do well with blending in, do you?” she teases, not unkindly. There’s a wicked set to her mouth, though, that has a whole new idea of just what he would like to do popping into his dastardly mind. The lad huffs a laugh, relaxes into his stance, sprawling, confident, daring anyone to ask him to make himself smaller and risk the consequences. It doesn’t set her off, though. No breath catches in her throat, no inching further from him. Just intrigue in eyes like dark, wet sand, and gold so like that heavy in his pockets flecking her irises with something he’d like to call attraction. A wry shake of a head finally given as an answer, only leaving his hair in further disarray.
“Evai---” he begins instead, but she cuts him off before he can even utter the entirety of it.
“Evie,” she corrects, taking in eyes like the sea, skin freckled from days in the sun, and arms rippling with muscles carved from waters that moved the same. He is a knave and a scoundrel, each of these titles etched into everything from the quirk of his lips to the set of his stance. He’s very handsome, though, for a rogue, or perhaps because of it, and as rudely close as he is, she can smell adventure and sea breeze and smooth cologne. Perhaps it is the smell that drags her in, drags her in like her own mother before her. The sea resides in her bones and yet calls to it, too, makes her blood sing. For a moment all she can do is trail her eyes up his form, deciding, pondering, wanting. There is something too devil-may-care in his expression, one far too dangerous here. Seriousness sets in the corners of her smile. “Names have power, sweet. And you’re?”
“Harry Hook.” Two decades of pride in his answer, how smaller, weaker people, would flinch at the name. Harry toys with the hook in his hand then, bringing new attention to it in case she might have somehow missed it. A deft twirl of his fingers and he has it tucked into the sash at his waist, his eyes never leaving hers. Evie . He does not taste the name on his tongue just yet, lets it swim in his brain as his smirk grows stronger. A strange name for a strange lass. Bonnie, too, but not as bonnie as she, for the longer he lingers in her presence the more drawn in he feels. And then Evie looks up to the ceiling, as if seeking salvation from whatever it was that lived above, before again allowing a smile to pass her lips. A more blessed thing he may never have seen; the touch that follows it only more addicting. She pulls the finger that had been running the rim of her glass away, in an instant presses it to his lips firmly, tease and warning all in one go. It takes everything in him not to part his lips, not to steal the taste of her from her skin for surely it must have caught some essence of her lips from their toying at her glass.
“ Hook .” she again corrects, this time almost fondly. Fond of his foolishness, fond of his naivety, fond of the way his eyes darkened at her touch, at how his lips felt against just her fingertip. It was something to play with a pirate whose superstition seemed only to rely on those of the oceans depths, knew nothing of fae (Funny that she, of his dominion, she who knew the ocean like the back of her hand, knew so much about those of the dirt and ground, too, but it was only through these people, this town, an adopted family, that she had learned.), but it was another to fall so willingly into eyes that reminded her too much of her beloved sea. He was vulnerable here, did not even know it, would not even believe it. What a beautiful lost boy. A reminder was needed, but would it really do much good to a man who so easily broke all the rules? “Names have power.”
There’s something on his lips, right on the edge so close it feels like temptation, and she finds herself leaning in, slightly, slightly. “Rum, for the chancer,” Dougal offers, sliding the clear liquor to him across the bar. A moment of weakness thankfully caught.
She removes her finger from his lips too slowly, temptingly. Pressure never receding in too tender touch as she slid it down his mouth dragging his bottom lip with it, and if he presses into the last waning touch, well, the sea may have been his mistress but her skin never felt like this lass’s did.
“Tell me, Hook, are you a chancer?” Evie hums, mirroring his elbow shrugged on the bartop, a hand carding through her loose curls as she leaned in, drawing his thoughts, too, to wonder on what the strands would feel like beneath his own rough fingers. If there was heat in her look before they had been interrupted, now again there is only something like bated interest.
“Now, lass, I think it’s clear tae see exactly what I am.” Ringed fingers go to grasp that dark look back, to inspire intrigue and want, as he ducks forward to bring cruel lips breathing into her ear conspiratorially. “Pirate,” he whispers, before drawing back and taking a long pull of his drink, eyes never leaving hers even as he sips.
Her expression stays near the same, although he has drawn the quirk of her lips higher, ever so little, and he counts that as small victory enough. For a moment he thinks he might have stared too long at refined features, the swell of her cheeks like apples, the slope of her nose, the smallest cleft in her chin. Why he commits them all so well to memory he can’t fathom, not when he has met so many beautiful women in dark pubs, has drank from the sinner’s cup so often, has allowed so many lovely forms to pet his ego and give in so easily. This is surely another night, like any other, one he hopes may end like some others, but a night nonetheless. He is a pirate, already has told her so much, there is no room for the memorization of gentleness and fair features, for dreaming. No room for anything longer.
As if to break from treacherous thoughts, dangerous wants, he tears away his gaze, scours the full room for his friends. A toss of long braids catches his gaze from beside the window, and he finds his fellow sailor’s mouth still caught in an uncommonly soft smile as she offers low murmuring to their brawny friend. Wide shoulders shake with quiet laughter, and while Harry cannot see the man’s face, he knows the joy to be found upon it. There is a sting of jealousy that pricks at his stomach, threatens to gnaw at its lining. To have something so gentle, as they have found in each other, it should be impossible, but yet they have kept it safe. Again he must drag his eyes away, and the thud of the heavy tavern door opening and closing again, blown harder into the wall with a cool gust of wind as some poor soul making their way home surely, draws all attention to the entrance for a moment.
Still, the surprise is over in but a moment, and the lass has turned from him again, saying something to Dougal as he turns back to her, his leather boot catching on something as he adjusts his stance. There, below Evie’s chair lays a mass of a fur coat, shining in the low light. He bends swiftly, running his palms along the soft, cool hairs, short and slick, and nearly sparking with something that leaves his hands tingling. Perhaps he had drank more than he thought. Still, he is a mannerly sort of pirate, at least when it pleases him to be, and his sticky fingers only filch a few pennies from its pockets before he stands to drape the coat along the back of her chair. It’s a wonder how well the dark fur matches the tones of her hair, even reflecting the deepest blue off the lanterns as her curls do.
“Aye, lass, ye seem tae have dropped yer coat,” he informs, unable to keep his fingers from skimming just across the bare skin of her shoulder as he draws them away and tucks a thumb into his belt as his other hand reaches to bring his glass again to his mouth. He watches a shiver trace up her spine, instantly straightening as her head nearly whips to look at him again. The earlier lull the three pirates’ arrival had caused was nothing compared to the eerie hush that now enveloped the room. His gaze catches Uma’s this time, both she and Gil disrupted from their quiet shared moments as they, too, recognized the silence. A look passes between onyx hues and those as light as the sky and its meaning is conveyed easily. Her fingers shift low to the sword strung at her hips, Gil’s hands begin to clench into fists, and Harry’s thumb trails along his belt until nearly imperceptibly it has met the hilt of his blade. They have escaped from more densely packed places, have fought more men, more skilled men, but running is not what they had had planned for the night.
His eyes flicker back to Evie, and find themselves snared, really and truly. Scarlet lips parted ever so slightly, temptingly, and the lad swears her eyes are different now. No flecks of gold, no sepia hue. Dark and deep and a brown so nearly black. Her eyes are endless and supernatural, the darkest depths of the sea that no man dare chase. They’re dangerous things, her eyes, something any man, good or bad or in between, could find themselves lost in, would die to lose themselves in, but there’s a vulnerability there, too, that startles him into blinking. Lashes wide again, and her eyes are again lighter, again warm and keen. Almost like magic, if he were to believe in something like that.
Still a tender v forms between her brows as she peers up at him, gaze measuring him and good Lord a part of him hopes she does not find him wanting. A slow look of wonder blooms on her features next, ochre hues flickering between his before her full lips finally close, just the barest of smiles pulling at the corners. Never breaking their stare she begs of the barkeep. “Two fingers of rum for me, too, Dougal.” To Harry she offers only a knowing grin. “We can share, can’t we?”
Her words again shatter the silence, a heavy breath seeming to be exhaled from the entire crowd, though a strange aura still floats among them. Harry’s hand eases at his side, leaves his dirk to draw up to fiddle with a stray coil of dark strands.
“Aye,” he breathes, chin bobbing so slightly. This feels serious, whatever it is, and he is struck by it even as he forces an easy chuckle up his throat, trying to break it. She laughs, high and enchanting, and reaches for the hand still grasping his now empty glass. Her skin is impossibly soft, and she traces each of his digits with the pad of her fingertip, urging him closer not even of his own volition.
His rings are silver and unmatched, each different from the other and surprisingly lovely, and Evie slips one from his finger, plays with the warmed metal before drawing up to his light look. He really is handsome, deliciously so, dangerously so. Teeth come to toy with her bottom lip as she ponders him further, tries to find some truth in the ocean of his irises. Her other hand reaches for the glass Dougal placed soundlessly before him, brings it to her lips, sips half of it down, leaving a rouge smear along the rim. It's taste is new on her palette, unfamiliar and strange, and it matches the uncertainty in her chest. It is not unpleasant and the warmth of it helps somewhat, to ease her nerves, ease the panic that threatens to choke her. The way he looks at her should set her on guard, terrify her, but she simply wants to be closer to him, see if the lusty promise in his smirk lives up to the beauty of it. She offers the rest to him, the red a taunting dare, and he takes it, lets lidded eyes fall shut as the liquor burns his throat. The lass slips the silver circle over her left ring finger as he does (he doesn't catch the action, and she draws no attention to it. A secret. Her secret, for now, but even Evaine knows she cannot keep it that way for long. ) presses her palm against his and stands, finding herself flush against his chest as she does so. She really does not mind.
“There’s an Inn down the street I can show you and your friends,” she purrs, reaching back for her coat. He snatches it first, steps back to offer her room and holds it out for her, all charm and polite chivalry. Evie lifts a brow, unable to hide a blush dusting her cheeks as she cants her head in thanks, allowing him to slip the fur over her shoulders.
“That’s right kind of ye, lass,” he hums into her hair, his hot breath tickling the back of her neck and sending delightful goosebumps pricking smooth, soft skin. “But I’m sure my mates can find the place on their own, ye ken?”
She shakes her head in near exasperation, grin going nowhere. The pirate offers her his hand, knowing smirk on his own lips only getting larger when she takes it, allows him to lead her out of the tavern. An outlandish wink he offers his friends as he shuts the door behind them. Their walk is quiet for the first few paces, only the burning heat growing beneath their skin between them. Harry looks to the stars, swagger still in his step, and after a moment a low keening song draws past his lips.
“Mull was astern, Rùm on the port,
Eigg on the starboard bow;
Glory of youth glowed in his soul;
Where is that glory now?”
She doesn’t look to him, but pulls closer, releases his hand to draw it over her shoulder, and matches his step to press close to his side. Her voice lilts to match his on the chorus, a light harmony on the wind. His arm draws her in closer, a caress of her cheek with his other hand.
“Sing me a song of a lass that is gone,
Say, could that lass be I?
Merry of soul she sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.”
The tune dies as she guides them to a doorstep, finally looking up to him. The moonlight catches the planes of her face, illuminates the gloss of her skin, and she looks ethereal lit like this. The shadows, too, play a trick on his features, makes the storm in his eyes darker, draws attention to the cut of his jaw and the blade of his cheekbones. A calloused thumb draws over the apple of her cheek, skims lower, brushes along her lower lip and smudging the paint upon it. His eyes burn with a subtle flame and she shudders a breath and for the soft caress he plays against her skin, there is little sweetness when lips meet. They drink from each other like an oasis from the desert and each draw from the other’s mouth is more intoxicating than any rum. Before he can bury roguish fingers deep in the tendrils of her hair, she pulls away. For the first time it takes him a moment, eyes blink open sluggishly, heart stutters in his chest, lips chase after hers.
“Do not sail off without me too soon, Hook,” she says, pressing up on the tips of her toes to press a peck at the corner of his jaw. One last, closed-lipped smile is his goodbye, and she sweeps away from him, leaving him wishing again suddenly that tonight had been simply another night.
Fog clouds the sun's rays, making the rented room above Fraser’s general store gleam. The light sifts in through a thin curtain, and pries a pirate from sweet dreams ( from inky tresses that meld with the sea’s depths. from eyes a cool brown that reflect each of his expressions. from slender fingers pulling him deeper and deeper, but the water’s chill never touching him. from lips humming in his ear, trailing down his throat ). He reaches for the pocket watch he’d dropped upon his nightstand the night before, fingers groping at the empty surface until frantically he bolts up, eyes searching for the timepiece, and even more for the metal hook he had laid beside it. There’s nothing there.
“ Fucking hell ! ” It isn’t the first time he has been subject to thieving, but the gall of this sleepy town to harbour such a criminal makes his blood boil. Couldn’t they tell that he was not a man to trifle with? Was it not spelled out simply in the manic tilt of his smile and deadly swagger of his step? A rage is forming, frothing, and he practically leaps from the warm covers, the threadbare cotton of the sheets. Ready to------ no . He distinctly remembered flinging his coat and trousers on the chair beside the door. His shirt had been hung on its back too, accompanied by his various belts and sashes. It’s all gone. Even his hat, and for a moment his vision really and truly goes red. He stalks to the washstand, washes vigorously from the pitcher and basin, partially to distract himself from the anger stewing. Breathing perhaps a little slower, he catches something in the mirror before him, reflected in its surface. A dresser in the corner, and a stack of something atop it.
Piecing through the stack, he finds a fine full ensemble of dress, but it is the tartan of the kilt and flashes that catches his breath, one he has not seen for years. His mother’s family’s tartan, his tartan . Something eerie settles in his chest as he dresses, pulls on shirt and kilt and all trappings, lugs on his boots and finds even a stick of kohl with him. The anger returns as he lines his eyes. What kind of game was this? Who dared to play this sort of trifle with the son of Hook? He’s ranting, and perhaps even raving as he stomps down the stairs, but the whole house is uncommonly quiet. Neither Fraser nor his wife answers to his call as he pounds his fist upon the front desk. One last thump against the hard wood and he spins on his heel, determined to bring his ire to the streets next.
But he is met as he steps outside, finding that the sun does not blind him nearly so much as the vision in white before him.
“Evie,” slips past his lips. She is beautiful, even more so now that he can see each feature so illuminated. Tawny eyes that set the sun to shame in their burning light. Garnet lips set in a sure smile, so like the forbidden fruit his father had spun him stories of. Her figure swathed in an elegant white slip, sinfully simple and tempting as much as pure lovely. Her fur coat glints in the light as it graces her shoulders. She practically shimmers under his gaze, and there’s a breathless sort of smile crawling onto his mouth, delighted confusion coming to swim in his eyes.
“ Evaine . Names have power, Harry.” It is the first time that she has said his name, and she caresses it on her tongue. If it were possible for him to look more handsome than he had last night, well, she might argue that he did right this moment. His eyes put the sky to shame in their blue, set water to shame for their clarity. She steps forward to straighten his collar, pressing soft hands against the fabric, catching the heat of his skin even through it. “It suits you,” she compliments, taking in the whole ensemble with pride in her eyes, and from a purse at her waist she draws out a pocket watch, his pocket watch, along with something else.
There is an irritated protest about to flood past his lips, but it is dammed as she takes his left hand, spreads his fingers, and slips a cool circlet onto his ring finger. The confusion on his features only grows as she settles his watch in his palm and lifts ochre eyes to meet his. Her smile is wan and laced with something unbearably sweet as she studies his face, watches as he draws up his hand to inspect his finger. A band of well-worn coral fused with sea glass circles the digit, ice blue and burnt red and his brows furrow at it.
“I know you’re not supposed to see the bride before the wedding, but I couldn’t wait to show you your ring,” Evie offers like an explanation, but his head is still spinning.
“Wedding?” he repeats slowly, and her smile goes barely tighter. Her fingers leave his, and somehow his whole body itches to follow, to remain close to her. She strokes the fur of her coat, teeth teasing at her lips before peeking up at him through her lashes. “You’re a good Scottish lad. Don’t tell me your Da never filled your head with tales of selkies.”
And something stutters into place in his brain. SELKIES. Seal women who could shed their coats, whom mortal men were always seeking to ensnare. The kinder cousins of merrow, good docile things, far more beautiful than any human. His father had told him that to keep them as their wives, men would steal away their coats so that they could not return to their seal forms, burn those furs to keep the women tied down to the land and with them. It was his mother that told him the only true way to catch a selkie bride was to return their coat to them, to give them their freedom and the choice to stay or go. His mother was right it seemed. Responsibility perches on his shoulders, cloying and intense and his mouth is a thin line as he matches her gaze. Her smile slips, too, and how it catches at the tenderest part of his heart to watch it go. Her eyes darken as he watches, irises growing larger, impossibly darker. Not a trick of the light, but a hint at what she was.
Her fingers begin to tremble as she moves to slip her coat from her shoulders. She doesn’t know what she expected in his gaze once he realized, but at least being able to read him would have helped. As it is, his eyes are like a looking glass, reflecting everything and revealing nothing, and her breath shudders before she reaches up with the fur and stretches it across his own shoulders. An ache begins deep in her chest, in some place like her soul. To give him so much power, so much control, such an integral part of her is terrifying, but he is her husband now. It is every selkie’s wedding gift, her trust.
“This is yours to hold,” Evaine’s voice is impossibly, unbearably low. “Hide it from me, burn it, let anyone else steal it away or allow any harm to come to it, and I will drag you to the deep and force the air from your lungs.” The threat is true and she searches his eyes for recognition, only nodding shallowly once she is sure he understands. “Keep it with you, allow us to share it, allow me my freedom in the deep blue when I ask for it, and you need not ever fear the sea nor storm. I will keep you from drowning, I will show you things you’ve never seen. I’ll darn your socks and keep you fed and love you until the end of my days. A good wife, a good love.”
They are more than vows, something deeper and older and maybe magic. They are binding, and Harry feels them constrict around his chest. Oh, what had he gotten himself into? But still he cannot tear seaglass eyes from her, cannot drive the itch in his skin to touch her away, cannot deny that while the commitment frightens him, it excites him all the same. He was a pirate, he did not deal in always and forever, his domain was the here and now, and yet------ what she spoke of was an adventure that marauding bones could not deny.
“I’m no’ a good man, lass,” he says finally, quietly. A warning if there ever was one, no venom behind it but certainly truth. The heart that beats in his chest is bruised and battered and scarred against affection. His hands are ringed and calloused and blood-stained, and perhaps that is all they can do for that is all they have been taught to do. He looks away then, not wanting to meet her gaze, not wanting to be weighed and measured, not wanting to see disgust curdle on her face. A feather light touch brushes his fingers, laces unblemished digits with his and pulls them, along with his eyes, to her. There’s understanding in her face, and it’s better that she doesn’t smile. Evaine is somber and serious and he awaits his sentence past her full lips.
“And I’m not a lass,” she says.
“I don’nae love ye.”
“I think you could, some day.”
“Do ye love me?”
“I think,” this causes her to fumble, that same small v between her brows forming as they furrow. Harry appreciates that she thinks on it, does not pad his ego or promise something immediately. He wants the truth from her as he has already given.
It’s not a simple thing to answer, not when she has been warned so many times of mortal men. Humans stole and killed and took, and surely a pirate, too, had done this more than any other. She searches his eyes again, finds herself aching to be lost in them, and perhaps that is her answer. Perhaps that she already imagines him her pirate, that she can taste the sea on her tongue already and knows she could not find a man who loved her home as much as she anywhere else, perhaps her heart has already answered that for her. “There might be a part of me that does. Or wants to. Or at least knows that it will.”
And there it is. Vulnerability that he cannot imagine. Truth he cannot match. Love, even, a foreign word on his sharp tongue, but he does know duty, has tasted honor, knows that treasure like this does not come along often and that to mistreat it, even in the face of fear, would be a deadly sin. He wets his lips, fumbles with bated breath, catches her in his deeply-lidded gaze.
“I can’nae offer much, princess.” The endearment slips, drawn from somewhere deep in his chest and perhaps in memories of those happy stories his mother sewed into his psyche like his own name. It fits, he doesn’t know how it fits, but it does. “But I would be a poor pirate if I were to ignore fate when it’s graced me treasure uncommon. If I am tae have ye, I will hold ye, in sickness and in health. Cherish ye, protect ye, treasure ye.” And Harry Hook slips again, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps remembering manners and pride and chivalry, but this time he slips to one knee. He places a hand above the organ in his chest, feeling it beating erratically against his rib cage, but there is something like familiarity, calm, in his soul when he looks up to see midnight locks lit by the sun behind them. “My heart is a scarred wee thing, but I will offer to ye what’s left of it, only grant mercy on me when ye can.”
There are no tears in her eyes or blush on her cheeks, but she draws him up to her again, presses a promise to his lips, a lingering kiss and one that tastes of sea air and eternity and something indescribably new. His hands wrap around her waist as hers cradle his jaw and suddenly the touch of cold, curved metal catches him off guard. She laughs against his mouth, pulling away ever so slowly as he plucks his hook from the white sash tied behind her back. There should be anger in his eyes but he can’t keep his own hoarse chuckle from escaping, too. “Harry, you caught me.” Evie giggles, linking her pinky with his as she begins to tug him forward. “Come on, your friends are waiting.”
“N’aw, Evaine.” Hook allows himself to be led, but a rueful shake of his head and a cocky smirk do not go unnoticed. “I hooked ye.”